Ceremony: Author: Leslie Marmon Silko | Language: English | ISBN:
B000SEFBJ8 | Format: EPUB
Ceremony: Description
More than thirty-five years since its original publication,
Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth,
Ceremony is a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.
- File Size: 447 KB
- Print Length: 276 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0140086838
- Publisher: Penguin Classic; Anniversary edition (December 26, 2006)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000SEFBJ8
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,780 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Special Groups > Native American Studies - #12
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > Native American Studies - #13
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > United States > Native American
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Special Groups > Native American Studies - #12
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > Native American Studies - #13
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > United States > Native American
I'd read some of Leslie Marmon Silko's short stories before starting on this novel. They were like gems, polished, smooth, and echoing with a gentle quiet not commonly found in English literature. CEREMONY is a far more ambitious undertaking; the building of a literary castle. Set in New Mexico, in and around Laguna Pueblo, immediately after WW II, the plot concerns a young Indian war veteran who has been traumatized by his experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese. When we meet him, he's barely conscious, being released from a mental hospital. He lost his half-brother on the Bataan death march, his favorite uncle had died at home, a herd of special cattle---adapted to life in the desert---has disappeared, and his old friends are drinking themselves away in bars. To top it all off, Tayo, the central character, is illegitimate and half-white, raised by relatives, not accepted fully by everyone in the family. He seems destined for the asylum, jail, an early death from alcohol, or suicide; not exactly unknown fates for young Indians then or now.
Elders arrange a healing ceremony for him, but the healer is a maverick, not tied to traditional methods. Tayo's whole life and consciousness merge into the healing process and that process begins to look like a prescription for the Indian peoples in North America to heal nearly-fatal wounds dealt their cultures over the last five centuries. Silko sees the materialism and violence of Western civilization as a curse threatening the continued existence of everyone on the planet, a curse stemming from evil itself rather than from a particular group of people. In tones that ring most uncannily today, she wrote in 1977 [p.
Richard Alvarez Gonzalez 802-90-0261 Expository Writing
Review of Ceremony
War is one of the most terrible evils man has known, yet is has been going on for ages. Since the beginning of known history man has been at war with his fellow man, himself and the world. In Leslie Marmon's novel Ceremony the point of view towards war is different from that of most people. A sense of loss takes central stage in the novel; loss of loved ones, loss of land, of heritage, and loss of self. Tayo and his cousin, Rocky, joined the army looking for a way out and adventure, they would go and fight a Great War. While fighting in the jungles of Asia, Rocky gets killed. Now Tayo is back, the war is over, but not for him. Tayo feels responsible for his cousin's death. He was supposed to protect him and he failed, and now his memory haunts Tayo's every second of existence. In the beginning of the novel we take a look into Tayo's disturbed and tormented mind, as he takes us along the story of his life, of death, war, and rejection. Tayo is a man desperately trying to hold on to his sanity while he wastes it away on a bottle of alcohol which sends him into constant sickness spells and confines him to a bed from which he is terrified to move. As his sickness progresses, Tayo is taken to see a medicine man that sends him on a journey to retrieve his uncle's dreams, thus putting his own fears and doubts to rest. It is during this journey that Tayo completes his healing process with the aid of a woman with whom he will fall deeply in love, Ts'eh, a mystical character that appears and disappears various time in the novel, seeming as if a dream or a creation of Tayo's mind.
Ceremony: Preview
Link
Please Wait...