The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch

The Heartsong of Charging Elk Reviews

• 
  Dorie - Cats&Books :)

  This is an older book of mine that I recently revisited as my daughter was looking for a book that featured Native Americans. This is one of my all time favorite books, great for ages 12 and up. It is so eye opening as to how the Indians were treated in our country and abroad. Fantastic book!
• 
  Rekha

  The novel opens with Charging Elk, an Oglala Sioux, waking up in a French hospital near the turn of the 20th century after already living through the Battle of Little Big Horn, the forced relocation of his nation to a reservation, and a stint with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. It was in this show that he fell ill while on tour in France, and now he is left in the hospital and the show has moved on without him. Charging Elk leaves the hospital and starts on a journey that he hopes will eventually lead him home, although the obstacles to acheiving this seem insurmountable. He can't speak French, and can barely speak English, and almost every aspect of white society is foreign to him. The book, calm to start, quickly turns into a page-turner (but never overly drawn nor melodramatic) as Charging Elk continually tries to make sense of what is happening around him and elude a society which seems determined to take his freedom away at every turn. A beautifully written book. One of my favorites.
• 
  Kristina Van Hoose

  Overall Thoughts:
  The Heartsong of Charging Elk had a great premise, but it was not lived up to. Welch is inconsistent with his POV rules, the plot gets stale, and the characters are very stereotypical and flat. There is also very little dialogue.
  
  Rating:
  1 out of 5, meaning it was nearly impossible to finish.
  
  Recommendations:
  Read at own risk / Best to Rent from Library
  
  Detailed Review:
  The premise of The Heartsong of Charging Elk makes it sound like a great story. The book opens up with Charging Elk dazed and confused in a hospital. He speaks only Oglala and is therefore unable to communicate. Readers see just how difficult it is to request orange juice and milk in such a situation. Indeed, the story sounds like a fascinating read.
  
  Until you read it.
  
  Sadly, Charging Elk is full of a large cast of stereotypical characters that do very little for the plot as a whole. Welch introduces us to characters early on, only to have them disappear until the end of the story. Some of these characters do not even drive the plot forward, such as the reporter St. Cyr who shows up three times in the course of the story to 1) provide monetary incentive for the guards to feed Charging Elk better, 2) write an article following Charging Elk's stay, which is then forgotten about after a brief follow up article, and 3) write articles following the ending case, in which readers only see one small fragment of. The character could be removed completely with no consequence to the plot or the story.
  
  Furthermore, Welch does not establish a concrete rule for the story's point of view. In the beginning, we find ourselves immersed in Charging Elk's head - or at least as far as Welch will allow us. There is no internal dialogue. Instead, we find ourselves seeing what Charging Elk sees and hearing what he hears. Those who are unfamiliar with French will feel the similar helplessness that Charging Elk feels, but English words are not masked. This greatly diminishes the ability for a reader to feel what Charging Elk feels. Welch tries to take a limited third person feel yet allows readers to understand more than Charging Elk by telling us exactly what the English speakers in the novel are saying.
  
  Moreover, Welch uses separate chapters or paragraph breaks whenever he chooses to jump into another character's head. This is very typical of limited third person novels with multiple points of view. However, Welch ignores his own rules and jumps into Marie Colet's head in the middle of Charging Elk's experiences. The exchange is frustrating.
  
  

  As he smoked the cigarette, Charging Elk tried to think of something to say, something that would be polite yet hint at what he wanted. ... "Bonsoir, mademoiselle," he said, not daring to look at her. "Are you tired from your labors?"
  
  She remained silent, staring toward the bar. The three men who had been playing dice were gone. The piano player had quit playing and was now drinking a glass of wine at the end of the bar, his satchel full of music resting at his feet. he stood alone, an employee in a frock coat that was too shiny at the elbows, in trousers too baggy in the knees, ignored in a house that catered to the rich and the indolent.
  
  Marie had often watched the piano player, at home in his little corner of the room... (226).

  
  
  Suddenly we learn the character's name because Welch addresses her by name as we enter her thoughts. For a reader who has become used to the section breaks or chapter breaks, this is startling and unwelcome. Personally, I had to double back and reread to see if we had somehow learned her name and I had simply missed it. Surely, Charging Elk was simply telling us she often watched the piano player. this is not the case. Welch completely abandons Charging Elk's view and remains inside Marie's head until two pages later where he has a section break to jump back into Charging Elk's thoughts.
  
