Artigo Revisado por pares

The Ghostway by Tony Hillerman

1986; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.1986.0174

ISSN

1948-7142

Autores

Robley D. Evans,

Tópico(s)

Crime and Detective Fiction Studies

Resumo

Reviews 63 Made of Dawn and James Welch’s Winter in the Blood. It is a brilliant beginning for a brilliant new novelist. TOM KING University of Lethbridge The Ghostway. By Tony Hillerman. (New York: Harper &Row, 1985. 224 pages, $15.95.) Tony Hillerman has been writing a series of murder mysteries using Navajo Tribal Police as detectives, first Joe Leaphorn, and lately Jim Chee. Chee’s life in two worlds parallels the usual situation in Hillerman’s plots, but conversely: the criminals are usually not Native Americans, or if they are, they’ve been alienated from the tribal world by removal to Los Angeles, like Leroy Gorman of The Ghostway. They pick up enough Navajo lore to cover them and hide out in the Navajo Reservation where Chee must travel long distances to turn up bodies and clues. What Hillerman concentrates on, of course, is Sergeant Chee’s Navajo intuition and his knowledge of the clan links, the lore surrounding the hogan where a man has died, the way a Navajo thinks. The usual murder mystery, translated to Navajo country, can be solved by contrasting the way a “false” Navajo would do it with the methods and motives of the Dinee. In this latest mystery, Hillerman adds Chee’sown conflict: Should he let his love for an “outlander,” Mary Landon, carry him away to the White Man’sworld, or should he stay on the reserva­ tion to preserve his spiritual heritage? In The Ghostway the important link between culture and murder is the Navajo tradition of proper ritual treatment of a corpse, neglected for reasons the FBI doesn’t care about but which raise appropriate questions for a Navajo policeman. The ghost of the dead haunts the final hogan, unless the dying man has been carried outside in time. Entering such a hogan is spiritually dangerous, and Chee goes into Ashie Begay’s lodge in search of clues, just as he must go through the dead man’s city of LA, both tainting him with the “ghost infection,” as it’s called here: the touch of the White Man’s spiritual barrenness an echo of the haunted homesite. Hillerman underlines hisparallel with a soullessmurdererwho hasread up on Navajocustomsin the library,and with a contrasting pair ofwomen: the White girl who would carry Chee away from home, and the Indian, Margaret Sosi, who returns to her cultural heritage. The gentle Chee works it all out, with enough coincidence to remind us as readers that we are in good hands. The carefully-wrought ingredients for cross-cultural detection are all here. The story, however, is not up to earlier thrillers like People of Darkness, partly because there isn’t enough lore significantlyused. Hillerman has turned to death and burial customs before; in The Ghostway they seem almost acci­ dental, given the complexity of the plot, partly because the search Chee makes through the sleazy streets and development sites of the city is long and rather 64 Western American Literature thin in “event,” as well. Finally, too much may be made of Chee’s role as a character; here he thinks about Mary Landon, but she is not present in the action. (She took an active part in People of Darkness.) Much of the problem-solving, with speculation about complex relationships and their details, goes on in Sergeant Chee’s head. We miss the wild action of The Blessingway or Dance Hall of the Dead. Probably the effort to turn a detec­ tive into a human being who thinks and has a private life not involved in solving that murder is a mistake. The gentle Navajo who becomes a yataalii will want to heal rather than hound. ROBLEY EVANS Connecticut College - New London Hopi Coyote Tales: Istutuwutsi. By Ekkehart Malotki and Michael Lomatuway ’ma. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. 343 pages, $12.95.) Take a deep breath, sitdown and read Hopi Coyote Talesoutloud slowly. Istutuwutsi, based on traditional stories orally transmitted, is faithful to the richness and timelessness of spoken language. Truly these tales reflect the directness and vividness of a storyteller who has the time to let a story unfold wholeheartedly for the enjoyment of his or her listeners. Twenty-one...

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