SOLAR STORMS by Linda Hogan

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Apr 25, 2024

∙ Paid

“Maybe the roots of dreaming are in the soil of dailiness, or in the heart, or in another place without words, but when they come together and grow, they are like the seeds of hydrogen and the seeds of oxygen that together create ocean, lake, and ice. In this way, the plants and I joined each other. They entangled me in their stems and vines and it was a beautiful entanglement.”

TITLE—Solar Storms

AUTHOR—Linda Hogan

PUBLISHED—1995

PUBLISHER—Scribner Paperback Fiction (Simon & Schuster)

GENRE—literary fiction

SETTING—Boundary Waters, Indigenous land—colonized as Minnesota & Canada—& north across Turtle Island; mid-1970’s

(Note: the specificity of tribe names is deliberately vague in service of the larger, universal Indigenous themes of the story)

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—homecomings, reawakenings, & re-indigenization, the old ways, inheritance & heritage, stories &/as knowledge, indigeneity in all its facets, complexities, & fundamental certainties, anti-colonial resistance, Indigenous spiritual philosophy & realities, Nature & stunning nature writing, atmospheric descriptions, family relationships, grandmothers, mothering, & re-mothering, children as the future, kidnapping & displacement of Indigenous children into state-run foster systems, ecocide & extreme settler-colonial violence against Nature & Indigenous people, death, Spirit

“The four of us became like one animal. We heard inside each other in a tribal way. I understood this at once and was easy with it. With my grandmothers, there was no such thing as loneliness. Before, my life had been without all its ears, eyes, without all its knowings. Now we, the four of us, all had the same eyes, and when Dora-Rouge pointed a bony finger and said, ‘This way,’ we instinctively followed that crooked finger.”

My thoughts:

My heart broke *dozens* of times while reading this book. This book was so many things. Nature spiritual historical coming of age & of ages, devastating ends, hopeful beginnings… This book contained multitudes of joy, grief, rage, despair, deaths, rebirths… Reading this book felt like cleaning off the surface of a mirror to reveal clearly truths I have only ever been able to glimpse through a fog.

I loved how the voices of the grandmothers were woven into the story in italics—their own stories passed down as history & as lesson. The atmospheric descriptions of the land, nature, water, animals, sky, seasons, & the perspective & the relationships of the people with all of these elements was some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever encountered.

I loved how the universality of oral tradition & folk knowledge rippled across the surface of the stories: echoes of the Snow Queen & hag-magic, from Psyche to Cinderella, from poison apples to the animal agency so often relegated to fables in western literary contexts reclaiming its rightful place in the timeless spiritual reality of Turtle Island.

The depiction of the main character was so intimate that, as the reader, I could not help but feel like one of the family. In fact, I thought the characterization of Angel was done in such a way as to sort of channel the reader into her perspective to the point where the boundaries between the MC & the reader become almost blurred & you end up feeling & seeing everything as if you *were* her on a deeper level than most first-person narrated novels.

Angel’s relationships with the grandmothers, with Tulik, with Grandson, & with Aurora are so tender & intimate, & then to witness the utter abject & mindlessly desperate fear of this family of literally elders & children by the white settlers who are stealing their land & destroying their world—it’s one of the most heart-shattering & simple portrayals of the settler psychology I’ve ever encountered. To understand so plainly that what the settlers are really afraid of is the consequences of their own soulloss: “It was an ancient fear, that we would retaliate for past wrongs…”

I would recommend this book to everyone. This is one of those classics I do actually think everyone should read. This book is best read in Nature.

Final note: I only just finished reading this book like two weeks ago so I’m still processing it all but… this might be *the* best book I’ve ever read. It is at *least* right up there next to Keri Hulme’s THE BONE PEOPLE. SO, so glad & grateful that the #IndigenousReadingCircle bookclub picked this for our March 2024 read. 🫶🏻

“Lately I hear something like a voice inside my ear, whispering to me. ‘Get up,’ the voice says in the morning. ‘Offer cornmeal to the morning people.’ I do it. ‘Be slow,’ it says. I do this, too.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

CW // extreme settler-colonial violence against Nature (especially animal cruelty & river-damming leading to severe environmental destruction & the devestation of Indigenous lands & communities), extreme child abuse, self-harm, mental illness (possession), domestic violence, death of family members, grief (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Season: year-round

Music pairing: Buffy Sainte-Marie

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SOLAR STORMS by Linda Hogan

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

TITLE—Solar Storms

GENRE—literary fiction

My thoughts:

Further Reading—

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