The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Taehan Lee

   
I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part - Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The story is centered around a Native American teenager by the name of Arnold. It is an inspiring story of a poor Indian kid who juggles his two identities as a Native American, and as an academic superhero.

    Known mainly by the nickname Junior, Arnold is a teenager who lives on the Spokane Reservation. He has a knack for basketball and has a good friend, Rowdy. Rowdy is very aggressive and loves getting into fights, and has an anger management problem. However, he tries his absolute hardest not to hurt Arnold, as they are best friends and he has a soft spot for people close to him. Arnold also has a passion for academics. He attends the regular high school in his reservation, where sometimes the teacher forgets to come to school. A quite revealing detail about the school’s state. He is particularly excited about geometry, however upon receiving his textbook for high school geometry, he finds his mother’s name written in the textbook. Enraged that the school was unable to replace the textbook after an entire generation, he convinced his parents to take him to Reardan High School, which is a more financially gifted all-white school outside of the reservation. Upon hearing this, Arnold’s friend Rowdy gets mad at Arnold for “abandoning” the reservation, and the story revolves around Arnold adjusting to a new life at Reardan, and repairing his relationship with his only friend in the world. 

    The book is very similar in plot to If I Ever Get Out of Here, by Eric Gansworth. In If I Ever Get Out of Here, a recurring theme is music. Music shows the bridge between two distinctly different cultures. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, basketball is a similarly recurring theme. Basketball shows the growth of a friendship. At the beginning of the story, Rowdy and Arnold have a connecting point when it comes to basketball. Although Rowdy is better, they are able to relate and play together and have a good time. However, as the story progresses and the two friends split after Arnold decides to go to Reardan, basketball shows a point of competition. Rowdy tries to “prove” that Arnold’s abandonment of the reservation was a mistake, by beating him in basketball. However, towards the end of the story, basketball again represents a measure of how this relationship has healed. Much like music in If I Ever Get Out of Here, basketball is a measure of the character’s growth.

    I would recommend this book 7/10. I thought this book was very good and had lots of deep messages and concepts that really made you think and resonate with this character. This review only dove into one aspect of the book (basketball), but I think it provides many other themes to uncover. I took off three points because I think it was too fast-paced. After one sitting reading the book, I was able to get through many major points of the story. It felt like the story was developing fast, but the character acted like the story was developing over a much longer time. This difference between the pace of writing, versus a more realistic pace, made the reader feel slightly detached from the story at certain points. However, I think it is still a very valuable read, diving into deep concepts of identity, stereotypes, and friendship.