What do you think?
Rate this book
Ceremony
Tayo, a young American Indian, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. his return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfrt and resolution.
Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and ot the ancient shores of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats that most virulent of afflictions, despair.
--back cover
Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and ot the ancient shores of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats that most virulent of afflictions, despair.
--back cover
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
1,397 people are currently reading
26.7k people want to read
About the author
Leslie Marmon Silko
39Ìýbooks899ÌýfollowersLeslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.
Silko was a debut recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant, now known as the "Genius Grant", in 1981 and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.
(from Wikipedia)
Silko was a debut recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant, now known as the "Genius Grant", in 1981 and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.
(from Wikipedia)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,258 reviews
April 7, 2008
"I will tell you something about stories
[he said]
They aren't just entertainment.
Don't be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories."
Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony opens with a defense of storytelling. Storytelling is a way of making the world, a way of protecting self and culture. Ceremony itself takes part in this process, telling the story of Tayo, a young Native American come home from WWII and severely traumatized by the experience. He is sick, depressed, suffering from PTSD, it seems, and unable to re-integrate into his society. Until he visits Betonie, that is, a medicine man who tells him about the witchery that is at play in the world, witchery that Tayo can help put an end to as he completes a ceremony that will also help him heal.
Silko's novel is a beautiful reflection on the ways in which we are all interconnected--all humans and all of nature--but do not see this connection. Because we do not see this connection, we continue to destroy ourselves, our fellow humans, and the world in which we must live. Tayo finally makes this connection through seeing the connections between Los Alamos and the creation of the atomic bomb and his own experiences: "From the jungles of his dreaming he recognized why the Japanese voices had merged with Laguna voices, with Josiah's voice and Rocky's voice; the lines of cultures and worlds were drawn in flat dark lines on fine light sand, converging in the middle of witchery's final ceremonial sand painting. From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve thousand miles away, victims who had never known these mesas, who had never seen the delicate colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter" (246). Upon this realization, he is relieved to find that "he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time" (246).
The book is a hopeful one, ending with healing and sunrise, with the witchery "dead for now" (261), but in it Silko acknowledges that "it has never been easy" (254), that "It isn't very easy / to fix up things again" (256). And it is easy to damage things: "It took only one person to tear away the delicate strands of the web, spilling the rays of sun into the sand, and the fragile world would be injured" (38). What happens to one happens to all. This works both ways. One person's misdeeds or losses affect everyone else (whether on a familial and community level or on a worldwide level) and so it isn't easy to maintain balance and harmony and we all live constantly in danger of being harmed by someone else; however, we each also have the power and the responsibility to begin the process of healing, to engage in ceremonies and storytelling and action to change the end of the narrative, as Tayo does.
[he said]
They aren't just entertainment.
Don't be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories."
Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony opens with a defense of storytelling. Storytelling is a way of making the world, a way of protecting self and culture. Ceremony itself takes part in this process, telling the story of Tayo, a young Native American come home from WWII and severely traumatized by the experience. He is sick, depressed, suffering from PTSD, it seems, and unable to re-integrate into his society. Until he visits Betonie, that is, a medicine man who tells him about the witchery that is at play in the world, witchery that Tayo can help put an end to as he completes a ceremony that will also help him heal.
Silko's novel is a beautiful reflection on the ways in which we are all interconnected--all humans and all of nature--but do not see this connection. Because we do not see this connection, we continue to destroy ourselves, our fellow humans, and the world in which we must live. Tayo finally makes this connection through seeing the connections between Los Alamos and the creation of the atomic bomb and his own experiences: "From the jungles of his dreaming he recognized why the Japanese voices had merged with Laguna voices, with Josiah's voice and Rocky's voice; the lines of cultures and worlds were drawn in flat dark lines on fine light sand, converging in the middle of witchery's final ceremonial sand painting. From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve thousand miles away, victims who had never known these mesas, who had never seen the delicate colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter" (246). Upon this realization, he is relieved to find that "he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time" (246).
The book is a hopeful one, ending with healing and sunrise, with the witchery "dead for now" (261), but in it Silko acknowledges that "it has never been easy" (254), that "It isn't very easy / to fix up things again" (256). And it is easy to damage things: "It took only one person to tear away the delicate strands of the web, spilling the rays of sun into the sand, and the fragile world would be injured" (38). What happens to one happens to all. This works both ways. One person's misdeeds or losses affect everyone else (whether on a familial and community level or on a worldwide level) and so it isn't easy to maintain balance and harmony and we all live constantly in danger of being harmed by someone else; however, we each also have the power and the responsibility to begin the process of healing, to engage in ceremonies and storytelling and action to change the end of the narrative, as Tayo does.
October 16, 2017
3.5 stars
This book was so gorgeous, I think I would have loved it had I not been speed reading/skimming it for class. I just missed so much and was so confused by it in the end, which is sad because it is a REALLY interesting and eye-opening story about Native Americans, written by a Native American. The criticism of colonialism and white men taking the natives' land and just being so violent in the first place to start wars was really intriguing to read about from this perspective, and I think it's really valuable material. Again, I just had a really hard time comprehending what was happening, and the fact that this skips around in time didn't help. Maybe when I reread it (I bought a copy for myself), then I'll be able to pick up on more and raise my rating, because it genuinely is a beautiful book and I thought Tayo's inner conflicts and his thought process was brilliant.
This book was so gorgeous, I think I would have loved it had I not been speed reading/skimming it for class. I just missed so much and was so confused by it in the end, which is sad because it is a REALLY interesting and eye-opening story about Native Americans, written by a Native American. The criticism of colonialism and white men taking the natives' land and just being so violent in the first place to start wars was really intriguing to read about from this perspective, and I think it's really valuable material. Again, I just had a really hard time comprehending what was happening, and the fact that this skips around in time didn't help. Maybe when I reread it (I bought a copy for myself), then I'll be able to pick up on more and raise my rating, because it genuinely is a beautiful book and I thought Tayo's inner conflicts and his thought process was brilliant.
March 2, 2016
"There are some things I have to tell you," Betonie began softly. "The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed." He was quiet for a while, looking up at the sky through the smoke hole. "That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle's claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants... At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong. She taught me this above all else: things which don't grow are dead things. They are the things the witchery people want. Witchery works to scare people, to make them fear growth. But it has always been necessary, and more than ever now, it is. Otherwise we won't make it. We won't survive. That's what the witchery is counting on: that we will cling to the ceremonies the way they were, and then their power will triumph, and the people will be no more."I found myself in the book, in the story about witch* people and how white settlers were created in a contest to show off the scariest thing possble. I'd already heard Thomas King's version of this story, but it meant something else to me then, it had a different emphasis. In this story I myself come into being, a destroyer's vampire ghost. From the backs of my thighs to the base of my spine to my stomach's underside I felt a chill crawling up to my chest, I felt myself blur into the world, fibres of my being knitting into the half-poisoned London air. I am not outside this story. It has no borders. Its materials, its hero, Tayo, are only one cycle of the sun, one fold of the skein.
They live, these materials of the story, these people and lands, written with the clarity of morning light and changing rhythm of a dance that made me read slow, slow, fast, slow. Written with ferocity and calm. Some of what is real is what I know, and some I am not ready to know and have to pass over as mystery, magic shaken out of a story like sand from a shawl. The teachers with their books of science trying to shout over everyone sound so reedy, weak and distant. They are inside too, not encircling nature but encircled. Outside Plato's cave is the cave of the sky. But as usual I am getting carried away, let me stay earthbound, let me stay with our storyteller who is making the dry land of the southwest so sonorous with its mesas and arroyos, cousins so distant from the drizzle-rinsed and misty hills that I know...
*in my culture many of the stories about witches are lies spread to prevent women from disrupting white male power as propagated through the church and state (the divine right of kings). As a feminist, and since in Britain 'witches' were often what Silko might call medicine people, those in touch with and learned in ways of healing that involved herb lore, an ethics of care and community, and practical wisdom derived from an oral tradition and personal experience of observing the cycles of nature, I myself am very fond of the word witch, and I appreciate the literature that seeks to rehabilitate it. This literature includes Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (feminists, give your teens these books) Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks and... Room on the Broom . It is significant that the witch people of Silko's story are not gendered. The one who calls the horror into being is described thus: no one ever knew where this witch came from/which tribe/or if it was a woman or a man.
January 17, 2024
Journey is the story of a Native American man’s healing following his traumatic experience of war. It speaks to his past, his present and his future utilizing poetry and prose and stream of consciousness. Pain and sorrow are there. But so too is the piercing beauty of a man frequently connected to his spirits and mythology who is, thereby, rendered fully aware and fully alive. His healing comes through traditional ceremony.
