Some thoughts on Neither Wolf nor Dog,
The Wolf at Twilight, and Literary Categories
April 22nd, 2010
By Kent Nerburn
On April 17th, my latest work, The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder’s Journey through
a Land of Ghosts and Shadows won the 2010 Minnesota Book Award in the category of
memoir and creative non-fiction. Next September, The Wolf at Twilight will be featured
at the South Dakota Festival of the Book in the category of fiction. Clearly there is some
confusion and misunderstanding.
Or is there?
Can a work be at once a work of fiction and non-fiction, or are the categories so ill-fitting
that The Wolf at Twilight belongs in neither one – a veritable situation of being “neither
wolf nor dog?”
These are questions that bear some discussion, because they underpin the dilemma that
has confronted my two creative works about Native America, Neither Wolf nor Dog and
The Wolf at Twilight, from the moment they first came out.
Let me tell you where I stand on the issue.
It is my personal conviction that we human beings are “believing” creatures. Until we
take something into our hearts and embrace it with conviction, we are seeing through a
gossamer (and distancing) veil of analysis. It’s true that the information we gather during
analysis guides us toward belief — and one would hope that our information gathering is
informed and educated – but it is not belief. Belief is saying, “Yes, this is the way it is,
and I will stand by it and defend it.” It is a commitment of the heart.
I come from a long background in the study of religion. One of the ongoing arguments
in the intellectual field of religious studies was whether or not one must be a believer to
understand a faith or a belief system. After participating in this discussion for years, I
came to the conclusion that the knowledge you gain is different based on whether you are
a believer or an observer. Each has its role: sometimes it is better to stand on the outside
for perspective; but to the extent that you can enter into a belief system and inhabit it, you
come closer to the heartbeat of the spiritual experience that it expresses.
I came to believe – and I believe to this day – that the goal of any work of art that
addresses spiritual issues should be to bring those who see or hear or read it as close to
the experience of real belief as possible. When I worked as a sculptor I sought to
embody spiritual states rather than describe them. When I turned to writing I sought to
recreate moments of spiritual encounter rather than discuss them from the outside, and to
walk my readers into them so they could participate in those encounters.
When I came to the unlikely calling of giving voice to the deep and complex spirituality
of Native American people – a spirituality that has, I believe, much to teach us all — the
challenge became more complex: how could I help you, the reader, enter into a complex
spiritual experience not my own in a way that your hearts could be touched and your
spirits informed by the richness of their belief?
I did not want you to be able to move to the distance of analysis. I did not want anyone
to leave my writing saying, “That’s interesting. I’ll have to give it some serious thought.”
Yet I did not want you to think you (or I) could appropriate Native belief – a complex,
multiple, language- and culture based-spirituality – for ourselves. To encourage that
would be to continue the long tradition of cultural appropriation that has been our way of
dealing with the Native peoples since our arrival on this land, and I wanted no part of it.
What I needed was a way to bring you, the reader, into the presence of Native belief, just
as I had been brought into its presence, without allowing you the distance of the observer
or the false identification with it as if you were donning its mantle as your own.
This was no easy task. But I believed that Native experience contained truths we needed
to know, and I knew that I had to make readers believe what I told them in order for them
to take it into their hearts. I had to write in a way that would grab you at the level of
belief; I had to bring you into the presence of Native experience so that you would
participate in it, be inhabited by it, and leave a changed person.
A tall order, yes? But that’s how important I thought the truths of Native American
experience were to the shaping of an authentic American spirituality. We as a people
have gotten lost somewhere between dogma and agnosticism, yet we are a spiritual
people who hunger for belief. The Native way, with its tradition of granting each person
the right to his or her own spiritual journey, while finding truth and meaning in the land,
seemed to me to feed that hunger with an authority and authenticity that nothing else
possessed. I needed to find a way to lead you into its presence in a way that would
invest your experience with the authority of belief.
And so I set upon the task of searching for a literary vehicle that would serve that end.
Neither Wolf nor Dog, and, now, The Wolf at Twilight, are the results of that search.
Though done as traditional narratives, they use aspects of the novel, oral history,
mythology, parable, and spiritual homily, to bring readers into the presence of Native
experience as participants and not as observers.
How I came to create that narrative form is a story in itself. It involved learning from
Native storytellers, the fortuitous accident of becoming involved with collecting Native
oral histories, and long personal and scholarly experience with the methods and purposes
of sacred texts. It also involved exploring ways of using language to describe, evoke,
engage, and transport readers to the physical and emotional places I wanted them to go.
The end result, as reflected in Neither Wolf nor Dog and The Wolf at Twilight, was a
genre-blending, category-blurring literary vehicle that placed you, the reader, by my side
as I walked into another world and handed you off to people whose spiritual reality was
so integrated into their daily life that it could not be separated from it or reduced to
homily, lecture, or teaching. What I experienced, you experienced. What I felt, you felt.
And by making myself and my responses as emotionally authentic as I could (readers can
sniff disingenuousness a mile away) I convinced you to follow me, participate with me,
and take my experiences into your heart as your own.
To do this, I used first person narrative – that magical, distance-destroying literary point
of view — to bring you along as fellow travelers into a world that is populated by actual
people (though often well-disguised), actual settings (rendered with as much physical and
emotional accuracy as I could muster), real events (though often not experienced in
exactly the sequence or the manner in which they are presented), all developed along
time-honored, almost archetypal, plot lines and universal stories of the human heart.
