LITERARY FICTION: "Dances With Wolves" by Michael Blake

STORYTELLING: 5/5

WRITING STYLE: 5/5

THEMES/MESSAGE: 5/5

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 5/5

IMPACT/ENGAGEMENT: 5/5

Total Grade: A (100%)

Here is a book for the ages. I'm genuinely surprised that The Crucible or The Outsiders hasn't been switched out with this book for mandatory reading within high schools. Not only is the book's subject matter a great snapshot of American history, but it is also a great book for the non-reader, sure to make a lasting impression on anyone who picks it up. It's been so long since I read a book so beautifully and mindfully rendered.

Like many people, I had already seen the 1990 film based on the novel, which was adapted by Michael Blake (the author) himself, and you can tell. The vision, the heart, and the spirit of the novel is carefully sustained in the film adaptation and there were times during my reading experience that I could hear Kevin Costner’s narration reading the story to me. It was a book that broke my heart and filled it to the brim all at once. 

“There are many trails in this life, but the one that matters the most, few men are able to walk…even Comanche men. It is the trail of a true human being. I think you are on this trail. It is a good thing for me to see. It is good for my heart,” (256). 

When one thinks of what a book should be, in terms of structure, voice, pace, Dances With Wolves serves as a good example. It's easy to read, which I think has a lot to do with the internality of the main character, Dances With Wolves/Lieutenant John J. Dunbar. We, as readers, are immediately drawn to him and his perspective. We meet Lieutenant Dunbar in the era of western expansion and Civil War. He is sensitive, strong, good-natured, industrious, eager to help and connect. There was a brief reference to a moment of suicidal ideation that he experienced while he was fighting in the Civil War, which is something Blake doesn’t dote over or highlight time and time again. The darker feelings experienced by these characters are acknowledged and become a part of the fabric of the story and character development. Everything adds to the humanness of each character and we are able to take it in, and keep going with the story, with a quiet knowledge of everyone's deeper complexities. Everyone, EVERYONE, in this book contains multitudes. Throughout the story, though, Dunbar becomes Dances With Wolves, a name tied to his new identity, as well as one of his companions--a wolf he names Two Socks. Two Socks acts as a witness to Dunbar’s change in identity, and it is no wonder that his death coincides with the moment when Dunbar, or rather, Dances With Wolves, forsakes his original name and identity, escaping the clutches of the United States Military. Once a man of progress and order, Dances With Wolves slowly discovers “the satisfaction of belonging to something whose whole was greater than any of its parts. It was a feeling that ran deep from the start,” (162). We watch our main character find himself and become a part of a world he seemed destined to inhabit, making this story about deciding who we are and how we shaped by the path we choose to follow.

“The buffalo…In that moment, all alone with his lantern, he knew what they meant to the world he lived in. They were what the ocean meant to fishes, what the sky meant to birds, what air meant to a pair of human lungs. They were the life of the prairie,” (143). 

Perhaps the most captivating aspect of this book were the descriptions that carried with a distinct and memorable spirit. There were moments that I found myself in a pool of tears while I read about the setting, partially due to the fact that Blake was writing about a part of the country that has been my home. Coming from eastern Montana, I’m a prairie girl, and I’ve never seen my home written in such an accurate and loving way. And if you weren’t raised in the prairie, if you’ve never stood in the center of a field that seems to go on forever, if you’ve never spread your arms out in this countryside because the sky somehow seems closer than the earth itself, then this is the book to read. You can do this in the words that Blake employs as a means to mimic a world I know so well. It’s a sort of landscape painting being created in your mind’s eye. And there’s a very specific voice that is trapped in the creek beds and cottonwoods and open countryside, all of which is captured perfectly in this book. There’s a sorrow, a freedom, an immensity, an awareness of your own insignificance, a haunting sort of peace in the prairie–it’s God’s country, as cliche as it may sound. Every description leaves a small ache in your chest, for example: “The prairie was glorious, ablaze with wildflowers and overrun with game. The buffalo grass was the best, alive as an ocean, waving in the wind for as far as the eye could see. It was a sight he knew he would never grow tired of,” (42). 

“You have spoken well, Dances With Wolves. Your name will be alive in the hearts of our people for as long as there are Comanches. We will see that it is kept alive,” (280).

If the beautiful descriptions create a painting, then the relationships would be the paint itself, the richest of which, in my opinion, would be the one illustrating that of Wind in His Hair and Dances With Wolves. Wind in His Hair, fiery and courageous, was a heart hard won, making his acceptance and embrace of Dances With Wolves and his place among the Comanche that much more satisfying. There is a quote, that, in the novel, is said by Stands With a Fist, but in the film, becomes one of Wind in His Hair’s lines, an authorial decision that is tapped into the depth of the relationship between these two warriors. Speaking of an important yet mysterious character (Stands With a Fist’s late husband, who was also the best friend to Wind in His Hair), the quote reads, “‘I had a good life with him. He went away from me because you were coming. That is how I see it now,’” (233).

Divine Providence or the Great Spirit’s divine timing, Stands With a Fist plays an important role, not only as a mirror of the duality existing in Dances With Wolves as well as herself, but also as a gate through which Lieutenant Dunbar enters the Comanche world and community. They seemed destined for each other from the start and my heart swelled when the two finally came together in Chapter 25, the chapter I renamed as “The Love Chapter.” Brilliant, I know. Another character that left a deep impression on me was Kicking Bird, a gentle father figure to both his children, Stands With a Fist, Dances With Wolves, and the rest of his community. He is a reminder that soft spoken leaders with gentle and accepting hearts, that lead with optimism and curiosity, are always worth believing in and rallying around. These types of people are like strong oaks with sturdy limbs, providing safety in its shade and freedom in its ability to hold you as you climb higher and higher across its limbs. Kicking Bird will live in readers hearts for a long time.

“But a human tide, one that they could neither see nor hear, was rising in the east. It would be upon them soon. The good times of that summer were the last they would have. Their time was running out and would soon be gone forever,” (285).

While the book is riddled with the funniness that occurs between strangers that are trying to know one another, with idiosyncrasies abounding on all sides in the most humorous and human ways, the foreshadowing effects of colonization and westward expansion are not sugar coated. The death of Cisco, Two Socks, and other innocents, remind readers of the reality and brutality of ignorance. Love, peace…these things can only be found by a heart that is open enough to seek them out, to accept them as a part of a new self that is being formed. To deny oneself in order to find harmony in life, to connect with the untouched wilderness of one’s own soul through playful confrontation of the unknown, is important and necessary. This book reminds us that what's lost inside ourselves can always be found by stepping bravely into something unfamiliar, with our arms spread wide and reaching out for others that have been waiting to welcome us.