New Mexico
Suggested by: Charles
Traveled: September 1-13

I have to admit, I got stuck in New Mexico. My brain felt like a sieve as Momaday’s beautiful words shifted and slipped through me. The fault is all mine. I kept picking up House Made of Dawn after heavy lunches and periods of sleepy sunlight. I could tell I was reading something really very good — but I just couldn’t catch on anything. In the end, I have a hazy feeling of the novel — like I’ve captured the watercolored streaks of a canyon wall without any perspective or clarity to reveal its larger structure. I have plans to re-visit and read House Made of Dawn again later down the road. On some other roadtrip, in a more receptive state of mind.

I have read Momaday before, during an early college assignment on The Way to Rainy Mountain. What I remember from that book did carry back to the few parts of House Made of Dawn that parted the clouds onto moments of clarity for me. His dealings with creation stories and myths are full of impact. The way he weaves Native American oral storytelling with Biblical sermons and well-known stories create glimpses of something truly powerful. There was a passage that riveted me from start to end. The Priest of the Sun’s sermon in part II touched that feeling you get when you know you are hearing something you believe in but can’t explain. Even without being able to closely follow the religious logics, the reverence and importance of the Word and the word, the Story and the stories, found deep resonance within me.

The stream of consciousness and Faulkner-like time jumps didn’t help my loose grasp on the threads of this novel. But it’s not the first stop on this roadtrip to put me through those paces, and with some actual Faulkner coming up, it won’t be the last. I look forward to a time when I walk back into the purple evening of this New Mexico and can really sit and dwell on the words that wait for me there.