  That is just sloppy editing or writing - or perhaps both.
  
  The story is also bogged down by the lack of dialogue. Part of it rests with Charging Elk's inability to speak French and English, but there is no reason as to why Charging Elk did not speak to himself. It would seem normal that he would validate his existence in a foreign country by talking more to himself simply so that he had someone to communicate with. It would also be reasonable to have Charging Elk speak more often with others as he gained more French or to understand more conversations around him. This is not to say that he would pick up French overnight, but he would pick up on words and general understandings of a conversation.
  
  Though it seems part of Welch's desire to tell the story was to remark on the pitfalls of bureaucracy that keeps Charging Elk prisoner of France, it reads as "why the hell doesn't anyone do something?" This is probably his point, but it personally just made me want to stop reading, which is probably a personal flaw of mine rather than a flaw of the book itself. The other points mentioned though were also cause to put down the book. The ending leaves the reader with very little to take away. Charging Elk's character was not very developed, nor were the rest of the cast. It all sums up to a disappointment, which is unfortunate considering the story's premise was very strong.
  
  Altogether, The Heartsong of Charging Elk could have had better editing, more developed characters, and more consistency. All of these flaws weaken the story, making it drag heavily from about 1/4th of the way in to the end of the story.
  
  Rating:
  Overall, it ends up with 1/5 stars. I truly believe James Welch could have done a better job with this, especially since it starts off well. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, he lost it.
• 
  Mallory Whiteduck

  We need more Native historical fiction! Loved this one. James Welch tells the life story of Charging Elk, a performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show who wakes up in a hospital in Paris to discover the travelling show has left him behind. What follows is the story of his life.
• 
  Laura Edwards

  In a word. Tedious.
  
  If you want to read beautiful, lyrical prose with a Native American bent or theme, check out Louise Erdrich.
• 
  Ellen

  Extraordinary book. I must read more of James Welch's work.
  
• 
  Frank

  This was the very poignant story of Charging Elk, an Oglala Sioux, who wakes up in a hospital in Marseilles, France, in 1889 after sustaining an injury while performing in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He has been deserted by the show and cannot speak French nor English. The proverbial stranger in a strange land. After he regains some of his stamina, he walks out of the hospital and is shortly thereafter arrested for vagrancy. The American consulate tries to help him but the French police are adamant that he has committed a crime by leaving the hospital and will not release him. He eventually is put in care of a French family and assists in the family business of fishmonger. Although he comes to love the family, after a few years he moves out on his own and works shoveling coal for a soap factory. He lives in a somewhat questionable part of the city and gets involved and falls in love with a lady of the night. This leads to a brutal betrayal and Charging Elk winds up in prison for many years.
  
  The novel tells in flashbacks and memories of Charging Elk's youth. He was present at the Battle of Little Big Horn and he knew Crazy Horse. He longs to return to the Dakotas and his prior life but he is unable to afford passage back to America. It pretty much seemed that anything that could go wrong for him did go wrong. But amongst all the anguish there is also joy and love. This was really an engrossing read which I would recommend highly.
• 
  Booknblues

  It is hard to read a book as The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch which has such a heavy atmosphere of despondency and confusion. As I finish it, I find it difficult to shake the melancholy of the novel, even though it ended on a positive note.
  
  Charging Elk is a young Lakota who signs up with The Buffalo Bill show and toured through France. He has had a wild adolescence living with a friend in the wild and refusing to go to the reservation, but when the opportunity presents itself he joins the show. Sadly, he finds himself in a hospital and the show leaves without him. He speaks neither French nor English and is unable to rejoin the troupe.
  
  The novel is about how Charging Elk makes his way in a world he neither understands nor feels a part of. For much of the novel, I couldn't help feeling that Charging Elk is not the sharpest knife in the drawer although he is a good decent man who could survive in the wild. Survival in Marseille is a struggle for Charging Elk and the reader can easily feel impatient with his ineptitude.
  
