Dogsong (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Gary Paulsen
- First Published: 1985
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Adventure
- Subjects: Culture, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Dogs, Adolescence, Teenagers, 1980’s, Ethnic groups, Ethnic relations, Boys, Alaska, Arctic, Inuit
- Locales: Alaska
At times almost impressionistic in its narrative, Dogsong tells the story of Russel Susskit, a young Inuit living in the shadows of what he perceives as Western society's incursion upon his Eskimo culture. Partially inspired by a seven-day-run Paulsen himself took in Minnesota during his trapping days and his two runs of the nearly twelve-hundred-mile Iditarod, the plot approaches the idea that to know oneself is to know nature and reject civilization and all its trappings.
Western civilization, for Russel, brings about the destruction of tradition, whether that comes in...
[The entire page is 662 words long]
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