Laughing Boy

Although it has been a while since I have read Laughing Boy, I remember that in many respects it was a book ahead of its time. Set in the American southwest in 1915, the tale is at once a coming of age story and a literary critique of the demise of one culture with the domineering arrival of another. The tale of an adolescent becoming a man and encountering the challenge and grief that often accompany the transition to adulthood is not novel in itself. What is remarkable is that the author, Oliver La Farge, managed in 1929 to publish a book that respected and honored Navajo culture without idealizing it.

The story is told of Laughing Boy, a young Navajo, who falls in love with and marries Slim Girl. She is in reality and in symbol the seduction and destruction of the white man upon Navajo culture. Slim Girl had already been seduced by the white man's greed, but she finds Laughing Boy's honor and adherence to Navajo tradition irresistible. Unfortunately, her past became her destruction and eventually her death. Slim Girl's downfall threatened to pull Laughing Boy down as well, but his tradition, his people's way of life, eventually became his redemption.

For his efforts, La Farge earned the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for best novel. This honor was well-deserved. Laughing Boy is replete with Navajo language and ritual but never becomes sentimental. In this, La Farge's competence as both an anthropologist and a novelist is manifest. Especially intriguing is the way La Farge weaves Navajo belief, tradition, and ritual into Laughing Boy's experience. I would recommend this book as a window into a forgotten time in an oft forgotten corner of our country.