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Title: "More like a franchise than a serious literary undertaking"
Review: My title is taken from a review of this book by the New Yorker's Daniel Mendelsohn -- like him, I feel as though Erdrich's much-touted "lyricism" and endless invocations of grand, sweeping emotions are pretty hollow, that there isn't much behind or beneath them: neither real feeling nor real artistry. And what do her quasi-mystical aphorisms actually mean? They are often just plain nonsensical, like something out of Monty Python. Take this one: "Time is a fish, and we are all of us swimming on its fins." It's as though she's trying to sound very wise and "deep" without being either.
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