April 10, 2017
On the inside back flap of this edition of Ceremony, there is a series of praise quotes, including this from the New York Time: "Without question Leslie Marmon Silko is the most accomplished Native American writer of her generation. . . " On the back cover, Sherman Alexie writes, "Ceremony is the greatest novel in Native American literature."
I get all tense with exasperation when I read these comments. But then Sherman goes on to say what needs to be said about this novel: "It is one of the greatest novels of any time and place." Yes. This. When we pigeon-hole writers, plugging their work into neat little categories for our convenience and understanding, we cost them potential readers. This happens to women writers all the time; there's even a genre known as women's fiction. I know. I get it. I understand the definition and how and why the sub-genre matters. There is certain value in recognizing and celebration a canon of work that can be classified according to geography, culture, era, and gender, race, ethnicity.
But what if we were to remove "Native American" from those sentences above? "Without question Leslie Marmon Silko is the most accomplished writer of her generation. . . " "Ceremony is the greatest novel in literature." Does the praise then become hyperbole? Does she really need to be compared to other Native American writers? Can't Leslie Marmon Silko simply be a WRITER? The racial and ethnic distinction strike me as a pat on the head. And what I think happens is a novel as extraordinary as this gets shelved out of view- that slim shelf high out of the way, Native American Literature when in fact it belongs front and center, on the American Literature or Classic Literature shelves, or simply, Literature. Okay, getting off my soapbox now. Let's talk about this exceptional novel.
Ceremony is a story of rejection and redemption, identity and independence, suffering and soul-searching. Tayo, a young soldier of mixed heritage, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation after World War II. He has survived the Bataan Death March through the Philippine jungle, but his emotional scars are infected with guilt and grief.
Although his uniform afforded him a grudging respect from his fellow citizens during wartime, now that he is again a civilian, he is once again demoted to "filthy Indian" status. 'First time you walked down the street in Gallup or Albuquerque, you knew. Don't lie. You knew right away. The war was over, the uniform was gone. All of a sudden that man at the store waits on you last, makes you wait until all the white people bought what they wanted.' And because he is not fully Laguna, his own people hold him at a distance with a certain hostility. Tayo is splintered and isolated, and as he moves through this post-war life, he seeks solace in a bottle, which sends him deeper into depression. Through the wisdom of the past and the mythology of his Pueblo ancestors, Tayo is finally able to integrate his many selves into a whole that both defies and accepts his conflicting identities.
There is little that is linear in Ceremony. Memory rocks back and forth, poetry and legend are woven through in rough and beautiful tapestries, vignettes of the present, even a change in point-of-view character, all keep the reader slightly off-kilter and paying close attention. The themes of cultural displacement and unity and the interconnectedness of human and nature are intense and resonate long after the final pages. Silko's writing is dense and physical, with a deep sense of place and body. Prose that is gorgeous and evocative, a style that is easy to get lost in, until you look up, bearings shaken, uncertain where you are or when. The work of reading is challenging, but the rewards are vast.
I get all tense with exasperation when I read these comments. But then Sherman goes on to say what needs to be said about this novel: "It is one of the greatest novels of any time and place." Yes. This. When we pigeon-hole writers, plugging their work into neat little categories for our convenience and understanding, we cost them potential readers. This happens to women writers all the time; there's even a genre known as women's fiction. I know. I get it. I understand the definition and how and why the sub-genre matters. There is certain value in recognizing and celebration a canon of work that can be classified according to geography, culture, era, and gender, race, ethnicity.
But what if we were to remove "Native American" from those sentences above? "Without question Leslie Marmon Silko is the most accomplished writer of her generation. . . " "Ceremony is the greatest novel in literature." Does the praise then become hyperbole? Does she really need to be compared to other Native American writers? Can't Leslie Marmon Silko simply be a WRITER? The racial and ethnic distinction strike me as a pat on the head. And what I think happens is a novel as extraordinary as this gets shelved out of view- that slim shelf high out of the way, Native American Literature when in fact it belongs front and center, on the American Literature or Classic Literature shelves, or simply, Literature. Okay, getting off my soapbox now. Let's talk about this exceptional novel.
Ceremony is a story of rejection and redemption, identity and independence, suffering and soul-searching. Tayo, a young soldier of mixed heritage, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation after World War II. He has survived the Bataan Death March through the Philippine jungle, but his emotional scars are infected with guilt and grief.
Although his uniform afforded him a grudging respect from his fellow citizens during wartime, now that he is again a civilian, he is once again demoted to "filthy Indian" status. 'First time you walked down the street in Gallup or Albuquerque, you knew. Don't lie. You knew right away. The war was over, the uniform was gone. All of a sudden that man at the store waits on you last, makes you wait until all the white people bought what they wanted.' And because he is not fully Laguna, his own people hold him at a distance with a certain hostility. Tayo is splintered and isolated, and as he moves through this post-war life, he seeks solace in a bottle, which sends him deeper into depression. Through the wisdom of the past and the mythology of his Pueblo ancestors, Tayo is finally able to integrate his many selves into a whole that both defies and accepts his conflicting identities.
There is little that is linear in Ceremony. Memory rocks back and forth, poetry and legend are woven through in rough and beautiful tapestries, vignettes of the present, even a change in point-of-view character, all keep the reader slightly off-kilter and paying close attention. The themes of cultural displacement and unity and the interconnectedness of human and nature are intense and resonate long after the final pages. Silko's writing is dense and physical, with a deep sense of place and body. Prose that is gorgeous and evocative, a style that is easy to get lost in, until you look up, bearings shaken, uncertain where you are or when. The work of reading is challenging, but the rewards are vast.
February 13, 2008
when i think about this book i picture heart cells putting their feelers out for each other, mending back together into one whole muscle capable of expansion and love... this book moved me. a friend of mine recommended this when i was trying to read another book written by a "white shaman" and having a really hard time with it. there is no comparison. this is a book about a man whose body, spirit, gut and mind are heaving with loss, and the slow careful path to being alive again. nothing about this book is easy but there is a wholeness in it that is real, it is the way the world is, a full circle, a deep pattern. i found myself so absorbed in the flow that i often found myself totally lost in terms of what had happened a few pages back, and would have to skip back and go "okay, what's going on again?" it was a good exercise for my heart and mind to work together like that. leslie marmom silko is a brilliant writer, tying together so many threads, the things that have been lost and stolen and buried and the ways that we swallow our own oppression so that we don't have to feel it. and the relief at knowing that we're not crazy, that the way it feels inside is a real thing and there is a healing available to us even with all the pain. i could relate to the main character's experience of dissolving into white smoke in the hospital and the feeling that it would be better to just return to that nothingness than to emerge into sunlight. but he didn't, he stayed, he completed the pattern and he did emerge. i feel a deep empathy for the characters (and the real people) who have to look at the land every day and know that it has been stolen. i feel grateful for this book.
January 30, 2019
I'm going to be thinking about this novel for a long time. I don't understand its power. I'm not sure how it works. The same actions and perceptions, throughout the novel, can be taken as signs of mental illness, or signs of mental clarity. Time sequence is broken over and over again in the novel, and yet the movement of the story from beginning to end feels as propulsive and climactic as any linear story. The language feels simple and declarative at first, until I realize that it's highly elevated, to the extent that it resembles poetry--and then it becomes actual poetry on the page. Characters seem simultaneously real and mythological. There are no sharp edges between the characters, either--rather than having any sense of autonomous 'self' they are defined instead by their relationship to one another. What is real and not-real is likewise not sharply defined. Dream bleeds into memory into a fictive reality and back into dream. I didn't feel this novel was written to explain something to me. I felt instead that Silko wrote exactly and uniquely to her purpose. She wrote something entirely new. I've never read anything like it.
July 15, 2016
Like the other Native pop novelists of the 60's and 70's, Silko's voice is competent when not distracted by over-reaching, and like the others, she spins a story which is vague enough to please. She also never really escapes the fact that her depiction of Native culture is thoroughly westernized.
Her monomyth is tied up with enough Native American spirituality to make it feel new and mystical (at least to outsiders); it was even criticized for giving away 'cultural secrets'. It is somewhat telling that many of these secrets have been so subjugated by colonialism that what she shares never really feels new. Though this doesn't mean that what she shared didn't still feel private to her and her tribe.
The spiritual philosophy of 'New Agism' aims to recapture a pre-Christian view. Unfortunately, the cultures held up as examples of this are already too colonized to provide much of a glimpse into that past. Often, the only references to their practices were recorded by Christian authors, and any currently living members have had to practice their traditions under that influence.
The Native Americans do have this unbroken lineage--though they are not free from the influence of the slavery, exile, and attempted conversions of the west. This sets them apart from all of the European Pagans, especially the Druids, for whom we have no good source of knowledge. Most of New Age beliefs are simply a rejection of Christianity and an embrace of something (often anything) else.