But none of this would have mattered if the works had not been absolutely authentic at
the places where they touched against Native belief, practice, and understanding. The
words spoken had to be captured and shaped with the fidelity of the best oral history, the
conversations and sense of humor had to be pitch-perfect, the experiences of such places
as sweat lodges and boarding schools had to be as carefully rendered and factually
precise as if this were an historical documentation. I could take liberties with the
characters and their narrative, but not with the world through which they walked. You
and the other readers, both Native and non-Native, had to give total assent to the
possibility of what I presented. Factually, culturally, and interpersonally, there could be
no false notes.
And so Dan and Grover and Wenonah and Jumbo and I and everyone else – real people
all, but well-disguised where necessary – set off to lead you to a place of absolute
emotional, cultural, and, to the extent possible, spiritual authenticity. We went into
Native reality and made you part of it. There were no lies in that world; no falsifications
of cultural circumstance, emotional response, or historical event. You met real people,
heard real stories, experienced real emotions, and participated in real events. To the
extent that I was able, I took you beyond understanding into participation.
So, what was I creating — fiction or non-fiction? I truly don’t know, and, for my part, I
truly don’t care. My job was to bring you into the presence of a people and way of life,
not to pass a litmus test of factual accuracy. For me, the question of “is it fiction or nonfiction?” was as irrelevant as asking if Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows is fiction or
non-fiction, or if Bach’s Mass in B Minor is fiction or non-fiction. My goal was to create
something authentic, and to the extent that I was able to do so, I was not bothered that it
did not fit neatly into standard literary categories.
To put it another way, I was creating works of spiritual encounter, not literary or
historical documents, and the liberties I took were directed toward that end. In so doing,
I was working in a long and honored tradition of spiritual writing. The Gospel writers
employed contradictory narratives to communicate the spiritual richness of Jesus’
mission; Taoist teachers placed stories from many sources into the mouth of Chuang Tzu
to help people apprehend the Tao; Kahlil Gibran created the character of Al Mustapha to
give proper voice to his spiritual teachings. Neither Wolf nor Dog and The Wolf at
Twilight were my journeyman efforts to use the skills at my command to open people to
the interwoven cultural and spirituality reality of Native America.
In the last analysis, I was following the guidance of the man who served as the primary
model for Dan: “People learn best by stories,” he told me, “Because stories lodge deep
in the heart.” Neither Wolf nor Dog and The Wolf at Twilight were created as teaching
stories meant to bring you into the presence of the rich, human, and deeply integrated
spirituality of contemporary and historical Native life. If they did so, they have served
their purpose. How they should be categorized, I leave up to you.
Tags: fiction and non-fiction, Kent Nerburn, Minnesota Book Award, religious writing,
The Wolf at Twilight
Posted in Observation, Reflection, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
5 Responses to “Some thoughts on Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and
Literary Categories”
1.
Pam says:
April 22, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Kent, congratulations on a well-deserved award. I believe that your books truly meet
their purpose in enlightening, educating, and moving the hearts of their readers,
regardless of the category in which they’re placed. It’s impossible to read “The Wolf at
Twilight” or “Neither Wolf nor Dog” without feeling a connection and a changing within.
On another note, it’s good to hear from you again. Having revisited your blog many
times in recent months in hopes that I’d missed some notification that you had posted, it
was good to find this today.
Looking forward to reading more from you soon.
Pam
2.
terry says:
April 22, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Mr. Nerburn, I also want to offer my congratulations for the recognition you received
for this wonderful, moving story. Last Fall, I called to order The Wolf at Twilight, and by
chance (or maybe not) you answered the phone. In our brief conversation I made the
understatement that you have a gift with words. And while that is absolutely true, your
greater gift is of the heart. That’s where we — your readers — connected with the people
you met, the experiences you lived, the emotions, the feelings, the mystery, the
spirituality that so moved you. As for the category, well, truth is where you find it. You
can’t label or confine it.
3.
Tarahlynn says:
April 22, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Kent we are all cheering here at the Jackpine Writers’ Bloc! CONGRATULATIONS!
And, also, very insightful and great blog entry.
4.
steve says:
April 28, 2010 at 11:53 am
Last night I pushed through to finish “The Wolf at Twilight” by midnight. I was
caught up in the terrible uncertainty…like what happened to the Sarah-Indian girl cross!?
Good story, Nerburn. Great truth. And Bronson…he kicked ass! … thanks for all your
books.
5.
Harriette Yazzie-Whitcomb says:
May 4, 2010 at 8:35 am
Upon reading “Neither Wolf Nor Dog,” I found ways, better ways to express my
beliefs as a Native. I was always given lessons in my native language and upon reading
this book found all the lessons written, and in English! This was a wonderful new
awakening, re-awakening, to see my Native beliefs, written is such simple,
understandable and potently persuasive expressions. I cannot wait to read “The Wolf at
Twilight” and continue my enlightenment for easier translation to my children and
grandchildren. Thank you, Kent, for sharing your openness to accept Native ways–
speaking from the heart and speaking the Native way: slow, thoughtful and truthful.
Harriette Yazzie-Whitcomb, Navajo, Administrative Assistant at Colby-Sawyer
College
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