Leslie Marmon Silko---American Authors Challenge September 2019

Leslie Marmon Silko was born in 1948, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up on the Laguno Pueblo reservation. Her early education was in a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, where use of native languages was forbidden. She is of mixed heritage, but considers herself a Laguna Pueblo woman. Nevertheless, because of her multi-cultural connections, she also sees herself as a member of a global community: "My old folks who raised me saw themselves as citizens of the world. We see no borders. When I write I am writing to the world, not to the United States alone." Silko has been married and divorced twice, and has two sons. She received a BA from the University of New Mexico, and briefly studied law there before concentrating on her writing.

Silko has produced novels, essays and poetry, incorporating Native American traditions and mythology into her work. She may be best known for her novel Ceremony, in which the rituals of her culture are shown to be healing and redemptive for her troubled protagonist, a World War II veteran. Its publication during the difficult period when young men were returning physically and spiritually damaged from the Vietnam war, contributed to its popularity, and the novel was widely acclaimed by critics. It has been credited with beginning a “revolution” or “renaissance” in Native American literature.

Silko’s first collection of poetry, published in 1974 and re-issued in 1993, is entitled Laguna Woman. Sadly, it is difficult to find in either edition, and very expensive. Silko is known for addressing the alienation of Native Americans in modern society, for portraying strong women and for emphasizing the importance of story-telling in preserving culture, tradition and connections. In the 1990’s, Silko issued some of her work in hand-made limited editions through her own Flood Plain Press. These, too, are nearly impossible to come by now.

She was one of the first recipients of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant”, and also received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has been honored by the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas with a lifetime achievement award, but on the other hand, she has been criticized for revealing tribal secrets in her writing, and in turn has criticized other authors (particularly Louise Erdrich and Gary Snyder) for mis-use or misrepresentation of Native American themes and culture in their work. There has also been controversy over her portrayal of homosexual characters in her lengthy novel, Almanac of the Dead. Her latest published work is a memoir released in 2010, entitled The Turquoise Ledge.

Silko has taught English and creative writing at the Navajo Community College in Arizona, the University of New Mexico and the University of Arizona, Tucson. She has no active website. Biographical information has been gleaned from multiple sources, including poets.org; poetryfoundation.org; and various academic websites featuring her work.

An interview with the author can be found here.

I think I'll be reading Storyteller (see https://www.librarything.com/work/133921): Here's the intro from the library: "Now back in print—a classic work of Native American literature by the bestselling author of Ceremony. Leslie Marmon Silko's groundbreaking book Storyteller, first published in 1981, blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional and Western literary genres, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation, power, and identity; communicates Native American notions regarding time, nature, and spirituality; and explores how stories and storytelling shape people and communities. Storyteller illustrates how one can frame collective cultural identity in contemporary literary forms, as well as illuminates the importance of myth, oral tradition, and ritual in Silko's own work. This edition includes a new introduction by Silko and previously unpublished photographs."

Doesn't that sound fun?

Karen O.

n.b. I added the real link

>2 klobrien2: It does sound good, Karen. I'd like to get my hands on that edition myself. (But your touchstone goes to a Mario Vargas Llosa book with the same title.)

CEREMONY, with the weaving of real life, poetry, and an intriguing narrative, will be my September selection.

"A collection of stories focuses on contemporary Native American concerns--white injustice, the fragmenting of the Indian community, and the loss of tribal identity--and recalls Indian legends and tribal stories."

I love reading Native American literature and poetry but surprisingly enough, I had not read Leslie Marmon Silko. Well, Linda and the AAC is giving me an opportunity to catch up with her. I started Storyteller and I am more than halfway and really enjoying it. It was first published April 1st 1980. Later in September, I will finally get to Ceremony.

>2 klobrien2: I hope you are enjoying it, Karen. I love her use of the photographs.

>6 msf59: Haven't started yet, but I just love the description of the book--kind of a hodge podge of wonderfulness, I think. I'm glad you're reading it, too!

Karen O.

Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko 4.2 stars

“The old teller has been on every journey
and she knows all the escape stories
even stories before she was born,
She keeps the stories for those who return
but more important
for the dear ones who do not come back
so that we may remember them
and cry for them with the stories.”

“You must be very quiet and listen respectfully.
Otherwise the storyteller might get upset and pout
and not say another word all night.”

Storytelling has been a hallowed tradition for Native Americans and has been that way for centuries. Silko pays tribute to that tradition, in this collection of stories, poems and striking, B & W, photographs. She also weaves in her own family's history, along with her own childhood experiences, listening to the tales told by her grandparents. This was my first time reading Silko, and it was a wonderful introduction.