  This is a book which I passed over repeatedly in my TBR pile and I cannot help but wonder if it might have been preferable if I had passed over it in the book store, and I most likely would have but for the handsome young man on the cover.
• 
  Carole Frank

  Originally published as The Heartsong of Charging Elk, my paperback copy is merely called Heartsong. Charging Elk is an Oglala Sioux from the Black Hills of South Dakota who joins Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show that is touring Europe. However after a riding accident in Marseilles, he finds himself in hospital and speaking neither American or French finds himself abandoned while the troupe travel on. It is truly heartwrenching how he survives, he is rescued from the gutter and sent to stay with a kindly fishmonger and his family. He stays there for two years, then ventures on his own, by then speaking rudimentary French. He falls in love, but is betrayed in the worst manner imaginable and what happens after that changes his life irrevocably.
• 
  StrangeBedfellows

  Honestly, I thought this was a lukewarm and boring book. Granted, it's an interesting idea for a story, and some parts were intriguing. Also, Welch is a skilled writer capable of creating thoughtful passages. Overall, though, this one just didn't touch me. I felt little to no urgency while reading, and Charging Elk just didn't spark for me as a compelling character. I would recommend this to readers interested in Westerns and the Wild West -- which I am not. Perhaps they will get more from it than I did.
• 
  Judith

  I really wanted to like this a lot, and the story is fascinating -- based on the true event when an Indian with Buffalo Bill Cody's show is left behind in Paris -- but for some reason this book was just not that great. I kept reading, thinking, "Get better, get better!" and it never really did.
• 
  Jennifer Miller

  I tried to decide what this book was about. The life of an Oglala. An out of place foreigner trying to adapt. A homesick person, and the heartache of unable to return. A ethnic minority's struggles. I suppose it's all of those things, but I decided this is a story about time. Charging Elk felt despair on numerous occasions and wished his time was up. It never was and he questioned what Wakan Tanka was bringing to him next.
  
  I thought it interesting that as he stretched his time in France, he imagined life on the Plains continued as it did when he left with The Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. It didn't. He eventually came to terms with that in the end.
  
  I gave this book three stars because, like other reviewers stated, could have used more precise editing. There were places were sentences repeated themselves within the same paragraph. James Welch's books are enjoying, but they take more to "get into" them. I liked the POV from Charging Elk's mind as he saw things. For example, not knowing who baby Jesus was, he describes an infant laying in straw with legs and arms sticking up who appears the in winter. If you are looking for a fiction novel specifically about Native American way of life, I would suggest "Fools Crow" by Welch instead.
• 
  Anita

  I found the start of this life story of an Oglala Indian marooned in Marseille, France, after an accident at the Buffalo Bill Show, slow and meandering. It improves as the story progresses, when I gradually became engrossed in Charging Elk’s struggle to adapt to the alien environment in which he finds himself. His incomprehension of the value systems the Europeans lived by; especially their Catholic religious ideals and their complex judicial system; which are so utterly contrary to his own more simplistic philosophy; anticipate the enormous challenges he will face. Unfortunately, his personal fight against “evil” lands him in prison, where he constantly relives in his dreams his youthful days of freedom on the badlands of Dakota beyond the reservation. There are myriad lesser characters in the story, Rene and Madeleine being particularly memorable.
  This story invites the readers to question Western values, and to empathize with the difficulties faced by those forced to settle in environments alien to their land of birth. In these days of mass refugee migrations, this story gives insight into their sense of dislocation and loneliness.
  An interesting read, with an ending I found somewhat unsatisfactory.
• 
  Linda

  In The Heartsong of Charging Elk, author James Welch has captured a resiliency of spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book is finished and put away. The book was written over ten years ago, and as I have read other stories by Welch, I'm not sure why I never picked this one up, but I didn't. As much as I feel that James Welch was a brilliant writer, his stories, with the exception of Fools Crow, always left me too sad; however, a librarian in Browning chose it as a discussion group book and I thought that this really is an opportunity to hear someone whose thoughts and opinion I value speak about a culture that is right next door and yet not my own. As it turns out the story transcends cultures.
• 
  Linda Maxson

  I just realized that this book is mostly set in France. Interesting that it and another top favorite share that in common. What else binds these together? The individual facing challenges (in this case, not-so-existential) overcoming, maybe even thriving.
• 
  Ron

  This is an unutterably sad book that I recommend only for readers with strength to learn from what it has to say about identity loss, abandonment, and loneliness.
• 
  Cindy

