What an odd title for a book. It sounds racist at the same time as it's a very dull description of what the book is about (which is to say, the book is far more interesting than its title).
When book club first selected this book, I was somewhat skeptical about it, since I hadn't heard of the author before, and usually don't read 'historical' fiction of this sort. It's pseudo-autobiographical nature usually would turn me off, but I found myself very immersed in the book, to the point where my family had to repeat themselves to get my attention while reading it. Such immersivity is something I associate with my happiest reading moments, particularly as a teenager when I was beginning to discover my own reading tastes, and it's always a joy to just read a book without worrying about remembering the details or making notes as I go along.
That's not to say I didn't cry while reading the Codicil. I did. But that was a good thing - the book had drawn me into its world very effectively by that point.
The way I felt so immersed in this book made me think about the difference between reading it and Heart of Darkness. Part of my complaint about Conrad was that I had read so much theory about the book that I found it got in the way of just enjoying the story. And I find it difficult to really become immersed in a book when I'm constantly thinking 'Is this an important detail?' 'Should I underline this line?' 'How would a deconstructionist/feminist/post-colonialist read this passage?'
That got me thinking about whether it is only my aproach to a book: as scholarly text to take notes about, or as book to just enjoy (sans pencil), or the actual 'quality' of the book that affects its ability to be read critically or immersively. In other words, are 'good' i.e. literary books better adapted to critical response because they are harder to read and the construction/ideas of the book interrupt immersivity, or are they just somehow categorically 'better' written? This is a question I have difficulty deciding. I happend to like popular lit, and find it an interesting source for cultural critique, but in that sense, am I ignoring its actual 'value' from the point of view of literary or well-crafted text?
I haven't decided this question yet, but I have decided I like this book. It was about something I would not have naturally picked up (frontier woman confronting 'Indian wars' in nineteenth century America) but it provided me pleasure in reading, in part because I think it was indeed well written, so I would recommend it to other people.