It does not help that such movements were started by egotistical self-promoters like Crowley who cobbled together whatever seemed risque without much history or philosophy to connect them. It is no less common for Native American beliefs to be overtaken in such a way and represented as more 'pure' and 'balanced' than entrenched Western traditions.
Like most of New Agism, this is bunk made up to sell people things. Native Americans were as expansive and destructive as any other peoples, and drove their share of animals to rarity and extinction. Indeed, archaeological evidence indicates that the current 'native' Americans came only as recently as several thousand years ago, and wiped out the older aborigine population that had called the Americas home for millennia.
Another archaeological excavation of some Southern Californian tribes showed that they were driving certain species of bird to extinction until the point when smallpox reached them and they themselves were wiped out.
This isn't to say the Europeans saved the animals or any such thing, merely that there is likely no people that is 'in touch with nature'. To imagine such a thing is to try to remove one of the great difficulties of philosophy and replace it with a silly romantic notion. Of course, this is the sort of thing people tend to be quite comfortable with, as philosophy is hard and pleasant ideas are easy.
I would not fall so hard upon Silko as to suggest that she is such a blind idealist; indeed, she often gives us moral ambiguity and difficulty. This pessimism should be no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the current position of Natives--poverty and hardship are understandably common themes in Native fiction.
Silko's is an early work in the movement, and like many such, it struggles with finding a voice. It is the mark of a strong author when they can conscientiously utilize and reject portions of a dominating culture in order to present a satire or redefinition of the relationship. However, Silko may still be too steeped not only in the dominant culture but in its own ideas of the 'Native American' to escape into something more profound.
It may be that this American culture is too insidious and pervasive to provide the underprivileged with sufficient space to escape it, which may be why some of the 'Magical Realism' coming out South America may work as a better cultural refutation (that is, if you can find the relics of differing belief stashed in amongst the endless Catholic fetishism overlaid on top of those traditions).
There are still important cultural differences to be found between the West and the First Nation peoples, but Silko is no anthropologist. Perhaps she has fallen to the fallacy that growing up around something makes you an expert in it. Unfortunately, our position in life often blinds us as much as it informs us. A man can drive a car without knowing how to build one.
Like Achebe, Silko's work arrives colonized and westernized, immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Western tradition. And like Achebe, its concessions to native culture are mainly the savagery and unexplained mysticism that the West already projects onto it. Here, then, is another book to make suburban housewives feel worldly and 'tolerant' without really shaking up their assumptions, and which an award committee of high status Whites can condescend to give prizes to without actually forcing them to understand or confront cultural difference.
Her monomyth is tied up with enough Native American spirituality to make it feel new and mystical (at least to outsiders); it was even criticized for giving away 'cultural secrets'. It is somewhat telling that many of these secrets have been so subjugated by colonialism that what she shares never really feels new. Though this doesn't mean that what she shared didn't still feel private to her and her tribe.
The spiritual philosophy of 'New Agism' aims to recapture a pre-Christian view. Unfortunately, the cultures held up as examples of this are already too colonized to provide much of a glimpse into that past. Often, the only references to their practices were recorded by Christian authors, and any currently living members have had to practice their traditions under that influence.
The Native Americans do have this unbroken lineage--though they are not free from the influence of the slavery, exile, and attempted conversions of the west. This sets them apart from all of the European Pagans, especially the Druids, for whom we have no good source of knowledge. Most of New Age beliefs are simply a rejection of Christianity and an embrace of something (often anything) else.
It does not help that such movements were started by egotistical self-promoters like Crowley who cobbled together whatever seemed risque without much history or philosophy to connect them. It is no less common for Native American beliefs to be overtaken in such a way and represented as more 'pure' and 'balanced' than entrenched Western traditions.
Like most of New Agism, this is bunk made up to sell people things. Native Americans were as expansive and destructive as any other peoples, and drove their share of animals to rarity and extinction. Indeed, archaeological evidence indicates that the current 'native' Americans came only as recently as several thousand years ago, and wiped out the older aborigine population that had called the Americas home for millennia.
Another archaeological excavation of some Southern Californian tribes showed that they were driving certain species of bird to extinction until the point when smallpox reached them and they themselves were wiped out.
This isn't to say the Europeans saved the animals or any such thing, merely that there is likely no people that is 'in touch with nature'. To imagine such a thing is to try to remove one of the great difficulties of philosophy and replace it with a silly romantic notion. Of course, this is the sort of thing people tend to be quite comfortable with, as philosophy is hard and pleasant ideas are easy.
I would not fall so hard upon Silko as to suggest that she is such a blind idealist; indeed, she often gives us moral ambiguity and difficulty. This pessimism should be no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the current position of Natives--poverty and hardship are understandably common themes in Native fiction.
Silko's is an early work in the movement, and like many such, it struggles with finding a voice. It is the mark of a strong author when they can conscientiously utilize and reject portions of a dominating culture in order to present a satire or redefinition of the relationship. However, Silko may still be too steeped not only in the dominant culture but in its own ideas of the 'Native American' to escape into something more profound.
It may be that this American culture is too insidious and pervasive to provide the underprivileged with sufficient space to escape it, which may be why some of the 'Magical Realism' coming out South America may work as a better cultural refutation (that is, if you can find the relics of differing belief stashed in amongst the endless Catholic fetishism overlaid on top of those traditions).
There are still important cultural differences to be found between the West and the First Nation peoples, but Silko is no anthropologist. Perhaps she has fallen to the fallacy that growing up around something makes you an expert in it. Unfortunately, our position in life often blinds us as much as it informs us. A man can drive a car without knowing how to build one.
Like Achebe, Silko's work arrives colonized and westernized, immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Western tradition. And like Achebe, its concessions to native culture are mainly the savagery and unexplained mysticism that the West already projects onto it. Here, then, is another book to make suburban housewives feel worldly and 'tolerant' without really shaking up their assumptions, and which an award committee of high status Whites can condescend to give prizes to without actually forcing them to understand or confront cultural difference.
August 21, 2023
Book Circle Reads 168
Rating: 2* of five
The Publisher Says: Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution.
Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremny that defeats the most virulent of afflictions—despair.
My Review: Pleasant phrase-making in service of mundane plot. It's by no means a bad book, in fact it's a nice enough novel and I am not sorry I read it.
If Leslie Marmon Silko was a Caucasian lady, or worse yet a Caucasian man, this would've been a midlist novel and would today, almost forty years later, be completely forgotten. Rightly so. It's a perfectly nice first novel, it's a story we all like (returning hero is so badly damaged as to be paralyzed emotionally, finds himself by reconnecting to his deep roots and confronting his past), and it's been very very well edited and honed and massaged into shape.
It isn't a classic, sorry to say in the face of so much praise for it over the years, and it's not one bit better than A Farewell to Arms (his best book) or The Naked and the Dead or The Yellow Birds or Phoenix Rising.
It's a perfectly decent novel. Except, well, except I really don't buy the dialogue, it's poetical speechifyin' and not dialogue. Pretty it is, speech it ain't:
Lovely! But that little tag is part of the writing, not a character like Uncle Josiah speaking. He's a stock character with speeches like this, The Wise Old Injun.
Well, anyway, *I* didn't like it that much. I suppose most of my impatience is with the way the novel is venerated. Sheesh.
Rating: 2* of five
The Publisher Says: Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution.
Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremny that defeats the most virulent of afflictions—despair.
My Review: Pleasant phrase-making in service of mundane plot. It's by no means a bad book, in fact it's a nice enough novel and I am not sorry I read it.
If Leslie Marmon Silko was a Caucasian lady, or worse yet a Caucasian man, this would've been a midlist novel and would today, almost forty years later, be completely forgotten. Rightly so. It's a perfectly nice first novel, it's a story we all like (returning hero is so badly damaged as to be paralyzed emotionally, finds himself by reconnecting to his deep roots and confronting his past), and it's been very very well edited and honed and massaged into shape.
It isn't a classic, sorry to say in the face of so much praise for it over the years, and it's not one bit better than A Farewell to Arms (his best book) or The Naked and the Dead or The Yellow Birds or Phoenix Rising.
It's a perfectly decent novel. Except, well, except I really don't buy the dialogue, it's poetical speechifyin' and not dialogue. Pretty it is, speech it ain't:
Josiah said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. (...) So they moved with the snow, became part of the snowstorm which drifted up against the trees and fences. And when they died, frozen solid against a fence, with the snow drifted around their heads? "Ah, Tayo," Josiah said, "the wind convinced them they were the ice.�
Lovely! But that little tag is part of the writing, not a character like Uncle Josiah speaking. He's a stock character with speeches like this, The Wise Old Injun.
