SOURCE: Review of Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance, in World Literature Today, Vol. 68, No. 3, Summer, 1994, p. 616.

In the following review, Berner states that while Vizenor makes astute points in Manifest Manners, the writing is muddled and infused with jargon.

Those readers who may wonder what the terms in Vizenor's title mean will have to read the book. "Manifest manners" plays on "manifest destiny" to suggest a variety of cultural realities which falsify the experience of American Indians and exploit their culture for commercial, political, and other inappropriate purposes. "Postindian warriors" are the present generation of Indian writers who counter these "manifest manners" with representations of authentic Indian experience. (Survivance means "survival.")

In a discussion of traditional tribal storytelling, Vizenor contrasts it with "the classical notion that thoughts were representations of content, or the coherent meaning of words." Maybe he's right about these storytellers, but no matter how...