  I liked this book for its well developed character; I won't forget Charging Elk.
• 
  Pat Giese

  Hard to imagine a Lakota native who witnessed Wounded Knee massacre & refused to join his family in the army's fort, remaining out of the plains where he and his friend struggle to eat. However, as a skilled rider, he is sought out by Buffalo Bill & joins the Wild West Show, riding the train to NYC to perform. From there, they head to Europe. Charging Elk sustains rib fx & a concussion when he is knocked off his horse while performing in Marseille. The show moves on, leaving him unconscious in the hospital, along with another, Featherstone, who dies in the hospital. A terrible mistake is made when the hospital lists Charging Eld on that death certificate. When CE wakes, he is confused but finds some clothes & sneaks away. He then lives on the streets until he is arrested for vagrancy. A local charity assists in getting him released. The representative from the US Embassy is attempting to repatriate him to the US but he has no papers, & according to the official records, he is "dead". He comes to live with Rene, the fishmonger, & his wife Madeline & their 2 children. CE works with the fishmonger each day. After a few years, CE moves to his own apt & now has a job at the soap factory. After some time, he is promoted & uses his additional income to buy some fine clothes & visits a local whorehouse. He mistakes Marie's affection for love & intends to ask her to marry him. But, she is duped by a homosexual chef into drugging CE's wine, so that that man can perform felatio without CE knowing. When CE awakens, he is horrified when he understands what is happening, & stabs that man to death. He is arrested, tried & sent to prison for life. The local reporter created a lot of public interest in CE with his stories, thus he was spared from the guillotine because of public sympathy. After 5 yrs in prison, where he tended their large gardens & orchard, he is suddenly released with a full pardon. He is sent to live with a family in a small town, who had a plum orchard. He works hard for Vincent & keeps to himself, but the 16 yr old Natalie grows more & more attracted to him, especially after her mother dies. Despite his initial objection, Vincent finally relents & gives his permission for Natalie to marry CE who is now 37. Vincent also decides to give the orchard to his brother who has a large family to support. CE & Natalie move back to Marseille, where he gets a job as a dockworker. Shortly after their arrival, Natalie announces she is pregnant & CE sees a poster announcing that Buffalo Bill's Wild West show is returning to their city. When CE goes to the show, he finds that Buffalo Bill is the only familiar face [after 12 yrs]. He visits a Lakota family in their tent after the show, where he learns that his father died 3 yrs earlier but his mother still lives. CE shares his dreams of his tribe being wiped out and that he was the last remaining Lakota, and that he is happy to learn that isn't true. The Lakota performers have alternative interpretations of his dreams, that are more positive. As he leaves, he hears them describe his father riding the horse he left with him. CE chooses to remain in France, altho his mother is lonely. He says she must think he is dead by now, and he has a wife to think of now.
  Am cure this tale is historical fiction, but what an incredible life. I cannot imagine being stranded in a country where you don't speak the language, people are suspicious of you because of your size & dark skin, and you don't know a single soul. I'm reminded that there are kind people everywhere who will step in to look after one's best interests even when you are a stranger. Charging Elk sings his death song more than once, each time he is in dire straits, and comes to believe Wakan Tanka is looking out for him after all despite being over an ocean away from his homeland, the Dakotas.
• 
  Dogeared Wanderer

  A historical fiction based on the story of Charging Elk, an Oglala Indian who was part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He and another Indian got sick in Marseilles and were left behind by the show. Charging Elk survives but is unable to speak English or French. Eventually he is put into the protection of a French family by the American embassy while the ambassador tries to figure out what can be done with a man who is a citizen of his tribe, not his country.
  
  Over the next 16 years, he meets people, both good and bad, which influence his life and self-discovery. The book emphasizes his longing for home, the tensions of fitting nowhere and coping with loneliness, and the tragedy of a simple man in a complex situation.
  
  The book takes time to work through and more concentration than a light novel. It seemed a bit slow at times but it was a nice change of pace. The author was familiar with his subjects, including French and Native American culture during that time. I appreciated the way he portrayed Charging Elk at various times in his life which were very believable rather than the romanticized Indian stereotype.
  