Well, anyway, *I* didn't like it that much. I suppose most of my impatience is with the way the novel is venerated. Sheesh.
August 20, 2022
Silko's style is gorgeous. I particularly enjoy her experimental form, both the lack of chapter divisions (but there are sections) and the sections of poetry/chant interspersing the narrative. I didn't enjoy all aspects of the narrative, but I did enjoy the way it unfolded in an only roughly chronological shape. It's a great read, but I don't recommend going in with expectations or trying to control your reading experience. Expect to say, "This doesn't make sense," or, my favorite while I was reading this, "What's going on, now?" But don't worry, Silko always brings you back around to an understanding. Challenging narrative aside, Ceremony is a worthy read.
*edit 2022 Planning a reread in 2023
*edit 2022 Planning a reread in 2023
November 6, 2023
’s opens with Tayo, a young Native American veteran, recovering in a Veteran’s hospital. Returning from World War II where he was held at a Japanese prison camp, Tayo suffers from acute PTSD. He experiences hallucinations, flashbacks, survivor’s guilt, alienation, and despair. He weeps uncontrollably. His concept of time and location is scrambled. Events that happened in the past are experienced in the present, triggering erratic responses. Scenes of war play before his eyes. One minute he is trudging through the Philippine jungle; the next he is vomiting at a train station.
Released from the hospital, Tayo returns to the Laguna Pueblo reservation. His friends, also veterans, seek refuge for their anger and bitterness in alcohol and senseless violence. They reminisce about being in the military because it reminds them of a time when they were treated with respect. Tayo indulges them but recognizes the futility of their actions. His quest for healing takes a different path. He visits Betonie, a medicine man who performs traditional rituals and ceremonies designed to heal. Through storytelling, Betonie explains the witchery plaguing mankind and how Tayo can help to combat it. He performs a healing ceremony on Tayo and explicates the traditions of the past. As is true of much of Native American culture, every aspect of the ritual is endowed with symbolic significance.
The healing ceremony has a restorative impact on Tayo’s mind-set. He perceives the interconnectedness of all living things and recognizes boundaries of separation are artificial, man-made constructs. He observes insects, birds, animals, the colors of the sky, the flowing streams, and majestic mountains with acuity and appreciation. He connects with nature as if for the first time and locates himself within it by embracing his surroundings.
Tayo shares his story with the elders on his return home. By reconstructing the events through storytelling, he transforms the memory of the trauma, claims it, and integrates it into his life. Storytelling becomes an act of resistance and occasions healing and empowerment. Tayo establishes a safe, restorative haven for himself in which he achieves wholeness, adopts a new way of thinking, exercises agency, and strengthens his community.
The non-linear, meandering progression of the narrative replicates the scramble in Tayo’s mind during his recuperation. The shifts in time and place occur abruptly just as they do for Tayo. The present circles back to the past, each time adding detail to a flashback and developing the narrative thread until a fuller picture emerges. The diction is richly poetic. The sights, sounds, smells, textures, and colors of the natural environment are described in vivid detail and grounded in a sense of place. By threading Tayo’s story with elements of Native American folklore, mythology, songs, rituals, and ceremonies, Silko has spun a rich tapestry illuminating a path toward healing.
A challenging read but well worth the effort.
My book reviews are also available at
Released from the hospital, Tayo returns to the Laguna Pueblo reservation. His friends, also veterans, seek refuge for their anger and bitterness in alcohol and senseless violence. They reminisce about being in the military because it reminds them of a time when they were treated with respect. Tayo indulges them but recognizes the futility of their actions. His quest for healing takes a different path. He visits Betonie, a medicine man who performs traditional rituals and ceremonies designed to heal. Through storytelling, Betonie explains the witchery plaguing mankind and how Tayo can help to combat it. He performs a healing ceremony on Tayo and explicates the traditions of the past. As is true of much of Native American culture, every aspect of the ritual is endowed with symbolic significance.
The healing ceremony has a restorative impact on Tayo’s mind-set. He perceives the interconnectedness of all living things and recognizes boundaries of separation are artificial, man-made constructs. He observes insects, birds, animals, the colors of the sky, the flowing streams, and majestic mountains with acuity and appreciation. He connects with nature as if for the first time and locates himself within it by embracing his surroundings.
Tayo shares his story with the elders on his return home. By reconstructing the events through storytelling, he transforms the memory of the trauma, claims it, and integrates it into his life. Storytelling becomes an act of resistance and occasions healing and empowerment. Tayo establishes a safe, restorative haven for himself in which he achieves wholeness, adopts a new way of thinking, exercises agency, and strengthens his community.
The non-linear, meandering progression of the narrative replicates the scramble in Tayo’s mind during his recuperation. The shifts in time and place occur abruptly just as they do for Tayo. The present circles back to the past, each time adding detail to a flashback and developing the narrative thread until a fuller picture emerges. The diction is richly poetic. The sights, sounds, smells, textures, and colors of the natural environment are described in vivid detail and grounded in a sense of place. By threading Tayo’s story with elements of Native American folklore, mythology, songs, rituals, and ceremonies, Silko has spun a rich tapestry illuminating a path toward healing.
A challenging read but well worth the effort.
My book reviews are also available at
July 2, 2024
A heartbreaking modern classic on trauma, culture, and healing. Ceremony is an all-encompassing journey of redemption, a raw look into the cost of war, and the hard truths of living with trauma and grief. It is an exploration of the ways in which we try to break our own cycles of hate, pain, guilt, the paths we follow towards healing, self acceptance. It asks: what is medicine? Who determines our identity? How can we surrender to the realities of our world while finding the beauty in it? This novel is an ode to the never ending power of stories, of dreams, a testament to the fluid mirages of memory and the destructive tendencies of men. A gorgeously nuanced story within a story, filled with the magic of emotions and beliefs passed on with the times.
Read
July 29, 2019This is a first for me. In the nearly 7 years I've been on here, I've never written a review like this. I'm actually not sure how many stars, if any to give this book - not because I can't make up my mind but because this book is just so difficult to review.
Plot: Tayo is half Native American, half white. He has returned from the war and is suffering from PTSD. Tayo is an outcast because of his mixed-race heritage. His not being accepted has really taken an emotional toll on him. Since he's come back, he's struggling with PTSD, yet he yearns to learn more about his heritage and fill a void within himself. The person whom he was closest to, his Uncle Josiah is dead. This forces Tayo to mature and really understand what it means to be Native American.
What complicates this is that Tayo is very unreliable in parts. His memory jumps around, he hallucinates, his sense of time is off. Obviously, this makes it incredibly difficult to jump into the story. Much of the story is told in a non-linear fashion (side note: many Native American stories and legends are told in this fashion because the Native Americans had a very different sense of time), making this book even harder to review.
Much of the story itself is complicated by the factors mentioned above but the character of Tayo is so troubled and complex. I honestly don't think I've really encountered a character like Tayo. Though, it is worth noting that many of the side characters are very well developed so that does make it a bit easier.
Silko's writing is not for the faint of heart. She doesn't tell this in chapters - but in increments with a Native American folktale acting as a buffer of sorts. Is she a bad writer? No. Is she difficult to understand? Absolutely! I've never encountered a writer like her: someone who writes well, is difficult to decipher yet, really can't be categorized beyond that (you'd really have to read this book to know what I'm talking about). So, what can be made of this author? I'm sure many years and re-reads down the line I'll have an answer to that, but for now she's in a league of her own - that I can confidently say.
My professor told me that he read this multiple times over the years and is one of those books that absolutely must be read multiple times to be completely understood. I wouldn't say read this, but I wouldn't say don't read this. This books is an enigma in every sense of the word, so I'll leave you to make the choice whether or not to read it.
Plot: Tayo is half Native American, half white. He has returned from the war and is suffering from PTSD. Tayo is an outcast because of his mixed-race heritage. His not being accepted has really taken an emotional toll on him. Since he's come back, he's struggling with PTSD, yet he yearns to learn more about his heritage and fill a void within himself. The person whom he was closest to, his Uncle Josiah is dead. This forces Tayo to mature and really understand what it means to be Native American.
What complicates this is that Tayo is very unreliable in parts. His memory jumps around, he hallucinates, his sense of time is off. Obviously, this makes it incredibly difficult to jump into the story. Much of the story is told in a non-linear fashion (side note: many Native American stories and legends are told in this fashion because the Native Americans had a very different sense of time), making this book even harder to review.
Much of the story itself is complicated by the factors mentioned above but the character of Tayo is so troubled and complex. I honestly don't think I've really encountered a character like Tayo. Though, it is worth noting that many of the side characters are very well developed so that does make it a bit easier.
