The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams

by Nasdijj

Book Overview

A searing book as powerful as the life experience that inspired it, THE BLOOD RUNS LIKE A RIVER THROUGH MY DREAMS transports readers to the majestic landscapes and hard Native American lives of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618048928
• ISBN13: 9780618048922
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Brought Home With Nasdijj's Words

While viewing books in a bookstore in Boise, ID, Nasdijj's memoir caught my eye. The title drew me in, since I am a poet. The first chapter made me sit down. Chapter three brought me to tears, as he writes of Mariano Lake, which is home. I am Navajo and live next to the school. The wild horses Nasdijj wrote about are my uncles'. They are still there, running and creating dreams and fantasies in boys' eyes. And the goats and sheep are my grandmother's, my mother's and mine, they still graze around the school and in the baseball field. The school officials always tell us not to graze them there, but we tell them the goats were there before we permitted the school to be built. They leave us and the goats alone now, until new administrators arrive. My grandmother (the old lady in the book) died September 11th. My mother took her place with the goats and sheep. I read the whole book in the bookstore, then I bought it. Now, the children in Mariano Lake are reading the book. I have to send five new copies, soon. Nasdijj has literally painted a picture of my community and Navajo life, in general, with words which is hard to do. This book is more than a treasure. The simple sight of it reminds me of home, with Nasdijj's empowering colorful words.

There are no wild horses here. You are your history.

The best books are the ones that have something to say. It is almost a shame to call this book a "book" per se. It is an uninterrupted experience of life as lived and makes so clear to me why it is so hard to read some books - they have nothing to say. Nasdijj speaks - "You are your history in ways you cannot even know." and (in reference to his dead son Tommy in "My Son Comes Back to Me") "Whenever I want to see him, all I have to do is put the dog in the truck and go. (Separate paragraph) "Go." and "Anyone who thinks that clouds don't speak is crazy." If you read this book like Nietzsche's plundering soldier, taking this leaving that, bopping from thought to thought, you are lost. If you read it without pauses to cry you have no heart.

This Story Reminds Us of What a Human Being Is

This writer, this Navajo, this sometimes white man, was told he couldn't write. Never would. Shouldn't try. Give up. Forget it. But...He writes, and writes, and writes. For revenge. So he says. But it is not for revenge. He writes to give his life and our lives validity in a world where value is placed upon money, success, things, and where you're from. He is a gifted writer.His Navajo half sings, sings the history and tradition of his people. The history is not strung out like some pearl necklace, but compacted layer upon layer, like layers of stone, all that is and ever was of a people.And now he sings to us in "White People Town". He gives us words. He doesn't know what white people want. He doesn't paint a picture, or give us a plot, or theme. He just tells us his story. But the telling belongs to everyone. He sings to all human beings.His words are like rocks torn from the mountain. They're covered with blood and bits of bone like they were torn from flesh. His words are torn from the mountain with bare hands. The hands are raw and scraped. Blood from the mountain and hands, glisten on the rocks torn from the mountain. They are all forms and sizes, sharp-edged and round. But they are all torn from the mountain made up from everything that is a human being.The words are not tossed or scattered, or layed out carefully. But if you turn and look, they show the way to a spiritual refuge, beyond the red orange shimmering haze on the horizon of the desert, beyond the stars. It is not a staircase. It is not a trail. But the words will lead you to a place where you open your eyes. You become awake. Nasdijj takes his fingers and spreads your eyelids wide apart. And now you can see what it is to be a human being, a Navajo, and even a white man. The barriers of culture are not broken down, but crumble to dust under the weight of the rocks.His words do not fit together easily or "just so". They fit together like rocks torn from the mountain of everything that is human. They are not jumbled. It is not seeing the world or life through another's eyes. You are his eyes. He doesn't make you a Navajo. The Navajo are you.I hold the book between my hands. It is not big. It is only paper, and ink, and some glue. But those pages between my hands have tears and sadness in them. The kind of tears that stream down your face and the pain seems unending. There is great beauty and happiness in these pages also. The kind of beauty that makes everything seem motionless and you are not aware of anything but the beauty. The book also has hunger, toughness, love, compassion, fear, loneliness, and songs. The book has no life of it's own. It doesn't hum, pulsate, or resonate. But everything is there, you do not have to search for any meaning. Read it and your eyes will open and you will see everything. It will make you feel whole and hungry for more at the same time.Nasdijj tell us more. Pull some more rocks from the mountain. You are build

The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams is enthralling

Into the majestic desert landscape of the American Southwest, among the hard life of a Navajo reservation & into this angry man's life comes a baby boy with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome & an unrelenting & mystical would-be mother. With Tommy Nothing Fancy's arrival, the heart of this dry & sorry man is cracked open & out floods memories & all the love of the world & a father is born.Yes, this is an angry book - there is no escaping the heartache of a people severed from their ancestry, confined to welfare misery & generations of intentional abuse by government & do-gooders. Children wrenched away to boarding schools where everything that made them who they were was systematically & brutally erased. Adults proscribed from eking out a living off their land & that ubiquitous & invidious palliative for all that pain. That assuager which brings the dread disease that destroys their children before they are born. Read The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams for the story Nasdijj has to tell, then read it again for his lyrical language. Like paintings of sunsets over desert mountains, Nasdijj's essays are fulgent with passions, paronomasias & revelations. I could not put this book down until I'd read the last word & even then I sat, astonished & breathless with Nasdijj's thoughts & images. I urge you to check out my eInterview with this author & my full review at: [my website].

Incredible

I read this whole book in a day- it was one of the richest reading experiences I have ever had. The author has an ability to say so much with few words; he has an amazing talent. He writes about his childhood with a white, cowboy father and a Native American mother, the difficult life they led on the road, the death of his adopted son- Tommy Nothing Fancy- from fetal alcohol syndrome, and his pursuit of the writing life. Even though there were moments that I was reduced to tears, he writes with warmth and humor that don't leave you overwhelmed. This is a FANTASTIC book. Read it!!