  ⚠️TRIGGER WARNING: A large part of the story was also one of the more difficult parts to read. Charging Elk is unable to attract a wife because he isn't French and falls in love with a prostitute. Several scenes follow of what you'd expect in such a place. He is betrayed by her and sexually taken advantage of by a homosexual, kills the guy, and incarcerated. This part was also historically accurate in the common perception at the time and I was grateful to the author for not trying to force a modern agenda on a historical fact.
  
  After his sentence is carried out, he realizes that everything he'd longed for back home no longer exists. As things have changed in America, so he has changed in France. The author did a good job portraying this throughout. I won't spoil the ending of the book but it ended well.
• 
  Barbara Rhine

  James Welch, a Native American writer from Montana, now passed, has left us this wonderful book about Charging Elk, a Lakota Sioux who gets left behind in France by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, totally apart from the colonial gaze that is so ubiquitous in western literature about people who are outside the dominant paradigm. Here we have a "peau-rouge," a savage in the eyes of Europeans and Americans alive. But it is Charging Elk who is gazing at the French society that surrounds him. And strange indeed does he find it, always in contrast to his own world view, informed by the wild country he has left behind, ripped away due to the white man's conquest. Everyone in this book, though, whether Indian, French or American, emerges as an understandable human being. The book gains heft and momentum the further you read. The only other fiction that compares that I know if is "Fools Crow," also by Welch. Read this book. You will gain another whole perspective...
• 
  Lynn Pribus

  Although this had an interesting premise, I could not get into it. Charging Elk is a Native American, brought to Paris with the Buffalo Bill show and left behind when he became ill and hospitalized and the show moved on.
  
  The book opens with him in the hospital ward and I guess the author was trying to stay in the POV of this poor man who spoke no French and very little English, so his thoughts were expressed in English for the reader, but supposedly in his native language. Unfortunately it read like Tonto -- three sleeps, two moons, etc. --in the old Lone Ranger shows which I was allowed to listen to in bed in the dark at 7:30 on M, W & F. If my teeth were brushed, of course.
  
  Just did not capture my interest, especially since I was reading a couple real corkers simultaneously.
• 
  Hel E. Fortuna

  Read for school; I was told it was slow in the beginning but I found the beginning the most enjoyable, as I was viewing it as a history student. It did get better with more events and more stuff happening. And while I was set back by the sexual scenes I managed to power through and ended up enjoying it despite them.
  
  I found the book enjoyable and a decent read, probably not something I’d pick up outside school but I’m glad I read it now. Very interesting for research and referencing (mostly in the beginning where Charging Elk is in the unknown) very well establishes the culture shock and fear and loss in being abandoned in the strange city.
• 
  Sophie Cimon

  Honestly I didn't finish the book. I give 3 stars cuz the first third of the book was nice. I felt sympathetic toward Charging Elk when he founds himself lost and lonely. But I didn't finish it cuz the story was slow to begin and there is a lot of inaction and long passage with nothing much where anything is really happening. I felt it would have been a good story but the start was too slow to get me hooked.
• 
  Anne Tucker

  unusual and fascinating fictionalisation of a true story - a N American Indian who came to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (which performed several times in Manchester and Salford) and was 'left behind' in Marseilles and had to make his way in France.
  Well worth reading, fascinating insights into his culture. The author is from the same tribe (the Oglala Sioux).
• 
  chaosofbooks

  Okay this book was a tough to get through
  
  The start was so promising and then it got so incredibly boring, if this book hadn’t been for school I would have DNF-ed it. But halfway into the book it got interesting and it stayed that way till the end. I am so glad I finished it.
  
  I will recommend but be aware that it might be quite slow in the first half.
• 
  Jean Walton

  Four and a half chapters in and I'm struggling with this book as it's not really keeping my interest - and yet I do feel sorry for the main character and do want to know what happens to him. He's now been taken in by a family but I suspect this has been done more in the hope of gaining kudos and possibly financial gain than by a genuine desire to help him. I think I'll persevere a while longer...
  
  I persevered and I'm glad I did as I eventually engaged with the main character and started to enjoy the story and I liked the gentle and completely believable ending.
• 
  Carol

  So well written. A story of loss tenacity and joy. So much sorrow yet so much beauty as well. Tragic loss loss of a culture a way of life and one mans home. Interesting weaving of small life in larger context.
• 
  Joyce Reynolds-Ward

  A complex and lovely book.