Silko's writing is not for the faint of heart. She doesn't tell this in chapters - but in increments with a Native American folktale acting as a buffer of sorts. Is she a bad writer? No. Is she difficult to understand? Absolutely! I've never encountered a writer like her: someone who writes well, is difficult to decipher yet, really can't be categorized beyond that (you'd really have to read this book to know what I'm talking about). So, what can be made of this author? I'm sure many years and re-reads down the line I'll have an answer to that, but for now she's in a league of her own - that I can confidently say.
My professor told me that he read this multiple times over the years and is one of those books that absolutely must be read multiple times to be completely understood. I wouldn't say read this, but I wouldn't say don't read this. This books is an enigma in every sense of the word, so I'll leave you to make the choice whether or not to read it.
May 1, 2018
I hate this book with everything I have. This was the absolute worst book I have EVER read. Maybe that's why I put off reviewing this book for so long. I just don't want to ever have to pick up this book again, let alone revisit it. Let's just say the day I turned this book in, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted of my shoulders. I was so sick of reading this and as soon as I had taken the final test on it, I dropped it and never finished. I can't remember hating a book this much ever - it was that bad. So I'm not going to write a fully professional review, just a bullet point list and explanation as to why. I just don't want to relive this ever again.
â—‰The non-linear plot line -
Horrid, just horrid. Maybe it's just my OCD but this made it so hard to follow and figure out.
â—‰Want to get something deep from this book? -
Have fun trying. You'll either learn about how Tayo goes to the bathroom or that white people suck. Or at least that's all the book talks about. White people did this, white people did that. White people, white people, white people, white people. Ugh.
â—‰More on that:
Want to remember the plot or what is attempting to be one? Have fun with that after the 20+ pages about cows or whatever. I'm not kidding. It's pretty much that long.
I just don't think I can talk about this anymore. I hate this book so much.
Please do yourself a huge favor and never read this.
â—‰The non-linear plot line -
Horrid, just horrid. Maybe it's just my OCD but this made it so hard to follow and figure out.
â—‰Want to get something deep from this book? -
Have fun trying. You'll either learn about how Tayo goes to the bathroom or that white people suck. Or at least that's all the book talks about. White people did this, white people did that. White people, white people, white people, white people. Ugh.
â—‰More on that:
Want to remember the plot or what is attempting to be one? Have fun with that after the 20+ pages about cows or whatever. I'm not kidding. It's pretty much that long.
I just don't think I can talk about this anymore. I hate this book so much.
Please do yourself a huge favor and never read this.
October 8, 2018
Brutal and hard reading at points, but wow the language is magnificent and the theme of healing overall and the escape from white supremacy, trauma, and capitalism is inspiring. Absolutely brilliant overall, super recommended.
May 12, 2019
I discovered Leslie Marmon Silko after first reading her wonderful memoir parts of which came back to me as I read this astonishing novel. And on finishing her memoir I learned that this is the book she is most well known for, so had to read it as soon as I could find a copy.
Having got through the slightly terrifying ending, which if I'd had time to stop and think, I'd have realised I needn't have worried as I have been reading through a ceremony, guided by Pueblo mythology, on a version of the hero's journey and our hero must therefore return awakened (preferably alive).
I felt at times like I was on the edge of understanding it, informed by the little I know of shamanic stories, rituals, signs and traditions, so many familiar references. Throughout the text a story is told, (by Thought Woman) including Reed Woman, Corn Woman, Spider Woman, the birds, insects and animals, of the blinding effect of the Ck'o'yo medicine man, who distracts the community with his magic, leading them to neglect aspects of their ritual and routine which then have consequences, and in order to resolve the problems this creates, a quest must be undertaken, an item brought back, for harmony to be restored.
The myth gets told in parts throughout the text and simultaneously we follow the life journey of Tayo, a young man, half of one, half of the other, not yet able to understand either parts of himself. And so he first follows others until he discovers his own quest, goes out on his own, meets his mentor and makes his return, facing the final challenge where he finally sees.
An that is the ceremony, seeing the stars, the one thing that remains fixed, and rewarded by the sunrise, that which frames the story, there in the beginning, seen as the offering it is at the end.
What a brilliant story and a gifted storyteller.
Having got through the slightly terrifying ending, which if I'd had time to stop and think, I'd have realised I needn't have worried as I have been reading through a ceremony, guided by Pueblo mythology, on a version of the hero's journey and our hero must therefore return awakened (preferably alive).
I felt at times like I was on the edge of understanding it, informed by the little I know of shamanic stories, rituals, signs and traditions, so many familiar references. Throughout the text a story is told, (by Thought Woman) including Reed Woman, Corn Woman, Spider Woman, the birds, insects and animals, of the blinding effect of the Ck'o'yo medicine man, who distracts the community with his magic, leading them to neglect aspects of their ritual and routine which then have consequences, and in order to resolve the problems this creates, a quest must be undertaken, an item brought back, for harmony to be restored.
What She Said:
The only cure
I know
is a good ceremony,
that's what she said.
The myth gets told in parts throughout the text and simultaneously we follow the life journey of Tayo, a young man, half of one, half of the other, not yet able to understand either parts of himself. And so he first follows others until he discovers his own quest, goes out on his own, meets his mentor and makes his return, facing the final challenge where he finally sees.
Ts'itstsi'nako, Thought-Woman,
is sitting in her room
and whatever she thinks about
appears.Ìý
An that is the ceremony, seeing the stars, the one thing that remains fixed, and rewarded by the sunrise, that which frames the story, there in the beginning, seen as the offering it is at the end.
And in the belly of this story
the rituals and the ceremony
are still growing.
What a brilliant story and a gifted storyteller.
February 22, 2017
"But the effects were hidden, evident only in the sterility of their art, which continued to feed off the vitality of other cultures, and in the dissolution of their consciousness into dead objects: the plastic and neon, the concrete and steel.Hollow and lifeless as a witchery clay figure. And what little still remained to white people was shriveled like a seed hoarded too long, shrunken past its time, and split open now, to expose a fragile, pale leaf stem, perfectly formed and dead.
3.5 stars. I won't lie, this book deserves more than 3.5 stars. Probably 5 stars. But there are a few things which did not really sit well with me. First was the way the story was told. I get the whole ceremony and storytelling theme but i found the nonlinear narrative extremely disorienting and confusing. It was almost as if the whole book and plot were a big vague referent. Also, i found it really hard to connect with the characters. I really wanted to. Like i really tried but I felt so indifferent and i partly blame the narrative.
Secondly, some parts were just too overbearingly descriptive and it made me just speed up my reading so my agony would end.
All in all, this is a really great book, and maybe in the future , i might take it up to read again (very unlikely) but slowly and comprehensively this time.
3.5 stars. I won't lie, this book deserves more than 3.5 stars. Probably 5 stars. But there are a few things which did not really sit well with me. First was the way the story was told. I get the whole ceremony and storytelling theme but i found the nonlinear narrative extremely disorienting and confusing. It was almost as if the whole book and plot were a big vague referent. Also, i found it really hard to connect with the characters. I really wanted to. Like i really tried but I felt so indifferent and i partly blame the narrative.
Secondly, some parts were just too overbearingly descriptive and it made me just speed up my reading so my agony would end.
All in all, this is a really great book, and maybe in the future , i might take it up to read again (very unlikely) but slowly and comprehensively this time.
March 5, 2008
I read this highly esteemed text as part of an 'American Ethnic Lit' course where I'm quickly learning my professor and I possess divergent literary tastes. To be sure, I'm definitely of a minority opinion, Silko's interweaving of Indian folklore into a Westernized novel receives a near-reverential treatment in the literary criticism I've skimmed. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit to a degree of standoffishness (not sure whether thats a word but accurate in any sense) from the text stemming from the moment my professor championed it as a 'great' book that we were all certain to enjoy -- after we've read 50 or so pages! I find the conflation of personal enthusiasm with universal appreciation inappropriate but unfortunately symptomatic of academia. I try to not be a prick about it, as the English faculty at my university boast PhDs while genuinely evidencing an acute appreciation for literature concordant with this lofty distinction. With respect to the accumulated wisdom of academics, my resentment stems from the method, or should I say the conventionality, to which they inevitably resign. In my humble opinion, the very nature of academia dictates its unimpressive rigidity--while we may take issue with book X or author Y, but aware of our own subjectivity a community of learners assumes the existence of a 'prevailing opinion', a notion which imperceptibly evolves into a given truth. How do you think schools comprise summer reading list, trust me I went to public high school and I doubted whether members of the administration could read much less apprise literary relevance. But hey, thats high school, we all idealize the pot-smoking, outside-the-box thinking professor from animal house (Jack Bauer's Dad!) boldly guiding us through challenging literature provoking introspection. Alas, the school system is just that, and a fundamental characteristic of any system is the capacity to predict outcomes resulting particular inputs. Fellow students are remarkably (shamefully if you want my 2 pennies) aware of this process so its unfair to solely burden career-oriented academics with the punitive damages. Either way, whether its an undergrad soliciting an asinine comment hand to boost participation points or a professor championing a work because he thinks it will score 'brownie points' amongst peers (read: get published), these facile pronouncements often reign supreme in college classroom where impressions count. Tragically, by forfeiting toothed criticism we undercut the legitimacy of the so-called 'great books' whose true worth can only be apprised by their creator. To bring this full-circle, I have yet to discover any single course embodying these ills in entirety (but shudder for those who have), but lurking beneath my natural desire for success lies a rebellious spirit willing to trade a grade point or two if my 'suggestions' are ill-received. By introducing and continuing to act as a cheerleader for Silko's text a professor effectively challenges me to see where he's wrong, as I would expect anyone to do the same. New knowledge comes from challenging old theories rather than conveniently squeezing our opinions into the provided academic framework.
