It's Official! NOTHING is Sacred!
So, I'm reading The Education of Little Tree, which is presented as the autobiography of it's author (duh), Forrest Carter.
Turns out it's all a lie.
I was just informed of this by a coworker who doesn't have a clever blog nickname (care to share, anyone? Her first name begins with a "V"). A quick google search turned up this article:
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/carter.html
It's still a good book. And current editions are largely free of the slimy layer of deception.
And I must say that I disagree with the assertions of some of the scholars who say that Carter's white supremicist views are "thinly veiled" in his depiction of his made-up Native American ancestors. Call me dense and unawares, but I haven't felt any sudden surges of White Pride! as I've read. Until V told me the truth about the author, I had come across no reason to doubt the authenticity of the core of the story (details, though, are always iffy when trying to recollect what happened when one was five).
The criticism extends to Carter's stereotypical depiction of Native Americans as 'one with the earth.' One scholar states: "Little Tree, the half-Cherokee child of the mountains, is mystically attuned to his environment. The naive American reader accepts this, because it seems true to liberal stereotypes about man's primary connection to Nature . . . as well as to the belief that Native Americans were the first environmentalists . . . . By playing with the reader's sentimental prejudices, Carter's mythologizing of the Cherokee people renders an important Native American heritage just another stereotype in a long string of stereotypes" (45).
Am I completely ignorant of and full of sentimental prejudice for Native Americans? Historically, were they not fairly well attuned to the natural world? Didn't they build religions around the doin's of the earth and their connection to it? Wasn't it Native Americans who had no concept of "wilderness" as defined by whites (the untamed places where the devil roamed)? If he was categorizing all Native Americans as children of nature because Little Tree is the main character, that wasn't the impression this naive American reader was getting. Is there something wrong with depicting a five-year old kid who grew up in the lap of nature as "mystically attuned?" Lots of five-year olds are--hell, if I didn't know better, I'd think they were on a non-stop 'shrooming binge!
Little Tree's granma tells him that he is a sibling to the trees, the rocks, the water, the wind, and that he will never be truly lonely even after his loved ones die (he is an orphan). What's the difference between that and telling a kid that God will always look after her and she will never be lonely if she walks with Jesus? To me, they are both a comfort. (Though I very much prefer the former type.) Furthermore, there is little talk of Native American spirituality--they go to a Baptist church every Sunday. There is talk of "the Cherokee way", which comes across as an instilling in Little Tree of pride for his ancestry and not as a gross stereotype of all Native Americans.
Anyways, it's a bummer that the story is a lie depicted as truth, and that Mr. Carter was, in reality, a hateful segregationist jerk. Still, the supposed hidden racist agenda is completely lost on me. Perhaps the scholars have a point--why would a former KKK-member write a book that lovingly depicts one particular Native American family without having a sneaky agenda to undermine all Native Americans?--but the point is irrevelent if 99.999% of the readers in the last 3 decades have completely missed it. Somehow, someway, there's a lot of good in that book.
Turns out it's all a lie.
I was just informed of this by a coworker who doesn't have a clever blog nickname (care to share, anyone? Her first name begins with a "V"). A quick google search turned up this article:
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/carter.html
It's still a good book. And current editions are largely free of the slimy layer of deception.
And I must say that I disagree with the assertions of some of the scholars who say that Carter's white supremicist views are "thinly veiled" in his depiction of his made-up Native American ancestors. Call me dense and unawares, but I haven't felt any sudden surges of White Pride! as I've read. Until V told me the truth about the author, I had come across no reason to doubt the authenticity of the core of the story (details, though, are always iffy when trying to recollect what happened when one was five).
The criticism extends to Carter's stereotypical depiction of Native Americans as 'one with the earth.' One scholar states: "Little Tree, the half-Cherokee child of the mountains, is mystically attuned to his environment. The naive American reader accepts this, because it seems true to liberal stereotypes about man's primary connection to Nature . . . as well as to the belief that Native Americans were the first environmentalists . . . . By playing with the reader's sentimental prejudices, Carter's mythologizing of the Cherokee people renders an important Native American heritage just another stereotype in a long string of stereotypes" (45).
Am I completely ignorant of and full of sentimental prejudice for Native Americans? Historically, were they not fairly well attuned to the natural world? Didn't they build religions around the doin's of the earth and their connection to it? Wasn't it Native Americans who had no concept of "wilderness" as defined by whites (the untamed places where the devil roamed)? If he was categorizing all Native Americans as children of nature because Little Tree is the main character, that wasn't the impression this naive American reader was getting. Is there something wrong with depicting a five-year old kid who grew up in the lap of nature as "mystically attuned?" Lots of five-year olds are--hell, if I didn't know better, I'd think they were on a non-stop 'shrooming binge!
Little Tree's granma tells him that he is a sibling to the trees, the rocks, the water, the wind, and that he will never be truly lonely even after his loved ones die (he is an orphan). What's the difference between that and telling a kid that God will always look after her and she will never be lonely if she walks with Jesus? To me, they are both a comfort. (Though I very much prefer the former type.) Furthermore, there is little talk of Native American spirituality--they go to a Baptist church every Sunday. There is talk of "the Cherokee way", which comes across as an instilling in Little Tree of pride for his ancestry and not as a gross stereotype of all Native Americans.
Anyways, it's a bummer that the story is a lie depicted as truth, and that Mr. Carter was, in reality, a hateful segregationist jerk. Still, the supposed hidden racist agenda is completely lost on me. Perhaps the scholars have a point--why would a former KKK-member write a book that lovingly depicts one particular Native American family without having a sneaky agenda to undermine all Native Americans?--but the point is irrevelent if 99.999% of the readers in the last 3 decades have completely missed it. Somehow, someway, there's a lot of good in that book.
posted by lulu | 12:32 PM
1 Comments:
I am so upset. I read a great first-person account of this cool guy who builds a raft and floats down the Mississippi with his friend Jim. They encounter all kinds of wild and crazy characters in their journey of discovery and liberation, and I'll never be the same after having read it. But guess what! It's all made up. Some "writer" guy, who by all accounts was a heavy drinker and held some pretty dark political views, fabricated the whole thing from his imagination, mixed with some personal experiences and contacts with actual people and rivers.
This is an outrage!
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