Pseudo review of Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches by S.C. Gwynne
What to do as an eternal skeptic and an unwilling expat, dear worst-reader? Shutting down, as in, tuning out, might be an alternative. Yet, my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant is most certainly continuing its de-evolution, don’t you know. For example.
Can you believe what happened the other night (see link below)? A seventeen year old from Illinois illegally crossed his state’s border carrying the infamous AR-15 to a peaceful but over-curfew protest in neighbouring Kenosha, Wisconsin, and ended up, almost at the behest of local law enforcement (depending on your political bent, of course), killing some of those protestors as they tried to take little big-man’s gun away.
Did you get that?
Shall I repeat that… another worst-way? Indeed.
A seventeen year old militia-boy aka wannabe [The Comedian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedian_(character), excluding the smiley-face, got in a pseudo vigilante row with other young people protesting the brutality of white-man, hate-man, WASP-sicko, crack-pottery that seems to so casually shoot black people (seven times in the back, don’t you know) on account they’re all to afraid of the shadows their ignorance has made because there is no intellect available to process the realities of politics post the death of the #Americant dream–aka that which #OKBoomer killed.
Indeed. Those who would raise a boy to seventeen so that he could go join his elders in replacing cerebral-ism with reactionary WWE (which now included MMA) batshittery all on account fear-monger shadow-making white people can continue to avoid facing the reality that they’re fcuked and the reason they’re fcuked is their own doing and it’s been going on with the inception of the greed shit-show that is #Americant post Ronald Reagan, baby.
But I digress.
And while I’m on the subject of white people avoiding truth, justice but adhering to the wanton will to be stupid… While all this #Americant dip-shittary, deprivation and delusion is going on, I just finished reading that Pulitzer Prize nominated, easy-read history book, almost written like a novel, about the end of the Comanche nation.
And get this.
The book kinda sucks. Or. Put in other worst-words, anybody could’ve written it and considering how and what is written (in it), it doesn’t give me the feeling that it hasn’t already been written. Wait. That makes no sense. #Nomatter. Let’s worst-write on, shall well.
Empire of the Summer Moon is yet another white-man whitewash of the single greatest and most successful genocide in all of human history. I mean. If you put the horror show that is the culling of Native Americans together with slavery… Heck. You got a royal fcukfest of death. Am I wrong? It’s no wonder that my beloved & missed #Americant has devolved into a death-cult that can only culminate in the likes of president pee-pee hair and the shitshow that is fail-upwards capitalism forever seeking its nadir.
But. Again. Before I get too far off worst-subject.
Empire of the Summer Moon is actually a pretty good read–if you’re not up-to-date on #Americant history and also have a bit of interest in Native American history. Since I’m already somewhat versed in that history, the reason for giving this book a read was because I thought it was going to be more about Cynthia Ann Parker. Although I’m somewhat familiar with the story of her son, the last Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, I’ve never read a book about his mother. Unfortunately, I still haven’t read one about her. I know. I know. I have to get my shit together. There are a few books out there about her. On the other hand, since this book uses those books as source material, I was hoping to get more from it.
Again. Here’s the thing, dear worst-reader. I need a book from the point of view of the Native American. The entire story I’ve been told about these people has always been from the POV of… wait for it. That’s right. White people. Or. Of course. Hollywood. Heck, I even dabbled years ago in the original screenplay that became a novel that then became a screenplay and ended up being the film Dances With Wolves. Even though I love the movie and owe a little chunk of my heart to Kevin Costner for making such a masterpiece of a film, of the half dozen or so times I’ve seen the movie, crying every time Wind In His Hair yells from that cliff top that Dunbar is his friend, I can’t stop the cynical gremlins in my mind that remind me I’m watching whitewash galore.
But I will hand the author of Empire of the Summer Moon, S. C. Gwynne, this. He did write a few lines in (t)his pseudo-history that threw me for a loop. Here’s one of those lines:
They [Indians] were three to four millennia behind the Europeans and Asians, and the arrival of Columbus in 1492 guaranteed that they would never catch up.
If civilisation began in and around the Fertile Crescent and from there humans spread across the globe, those who left the Middle East for the far east and who eventually ended up crossing the Baring Strait, must be the ones that became the peoples that Europeans encountered post Columbus’ treasure hunt. We already know that the reason these peoples are called Indians is because Columbus thought he landed in India. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m just boggled with this question: Are these people from the Fertile Crescent or from before that?
The thing that gets me about this book is that I’ve completely lost touch with a thought or three about the origins of the American Indian. Are they from the Stone Age or even before that? Or perhaps they are a people that freed themselves from the seed of human greed-hate early enough to live thousands of years in harmony with nature–until that greed-hate hit them with the arrival of Europeans. The origins of these people, of course, is what gives way to the evils of the white man’s prejudices. Hence the enslavement of Africa and the genocides of North America. Indeed. White Europeans have most certainly allowed their greed-hate to prosper in the (new) world–and through out history. Or am I the only one to notice that it’s still thriving today?
And so. Hail President Pee-Pee-Hair and his Eurowasteland origins and/or those who would write whitewash books well enough to be nominated for a Pulitzer.
And so. As the #Americant saying goes (via worst-writer): put some butter and sugar on it and all will be well as you swallow forever the lie of the mind.
Rant on.
-T
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