I cannot apologize for my lengthy rant, since as you may surmise it colored my perception of 'Ceremony'. Reviews rehashing plot are so passé in this age of Wikipedia and amazon anyway, its pure folly to disassociate reading from your personal context anyway so why pretend otherwise? Likewise, it would be presumptuous for me to condemn Silko's text on the merits of her writing ability, her masterful presentation of the Tayo's surroundings chill the reader glimpsing Gallup and beautifully establish his spiritual re-birth towards the end as Tayo gazes towards the crest of a Mesa. I also must profess my own ignorance of Native American legends which Silko undoubtedly incorporates in Tayo's mythic struggle. All things considered I'm probably not the best candidate to construct an unvarnished opinion here. In my defense, I would argue Silko shares in the blame by alienating caucasian readers beginning with Bitoni's pivotal ceremony. Of course, white guilt is muted as the foklore presents evil as a manifestation of witchery, as my professor put it (I can show love too) whites are an affect but not a cause. Still, the sociopathic tendencies of many Native American characters beg the question whether these self-inflicted wounds can heal when they place the band-aid of victimization rather than resolve problems within their insular community. Tayo's band are war vets, however, so their displays of erratic behavior are unrepresentative and knowing the pyschological impact of PTSD their erratic behavior is excusable (save for Emo). Anyways, while I'm sure caucasians are far more flippant about their presence on the flagrantly stolen land of America, the hands of time move forward for all of us and dawdling in the past simply reinforces the negative rut where Tayo remains entrenched. Although ultimately saved through power of storytelling, the clearly anachronistic legends and Indian precepts guiding behavior seemed counter-inuitive to real progress (represented by Rocky). Probably as a result of my Western education, the medicine men and chants all seemed quite hokey but I presume we should draw a connection between the way we idealize 'true' history and the fantastical beliefs held by the Indians, perhaps a necessary invention given their ignominious treatment in America.
I'm cautious not to appear pouty in this review, I'm just a dude who loves to read so far be it from me to take a 'holier-than-thou' approach towards a critically cherished text. I will say that my unfavorable opinion stands firm, I would gladly discuss it with interested parties willing to address my reservations. Yet if a classroom is unsuitable (and it is) for this type of discussion, where can we really get down to the text's nitty gritty ? A bar? This is socially frowned upon, believe me. Book club? Waaay too domesticated for this point in my life thank you very much. Well, there's always posting rambling reviews on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ...
In finale I want to reprint some of my comments I wrote in the margins of my notebook during class discussion, bullet points hinting at the overarching concerns which led me to award 'Ceremony' with only a measly star.
"Night Swan episode--'hooker with a heart of gold' formulaic"
"jumbled narrative simply confusing"
"contrived profundity"
"not so much Indian as haphazardly following a Western structure"
"mysticism effective shawl"
"de-romanticization of hero evokes sadness cloaking vapidity"
I cannot apologize for my lengthy rant, since as you may surmise it colored my perception of 'Ceremony'. Reviews rehashing plot are so passé in this age of Wikipedia and amazon anyway, its pure folly to disassociate reading from your personal context anyway so why pretend otherwise? Likewise, it would be presumptuous for me to condemn Silko's text on the merits of her writing ability, her masterful presentation of the Tayo's surroundings chill the reader glimpsing Gallup and beautifully establish his spiritual re-birth towards the end as Tayo gazes towards the crest of a Mesa. I also must profess my own ignorance of Native American legends which Silko undoubtedly incorporates in Tayo's mythic struggle. All things considered I'm probably not the best candidate to construct an unvarnished opinion here. In my defense, I would argue Silko shares in the blame by alienating caucasian readers beginning with Bitoni's pivotal ceremony. Of course, white guilt is muted as the foklore presents evil as a manifestation of witchery, as my professor put it (I can show love too) whites are an affect but not a cause. Still, the sociopathic tendencies of many Native American characters beg the question whether these self-inflicted wounds can heal when they place the band-aid of victimization rather than resolve problems within their insular community. Tayo's band are war vets, however, so their displays of erratic behavior are unrepresentative and knowing the pyschological impact of PTSD their erratic behavior is excusable (save for Emo). Anyways, while I'm sure caucasians are far more flippant about their presence on the flagrantly stolen land of America, the hands of time move forward for all of us and dawdling in the past simply reinforces the negative rut where Tayo remains entrenched. Although ultimately saved through power of storytelling, the clearly anachronistic legends and Indian precepts guiding behavior seemed counter-inuitive to real progress (represented by Rocky). Probably as a result of my Western education, the medicine men and chants all seemed quite hokey but I presume we should draw a connection between the way we idealize 'true' history and the fantastical beliefs held by the Indians, perhaps a necessary invention given their ignominious treatment in America.
I'm cautious not to appear pouty in this review, I'm just a dude who loves to read so far be it from me to take a 'holier-than-thou' approach towards a critically cherished text. I will say that my unfavorable opinion stands firm, I would gladly discuss it with interested parties willing to address my reservations. Yet if a classroom is unsuitable (and it is) for this type of discussion, where can we really get down to the text's nitty gritty ? A bar? This is socially frowned upon, believe me. Book club? Waaay too domesticated for this point in my life thank you very much. Well, there's always posting rambling reviews on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ...
In finale I want to reprint some of my comments I wrote in the margins of my notebook during class discussion, bullet points hinting at the overarching concerns which led me to award 'Ceremony' with only a measly star.
"Night Swan episode--'hooker with a heart of gold' formulaic"
"jumbled narrative simply confusing"
"contrived profundity"
"not so much Indian as haphazardly following a Western structure"
"mysticism effective shawl"
"de-romanticization of hero evokes sadness cloaking vapidity"
April 6, 2015
I liked a lot of the themes explored in this book (the power of storytelling, race relations, how war impacts a person, how one finds healing/redemption, etc.), but it was such a fucking slog to get through. Despite discussing the above themes pretty well, the book was boring has hell. Part of the problem was that Tayo never grew on me as a character. I mean, Silko did a really great job describing his PTSD, his fucked up family situation (his mother and passive aggressive aunt, namely), and how he felt caught between two worlds due to his being only half Native American, but he didn't have much of a personality so it was super hard to care about him personally. I felt bad for him in the way you would feel bad for someone you read about in the newspaper, NOT in the way you would feel bad for a close friend going through hard times. And book characters should feel more like the latter. I should care about them personally rather than in some abstract, distanced way. It just makes it really hard to get involved with their story. Plus, there was A LOT of pointless, repetitive description. Description can be a good way to set a mood, introduce settings/characters/etc., and really immerse you in a story. I love description as a general rule, but this book falls into that WHY ARE WE STILL DESCRIBING THIS ROOM?! category. The description would just go on for far too long and then move on to another just as lengthy description. To the point I would start to zone out. That's the sign you've taken it a bit too far. Lastly, the book was all about Tayo and his journey to find peace with himself and the things he saw/did in the war, but his healing process was very...abstract. He was told he needed to complete the "Ceremony" to find peace, but it is never specified what this Ceremony actually is or how Tayo finally completes it. The whole process was just kind of baffling and abstract, which also made it hard to care. Or maybe it was explained well, but it was during the times I completely zoned out from boredom. Either way, not marks in this book's favor. This book did do some really smart things, but my not caring is a problem. For me, the whole magic of reading is when books can make me care and have real emotions about fictional characters and fucking words on a page. How cool is that? And I've read plenty of books that make me think AND care, so I know it can be done. So one that fails to make me feel much of anything is kind of missing the point, in my opinion, no matter how smart the themes are.
