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lizardlies's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
beeeaux's review
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I haven’t stopped thinking about this since I’ve read it. The impossibility of this being performed makes it that much more electric. The most riveting thing I’ve ever read. It forces you to look at the Ghoul of America in the face.
kathrynlbest's review
4.0
Well, that was heavy and unexpected. The heaviness was expected of course, but I mean how it was expressed and the way this book was written. I didn’t realize it would be written so poetically, but even though I don’t often read poetry I was amped to really get into it after only a few pages. What an incredible call to question what we have been taught of history and to question our way of thinking.
Even as I was looking up references while reading, this book took less than 2 hours to finish - super quick read!
Even as I was looking up references while reading, this book took less than 2 hours to finish - super quick read!
bez9918's review
4.0
A very interesting piece about a piece a history I never learned. What an interesting way to showcase a massacre and the madness of a woman, I loved this
hfayereads's review
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
doods's review
4.0
The history of ole honest Abe is usually considered to be unmarred and flawless. That he was the great emancipater freeing the slaves is the main thing were taught. This piece of history fell to the wayside. On our countrys cutting room floor is the lives of 38 Dakota Indians. To date the largest mass execution in United States history. Ordered by Abe himself. The Dakotas crimes? Fighting to take back land that was theirs. We cant afford any longer to ignore our history of wrongdoing. I for one would rather be educated about what our government is hiding and capable of
lyc4nthropes's review against another edition
4.0
"the rope: i am a collar, / a strangler, / i float in the wind like a flag on holidays. / i inspire national pride."
this begs to be re-read, and i'd love to have my own copy of it to just write all over. i had no idea of any of this about mary todd lincoln. i don't think she's someone we learn very much about in any of our high school or college classes. not surprising, given how heavily revised even her husband's history is in the textbooks. i did know of the mass public execution that inspired this book, but i don't think i ever really stopped to learn more about it. this book has given me a lot of extra material to read.
i loved the writing in this, and how carefully crafted all of the wording was. it's such a unique piece. this definitely feels like a book that you could find something new in every time you read it. i've never read anything by leanne howe until now, but i'd really like to pick up some more of her stuff.
this begs to be re-read, and i'd love to have my own copy of it to just write all over. i had no idea of any of this about mary todd lincoln. i don't think she's someone we learn very much about in any of our high school or college classes. not surprising, given how heavily revised even her husband's history is in the textbooks. i did know of the mass public execution that inspired this book, but i don't think i ever really stopped to learn more about it. this book has given me a lot of extra material to read.
i loved the writing in this, and how carefully crafted all of the wording was. it's such a unique piece. this definitely feels like a book that you could find something new in every time you read it. i've never read anything by leanne howe until now, but i'd really like to pick up some more of her stuff.
knkoch's review
challenging
This was a tricky one to parse for me! I'm left wishing I had seen a performance of this rather than read the script. I couldn't fully comprehend the layers of meaning and intent behind the scant dialogue, and all the written descriptions of the visual elements (set, actors, costuming, props, and displayed images) could not make up for what I imagine was a much fuller experience for the live audience. In lieu of attending the play (which I think is no longer in production), I may have to seek out the longer books the author mentions inspired them to better understand the history and dizzying analysis of Mary Todd Lincoln's complex psychological profile. Certainly, it bears remembering that Abraham Lincoln's complicity in the largest mass hanging in the US should never be forgotten or discounted to preserve feel-good patriotic legacies.
I can't in good conscience rate this when it feels like the wrong format to encounter this work, but I did find it all intriguing.
I can't in good conscience rate this when it feels like the wrong format to encounter this work, but I did find it all intriguing.
shelleyanderson4127's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Savage Conversations by LeAnne Howe (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is undefinable: is it a play, a novella, a poem? However defined, it is a disturbing, powerful piece of truth telling.
It takes place in the 1870s, in a private mental asylum, where Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, has been confined. Every night, she claims, the ghost of a Native American warrior comes and cuts her eye lids off with a flint knife.
All of this is recorded history. What Howe's genius has done is to wed this with another historical truth. On December 26, 1862, on President Lincoln's orders, 38 Dakota men were publicly hanged in front of a jeering white mob. It remains the largest mass execution in US history. In another stroke of imaginative power, the noose used to hang the men becomes a character in the work.
Mary Todd Lincoln's hallucination is the result of equal parts of guilt, arrogance and desire, according to Howe. The conversations between Lincoln and the Dakota are difficult and unsettling.
In her excellent introduction Susan Power writes, "There are times when only imagination can save us." Savage Conversations is a work of such saving imagination.
It takes place in the 1870s, in a private mental asylum, where Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, has been confined. Every night, she claims, the ghost of a Native American warrior comes and cuts her eye lids off with a flint knife.
All of this is recorded history. What Howe's genius has done is to wed this with another historical truth. On December 26, 1862, on President Lincoln's orders, 38 Dakota men were publicly hanged in front of a jeering white mob. It remains the largest mass execution in US history. In another stroke of imaginative power, the noose used to hang the men becomes a character in the work.
Mary Todd Lincoln's hallucination is the result of equal parts of guilt, arrogance and desire, according to Howe. The conversations between Lincoln and the Dakota are difficult and unsettling.
In her excellent introduction Susan Power writes, "There are times when only imagination can save us." Savage Conversations is a work of such saving imagination.