![]() ![]() Raban's work is much more focused on a particular time period, where Frazier seems to move (quite seamlessly) from Native American days to modern times to the early '20s to the era of westward expansion. Having recently completed "Bad Lands" by Jonathan Raban, I found it impossible not to constantly compare the two works. As the notes demonstrate, Frazier's done his homework but his actual writing of Native American history seems too glossed, too palatable due to the brevity of his writing. Surely actually experiencing a Native American ritual would have been more worthwhile for the purpose of this book. At one location a park ranger/guide invites Frazier to participate in a sweat lodge ceremony, he declines saying he needs to get going, but then he spends an inordinate amount of time recounting his conversation with a Sioux man on the streets of New York. ![]() What bugged me about Frazier's writing is the manic curiosity, at some points driving the writing forward but also creating a kind of specter, tapping, pointing, jumping up and down and while some might attribute this to his excitement I would also venture its a result of a weak explanation or at least weak articulation of his research. Frazier draws on a wide array of naturalism as well as regional history to discuss different subjects, such as ruins andLawrence Welk or his personal experience at historic forts interspersed with the history. Great Plains is a well written collection of essays. ![]()
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