April 29, 2017
Tayo is a World War II veteran who suffers from what we would call PTSD. His grandmother calls in a medicine man to heal him and thus begins Tayo's journey back to himself. We spend a good portion of the book with Tayo's life before things start to improve for him so there's actually quite a bit of what he experiences that we must also experience, from his time in a mental institution to his first discussions with the medicine man, who I actually liked very much :) This portion of the book is quite confusing because the thoughts in his own head are quite confusing. Silko does this brilliantly, capturing the experience without glossing over the hard parts or romanticizing what he goes through. There are also some other men on the reservation that are WWII vets and are damaged in their own ways.
Apparently based on a series of short stories Silko was given a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a federal agency in the U.S. that is currently under threat, and this grant allowed her to write this novel. The introduction to this book is written by a very admiring Larry McMurtry, who has a great deal of respect for her writing. He also says that her next novel took her 10 years to write. I can't wait.
Also, I'm almost positive I read this in college but I remembered nothing about it along the way.
He cried at the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit together - the old stories, the war stories, their stories - to become the story that was still being told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time.
Apparently based on a series of short stories Silko was given a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a federal agency in the U.S. that is currently under threat, and this grant allowed her to write this novel. The introduction to this book is written by a very admiring Larry McMurtry, who has a great deal of respect for her writing. He also says that her next novel took her 10 years to write. I can't wait.
Also, I'm almost positive I read this in college but I remembered nothing about it along the way.
He cried at the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit together - the old stories, the war stories, their stories - to become the story that was still being told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time.
May 27, 2023
Ceremony is a book so grounded and allegorical, with such powerful symbolism embedded throughout. It is often a harrowing, tearful odyssey that forces you to open your eyes and experience life from another point of view. We have a Native American WW2 war veteran who, after coming back a 'hero' finds himself devastated at the loss he experienced, through friends, foes and even his own love of life. He is a personification of his trauma and it is so hard to read about and Silko has such a way of voice, she pulls you along to feel everything that Tayo goes through. This is a book I will read many times, with lessons on every page and a commentary on the way that societies pigeon-hole people in their self-centredness.
March 5, 2021
I was hoping to love this book and am sorry that I didn’t. In retrospect, the fact that it was apparently the first Native American novel to be accepted into the literary canon should have raised a couple of red flags for me, namely that it’s one of those books that makes more sense on a metaphorical/literary level than a literal one.
Tayo is a recently-returned WWII veteran facing a lot of loss and trauma: recent horrific war experiences, including as a POW; a rough childhood; and the deaths of the two people he was closest to. When we meet him he’s struggling to get out of bed, and the narrative shifts unpredictably between his past experiences and present-day attempts to cope. It’s easy to get engaged at this point, though the time shifts and particularly the sections referring to characters only by pronouns (making it unclear who is actually involved) can be confusing. The second half of the book follows Tayo’s spiritual awakening in the Laguna Pueblo tradition, and seems best enjoyed by Native American readers or academic types who enjoy doing research to fully understand a novel.
I didn’t love the book to the point of wanting to do much homework for it, and for a reader unfamiliar with its cultural underpinnings there are narrative decisions that don’t make much sense. Also, Tayo feels a deep connection to the land and so there is a lot of description of the landscape, weather, livestock, etc., which grounds the book in a sense of place but also makes it slow moving. The crux of the story, however, is the connection between Tayo’s sufferings and the ills of the world, from the land being stolen from his people, to the ravages of the atomic bomb:
“He wanted to yell at the medicine man, to yell the things the white doctors had yelled at him—that he had to think only of himself, and not about the others, that he would never get well as long as he used words like ‘we� and ‘us.� But he had known the answer all along . . . : medicine didn’t work that way, because the world didn’t work that way. His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything.�
Which is one of the better statements of the book’s themes, and makes more sense to me than some of the legends that seem more dumped than woven into the text. Also, this book put me in mind of other 20th century novels by female authors which on their way to achieving critical acclaim not only center a male perspective but write women in the same othering way as their male contemporaries did (and do). In particular, the two women Tayo has sex with do not come across as real people—a criticism complicated by the fact that we ultimately find out that at least one is not a real person, which in retrospect was a revelation preceded by plenty of warning signs, which I mostly overlooked because the other one was also so unbelievable. It’s interesting to see academic commentary out there praising Silko’s portrayal of women, because although this was published in 1977 when there were fewer good choices, to me there's not much to be said for books featuring beautiful, ethereal females who may have mystical powers but who from a storytelling perspective exist to provide our heroes sex and assistance and are extremely invested in them despite no prior acquaintance. The women with non-sexual roles are more believable but that’s basically just Tayo’s old grandmother, whose role is minor, and his aunt, one of the book’s least sympathetic characters. The relationships between Tayo and the men around him are generally more interesting and I realize that the portrayal of these mystical females owes something to Laguna cosmology, but I wonder if these sections would be written differently today.
Overall, there’s certainly a lot to dig into in this book that I haven’t mentioned here; those who want to read a novel to study it are in for a treat. I don’t actually think this is a bad book or regret reading it, but I do think for most readers it would work best in an academic context.
Tayo is a recently-returned WWII veteran facing a lot of loss and trauma: recent horrific war experiences, including as a POW; a rough childhood; and the deaths of the two people he was closest to. When we meet him he’s struggling to get out of bed, and the narrative shifts unpredictably between his past experiences and present-day attempts to cope. It’s easy to get engaged at this point, though the time shifts and particularly the sections referring to characters only by pronouns (making it unclear who is actually involved) can be confusing. The second half of the book follows Tayo’s spiritual awakening in the Laguna Pueblo tradition, and seems best enjoyed by Native American readers or academic types who enjoy doing research to fully understand a novel.
I didn’t love the book to the point of wanting to do much homework for it, and for a reader unfamiliar with its cultural underpinnings there are narrative decisions that don’t make much sense. Also, Tayo feels a deep connection to the land and so there is a lot of description of the landscape, weather, livestock, etc., which grounds the book in a sense of place but also makes it slow moving. The crux of the story, however, is the connection between Tayo’s sufferings and the ills of the world, from the land being stolen from his people, to the ravages of the atomic bomb:
“He wanted to yell at the medicine man, to yell the things the white doctors had yelled at him—that he had to think only of himself, and not about the others, that he would never get well as long as he used words like ‘we� and ‘us.� But he had known the answer all along . . . : medicine didn’t work that way, because the world didn’t work that way. His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything.�
Which is one of the better statements of the book’s themes, and makes more sense to me than some of the legends that seem more dumped than woven into the text. Also, this book put me in mind of other 20th century novels by female authors which on their way to achieving critical acclaim not only center a male perspective but write women in the same othering way as their male contemporaries did (and do). In particular, the two women Tayo has sex with do not come across as real people—a criticism complicated by the fact that we ultimately find out that at least one is not a real person, which in retrospect was a revelation preceded by plenty of warning signs, which I mostly overlooked because the other one was also so unbelievable. It’s interesting to see academic commentary out there praising Silko’s portrayal of women, because although this was published in 1977 when there were fewer good choices, to me there's not much to be said for books featuring beautiful, ethereal females who may have mystical powers but who from a storytelling perspective exist to provide our heroes sex and assistance and are extremely invested in them despite no prior acquaintance. The women with non-sexual roles are more believable but that’s basically just Tayo’s old grandmother, whose role is minor, and his aunt, one of the book’s least sympathetic characters. The relationships between Tayo and the men around him are generally more interesting and I realize that the portrayal of these mystical females owes something to Laguna cosmology, but I wonder if these sections would be written differently today.
Overall, there’s certainly a lot to dig into in this book that I haven’t mentioned here; those who want to read a novel to study it are in for a treat. I don’t actually think this is a bad book or regret reading it, but I do think for most readers it would work best in an academic context.
December 3, 2024
Leslie Marmon Silko's 1977 novel, Ceremony, presents the life of Tayo, a Laguna Pueblo man of mixed heritage living in New Mexico, whose life is forever altered by the moment when he followed the lead of his half-brother in casting caution to the wind, enlisting in the U.S. Army during WWII. We are told that "it didn't take Tayo long to see the accident of time & space."
The novel proceeds via flashbacks to Tayo's prisoner-of-war period in the Philippines, with that land overrun by the Japanese. In the midst of a forced march to a prison-camp, his half-brother Rocky dies & Tayo spends the rest of his life trying to reconcile himself to that death, for so much more had been expected of Rocky, who seemed to excel at everything, than of Tao.
I found the imagery in this novel both carefully rendered & extraordinary in its scope, colorful images & metaphors encapsulating the book at almost very turn, with this passage as an example:
For there was a time before the wisdom that came from schoolbooks when animals could talk to human beings & many magical things still happened. Everywhere Tayo looked, he saw a world made of stories from long ago, a world alive, always changing and moving.
For that reason, Tayo felt one "should not be so quick to call something good or bad because the balances & harmonies are always shifting and are always necessary to maintain."
