reesesWeb

Man, I spent two weeks of train time reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee because of a good review. It is not a good book. Sure, the fact-checking is good, and the quantity of factual information relayed is high, but good god, I can't stand books like this:

Little Big Butt had good medicine and was not shot.

He rode around in circles.

Star Chief Smith massacred an innocent village.

Grumpy Care Bear raided a missionary village in revenge. (I would have used the word reprisal, but I don't think that word appeared in the book.)

The book doesn't tell a story, it just dumps out facts, without any transitions other than the word "then" or "n units of time later". The only reason I finished it is that it has especial significance based on my family background. My mother has the same sort of choice words about most of the Manifest Destiny types as my father has about Hitler. People don't long wonder why I have a very suspicious of the way a government can turn on a group of people living within its reach and bugger them senseless. I'll write more about east coast and west coast jews another time, and how weird it is to be on the wrong side without the paranoia.

So, anyway, I read this book, and am now watching a two hour program on the History Channel on the battle of Little Bighorn, and how Custer was a raging rat bastage. Amazon should stamp,"Just buy this dvd instead," inside the front cover, and save people a lot of time.

And yes, I am aware of the apparent irony in a person who writes this way, complaining about a book written this way. However, I'm also aware that I don't claim to be a writer, don't claim to be good at writing, and don't claim to be writing literature with a frickin' blog.

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