The More We Take
Kevin Curnin
- 30 mei 2025
- 9798885320122
Samenvatting:
Full of resonance for our imperiled times, The More We Take tells the story of two tragedies: the attempted extermination of indigenous people from North America and relentless extraction from their stolen lands. These two kinds of overlapping violence, towards one another and towards the planet, seem to leave little room for hope. And yet, at the crossroads of these two desecrations, three ordinary Nebraskans, aided by legendary Lakota leaders of the past, stumble onto a path that seems to offer a way out, redemption from the profound sins of the past and hope for a future in which love, not violence, takes center stage.
Blending genres, The More We Take moves back and forth in time, from the genocidal campaign of the U.S. Army against Indigenous people of the High Plains in the 1880's to relentless extraction from their stolen lands today.
Clete Bauer is a surveyor searching for himself. A fifth-generation Nebraskan, his job is to scrutinize the land and advise people on how to ''improve" it. But lately, especially when he's with his 10-year-old niece C.J., he's been worrying about what we are spoiling the land and the irreplaceable groundwater beneath it, and how long we have before the American Heartland reverts to the American Desert.
Through painful but redemptive spiritual journeys, Clete, his sister Kathy, and his partner Irene, a Lakota nurse, heal internal traumas and band together to protect what remains of the prairie and the sacred but depleted Ogallala Aquifer.
But they are outgunned, opposed by apathy and racism -- and Big Agriculture, in the form of the self-righteous ChemStar Corporation.
The tide starts to turn when they are joined by legendary Lakota Chiefs of the past, like Crazy Horse and Red Cloud, who gradually reappear on the Plains to join this unlikely new resistance.
As a natural resources council meets in Nebraska to protect power and wealth, the Sky Council organizes elsewhere, watching Clete's small band get stronger.
Clete learns to leave violence behind. Kathy finds a wild spirituality that the church failed to provide. And Irene finally forgives herself for leaving her family on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Sky Council itself gets stronger when the chiefs are joined by creative women leaders of the past, truth-seekers and storytellers like Zitkala-Sa and Josephine Waggoner.
Dreams and visions accompany these intertwined journeys, which culminate in a magical final scene, in which the resources council and Sky Council face off, and the ominous administrative hall where the battle for the future of the new Midwest takes place is overwhelmed by a wild prairie that reclaims its rightful place and opens a mystical path to a sustainable tomorrow.