Because of what is today called PTSD, Tayo is sent to a "white man's hospital", before a Native-American character manages to employ a ceremony of "tribal therapies" to exorcise his demons and Tayo "vomits out everything, all the past, all his life." At one point, Tayo is told not "to let them stop you", that is, not to allow anyone to extinguish his tribal consciousness.
There are many other things at play in Ceremony, including the presence of white ranchers who seem to resent open spaces almost as much as they do its indigenous people, cutting down most of the trees, fencing in the land, killing many of the animals in a seeming quest for dominance. Yet near the end of the novel, Tayo endeavors to plant seeds for a new landscape, one that seems both real & imaginary.
Embedded within the story are poetic inscriptions that include Laguna Pueblo chants and serve to buttress the tale with dream-like images; in fact much of Ceremony merges the real world with one that resembles a world of dreams, with the reader drifting in & out of that "reality".
I've read more than one G/R review dismissing this book because its author is only 1/4 Laguna Pueblo, the tribe whose story she has personified in her novel, Ceremony through the character of Tayo.
Leslie Marmon Silko, herself of mixed ethnicity, deeply identifies with with the people whose plight she represents in her fictional work & that is more than sufficient for me. I found Ceremony a very memorable reading experience.
*Included within my review are photos of the author. **There is an interesting profile of Leslie Marmon Silko in the April 16, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.
The novel proceeds via flashbacks to Tayo's prisoner-of-war period in the Philippines, with that land overrun by the Japanese. In the midst of a forced march to a prison-camp, his half-brother Rocky dies & Tayo spends the rest of his life trying to reconcile himself to that death, for so much more had been expected of Rocky, who seemed to excel at everything, than of Tao.
I found the imagery in this novel both carefully rendered & extraordinary in its scope, colorful images & metaphors encapsulating the book at almost very turn, with this passage as an example:
He could get no rest as long as the memories were tangled with the present, tangled up like colored threads from old Grandma's wicker sewing basket when he was a child, and he had carried them outside to play and they spilled out of his arms into the summer weeds and rolled away in all directions, and then he had hurried to pick them up before Auntie found him.Among Tayo's conflicting memories are the Albuquerque Indian School, Laguna Pueblo, being taunted for his mixed racial background & the Japanese Prison Camp. We learn how tribal memories were altered by Christianity & the enforced customs of the white world.
He could feel it inside his skull--the tension of little threads being pulled and how it was with tangled things, things tied together, and as he tried to pull them apart and rewind them into their places, they snagged and tangled even more. And so Tayo had to sweat through the nights when thoughts became entangled; he had to sweat to think of something that wasn't unraveled or tied in knots to the past--something that existed by itself, standing alone.
For there was a time before the wisdom that came from schoolbooks when animals could talk to human beings & many magical things still happened. Everywhere Tayo looked, he saw a world made of stories from long ago, a world alive, always changing and moving.
For that reason, Tayo felt one "should not be so quick to call something good or bad because the balances & harmonies are always shifting and are always necessary to maintain."
Because of what is today called PTSD, Tayo is sent to a "white man's hospital", before a Native-American character manages to employ a ceremony of "tribal therapies" to exorcise his demons and Tayo "vomits out everything, all the past, all his life." At one point, Tayo is told not "to let them stop you", that is, not to allow anyone to extinguish his tribal consciousness.
There are many other things at play in Ceremony, including the presence of white ranchers who seem to resent open spaces almost as much as they do its indigenous people, cutting down most of the trees, fencing in the land, killing many of the animals in a seeming quest for dominance. Yet near the end of the novel, Tayo endeavors to plant seeds for a new landscape, one that seems both real & imaginary.
Embedded within the story are poetic inscriptions that include Laguna Pueblo chants and serve to buttress the tale with dream-like images; in fact much of Ceremony merges the real world with one that resembles a world of dreams, with the reader drifting in & out of that "reality".
I've read more than one G/R review dismissing this book because its author is only 1/4 Laguna Pueblo, the tribe whose story she has personified in her novel, Ceremony through the character of Tayo.
Leslie Marmon Silko, herself of mixed ethnicity, deeply identifies with with the people whose plight she represents in her fictional work & that is more than sufficient for me. I found Ceremony a very memorable reading experience.
*Included within my review are photos of the author. **There is an interesting profile of Leslie Marmon Silko in the April 16, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.
October 12, 2022
One of those novels that just scream to be read over and over and over and even then they'll stare defiantly back at you as you study their words and they'll beckon you and laugh at your silly conviction that looking closer equals seeing clearer, and you'll just keep reading and reading, helplessly, because it's the only way you have of basking in their sublimity even if you're too little to understand it.
April 23, 2018
This novel is much more than a look at young Native American men shortly after the Second World War and the tension between the traditional/rural and the modern/urban among Native Americans. It is great literature, the best Native American novel I’ve read.
Silko keeps the reader from feeling in any way comfortable in the world she portrays. The past exists with the present, and there is no future to look forward to. It’s a sometimes harrowing novel, in which the reader experiences a good bit of the pain and disorientation the protagonist feels. My only criticism is that the novel would have been better if the third-person narrator had not occasionally left the protagonist to look into other characters. I found the novel’s other imperfections appropriate.
Silko keeps the reader from feeling in any way comfortable in the world she portrays. The past exists with the present, and there is no future to look forward to. It’s a sometimes harrowing novel, in which the reader experiences a good bit of the pain and disorientation the protagonist feels. My only criticism is that the novel would have been better if the third-person narrator had not occasionally left the protagonist to look into other characters. I found the novel’s other imperfections appropriate.
March 27, 2020
This is the kind of book that I think I would appreciate more if I read it in a class. I need someone to walk me through the process and the meaning.
I did finally get the significance of the title when I reached the final chapters. I read about one hundred pages and then I had to stop because I couldn't focus. I'm glad I picked it back up, because this definitely feels similar to what Tayo, the title character, is going through in the course of the novel. The emotional turmoil is real and Silko does a good job of creating a chaotic emotional tone.
The writing is solid, without a doubt, but the format for this one didn't always work for me.
I did finally get the significance of the title when I reached the final chapters. I read about one hundred pages and then I had to stop because I couldn't focus. I'm glad I picked it back up, because this definitely feels similar to what Tayo, the title character, is going through in the course of the novel. The emotional turmoil is real and Silko does a good job of creating a chaotic emotional tone.
The writing is solid, without a doubt, but the format for this one didn't always work for me.
January 8, 2018
3.5 stars
August 19, 2020
A new book for my favourites. The beautiful writing and profound insights made me feel so sad, so connected, so much grief, despair and also acceptance all at the same time
September 12, 2015
A part-Native American veteran returns from World War II (including a grueling period as a prisoner of war) and confronts PTSD, American racism, and internalized racial self-loathing. That sounds incredibly downbeat, but two things make this a rewarding, hopeful read. First, Silko's prose is beautiful, direct and vivid, with rich descriptions of light, landscape, and the tactile world. Second, Silko does a couple really powerful things with the structure of her narrative. Since the effect of her techniques is heightened by experiencing them raw, I'm putting my discussion of them behind a spoiler tag. Definitely read the book first.
March 18, 2021
This could best be described as a story of Native American healing rather than a straight novel, as well as an American tragedy. The principal character, Tayo, has returned to the Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico after serving in World War II with his cousin and being captured by the Japanese; his cousin doesn’t make it back, his uncle who replaced the father he never had, dies while he’s overseas and all of these images haunt him. When he comes back, all of the other young men from the tribe spend all their time drinking and reminiscing about their time stateside before being shipped off, a time when no one saw them as Indians but as American soldiers, and they spent all their time in drinking and sex with white women, preferably blondes. Tayo is sort of a wet blanket in all this, which doesn’t go over well; for him, the past is the past, he wants to heal himself from his emotional scars and move on. This involves facing the past, his place in the tribe and where he wants to go, as well as the role of whites, and particularly the government, in his everyday life and the life of the tribe. Part of this story is told through legends, songs and poetry, and part of it is told through his mystical journey as guided by a medicine man. Leslie Marmon Silko was part of the wave of Native American writers in the late 60’s and early 70´s, along with James Welch and N. Scott Momaday (who won the Pulitzer in 1969); this was her first novel but her talent as a Native American poet and storyteller is what really comes through. In a personal note, I traveled through this part of the country in the mid-70’s and so was really taken by her description of Gallup, New Mexico, as a place where many Native Americans go to escape the tribe but don’t get much further. One of these stories of a young woman is interwoven into the plot, as well as that of a child who may or may not be Tayo. It’s a hard, sad life and the two stories add immensely to the power of this novel, especially for those looking to explore Native American literature.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,258 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.