Reading post: Classics Challenge wrap-up

I've finished all 12 of my chosen books for the 2021 Back to the Classics Challenge! And thus I'm supposed to write one more post explaining what I read and giving links to all the relevant review posts. Although I read them in almost chronological order, I'm listing them here in the original order of the categories, to make things easier for the person who runs the challenge.

My theme this year was Native Americans, fiction by or about, but mostly by AND about. I had some trouble putting together the list, and I changed it a bit as I went along, but what I ended up with was amazing. Some of these books are great -- some are pretty awful -- but they all worked together to give me a new understanding of the Indian experience of the past, as well as the present. Just today, ironically, I heard about a book that might have helped me plan my list: The Cambridge History of Native American Literature, published just last year. But since our library doesn't own it and it is enormous and expensive... well, I think I did pretty well on my own.

Of the books on this list, my favorite was Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria. But I also read some other books not on the list, to accompany these books, and my favorite of all the Native American books I read this year was actually Sundown by John Joseph Mathews, published in 1934, which I read to accompany Brothers Three by John Milton Oskison (which I didn't like).

Here are the books I read, in the official category order.

1. A 19th century classic. Queen of the Woods by Simon Pokagon, 1899.

2. A 20th century classic. Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria, written in the 1940s but published posthumously in 1988.

3. A classic by a woman author. Cogewea, the Half-blood by Mourning Dove, 1927.

4. A classic in translation. Winnetou: The Treasure of Nugget Mountain by Karl May, 1878.

5. A classic by a BIPOC author. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday, 1968. 

6. A classic by a new-to-you author. Brothers Three by John Milton Oskison, 1935.

7. A new-to-you classic by a favorite author. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826.

8. A classic about an animal or with an animal in the title. The Man Who Killed the Deer by Frank Waters, 1942.

9. A children's classic. Indian Captive by Lois Lenski, 1941.

10. A humorous or satirical classic. The Illiterate Digest by Will Rogers, 1924.

11. A travel or adventure classic. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge, 1854.

12. A classic play. The Cherokee Night by Lynn Riggs, 1932. 

A few more thoughts on what I read: I think my greatest "discovery" this year was Will Rogers. I knew the name but I didn't know why I knew it. Now, having read his biography as well as a collection of his humorous writings, I'm a huge fan! I just wish my mother were still alive, because I could have talked to her about him. She was 13 when he died -- I'm sure she knew about him.

Another thing I got out of reading these books was a much greater sense of the different types of Indian nations and where they are and were. Even though I knew the names of many tribes before I did this project, I didn't have a good geographical sense of them. Now the country, for me, has been redrawn. I have a much clearer sense of which parts of the land belong to which people. When I pick up a new book, I read the name of the tribe and the book's setting and I think, oh yes, that's also where this other book took place, or that's someone from this group that I read about earlier. It's a very interesting effect.

Finally, I want to mention some doubts I had before starting this project. Last year I read Black authors and learned so much about the historical Black experience in America. It was really life-changing. So this year I wanted to do the same thing with Indigenous people. But I felt a little funny about it too. Wasn't I being kind of racist even to think this way? Why don't I do a project where I read only works by German-Americans, for instance? And of course I could do that -- maybe I even will, one of these years. It would be interesting to read about how German immigrants gradually became simply "Americans." But it's also really interesting to read the writing of people who for whatever reason haven't been permitted to enter the mainstream, who are still considered "other" despite their people having been here for hundreds or thousands of years. It's not racist to recognize that something exists, that something has happened. So, I don't know what my next reading project will be, but this year's and last year's have been fascinating.