**I plan on reading Ceremony in the coming weeks too.

How to Write a Poem about the Sky

You see the sky now
colder than the frozen river
so dense and white
little birds
walk across it.

You see the sky now
but the earth
is lost in it
and there are no horizons.
It is all
a single breath.

You see the sky
but the earth is called
by the same name
the moment
the wind shifts
sun splits it open
and bluish membranes
push through slits of skin.

You see the sky

-Leslie Marmon Silko

^From Storyteller

*bump* Almost finished with Ceremony. It's challenging, powerful stuff.

>10 laytonwoman3rd: Too tough to read. I tried. Several times. I read the author's updated intro in a nice, actually beautiful looking Penguin edition and then I started. And stopped. And started. And stopped. Several times over the past few weeks. I think I am just mad at the world and mad at the country and I can't read this sort of thing. I know we are fubar. Msybe we are always fubar. The World Wars. Vietnam. Saudi Arabia? Does it need a name? I seem to have a low tolerance anymore. I hope others can fight through this.

I was sure I bought one of her novels for this challenge, but it is not in my catalogue. Not sure I'll get to her this month, but keeping her on the list.

>11 RBeffa: I have finished it now, Ron. And I felt much as you did...found it hard to keep my attention on it, put it down several times. But eventually something clicked, and I became much more invested in Tayo and his struggle. I am quite pleased to have stuck with it to the end, although I cannot say I totally grasp all there is in it. There are beautiful moments, even some small measure of hope on an individual scale. But I understand being too overwhelmed to want to continue with it.

CEREMONY is powerful, memorable, and, at once a total indictment of European genocide in North America
while standing as a testimony to the resilience, faith, and courage of the Indigenous people who survived...
and still endure on "reservations."

Scientists are now determining that it would be healthier for U.S. "Indians" to be ALLOWED to hunt, fish,
gather, and preserve their own food. Is that America's latest idea of reparations?

Given many people's understanding and often agreement with the practice of some Indigenous people to offer
redemption in place of punishment, sending a man who has just murdered three people for no reason out to
California with zero consequences for his responsibility could be asking for more murders, since "Why not?"

Would Tayo have felt the same accepting ambivalence if Emo had murdered Rocky or Josiah or his beloved Grandmother?

And what was the reason for the senseless violence that resulted in the killing of his two former friends?
Alcohol and stupidity do not account for this odd revenge.

So, still some puzzling adventures and I want to return to read just the poetry.

My full review of Ceremony is now on the book page. I ended up giving it 4 stars, and I expect to re-read it one day. I will also note that I turned to some sources I have on hand to educate myself on Pueblo beliefs about the origin of the world and the forces at work in it. It helped.

ETA: "One day" turned out to be yesterday---I turned back to page 1 and started over. I am nearly 100 pages in, and it is going so much more smoothly this time. I know all the time frames and viewpoints, so it is easier to move among them. This is a book that truly rewards the extra effort it has required of me. It remains emotionally difficult.

I finished Storyteller and really enjoyed the read, although it's a difficult work to describe. I really love the mixture, the "olio"ness of the book: there are poems, pictures, stories, whatever, but all very personal and compelling. I will definitely consider other Silko works in my reading future.

Karen O.

I just got Ceremony from the library over the weekend. It's going to have to be an October book. It sounds like a challenging read, but I am looking forward to it.

Finished Ceremony, a day late, but still. I have a penchant for making reads difficult, so it wasn't easy.

We are really out of synch this year Linda. I still have Pat Barker's "The Silence of the Girls" in my top 5 reads of the year, and you had abandoned it. (It was a BIAC author). It does have a modern voice, but that is what I expected and I thought it quite a bit better than Madeline Miller's book on the subject. On the other hand you think Ceremony may be the great american novel and I had to keep myself from publicly saying bad things about it. As I said earlier i abandoned it. Sigh.

>20 RBeffa: As a good friend of mine used to say, Ron...that's why we have both chocolate and vanilla. Silko hasn't been a hit with too many readers, but at least a few more of us are aware of her now. I call that a challenge met.

>21 laytonwoman3rd: You are right on that account - I had only been peripherally aware of her and had looked forward to reading Ceremony.

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko 4.2 stars

“Everywhere he looked, he saw a world made of stories, the long ago, time immemorial stories...It was a world alive, always changing and moving; and if you knew where to look, you could see it, sometimes imperceptible, like the motion of the stars across the sky.”

“Every day they had to look at the land, from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with them; it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of the lost going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost.”

In the years, immediately after WWII, we are introduced to Tayo, a young Native American, who fought as a Marine in the Pacific and was taken prisoner by the Japanese. He returns to his Pueblo reservation, as a shattered man and the novel is about Tayo's long, slow climb out of his own wreckage, using witchcraft and other traditional means to reach this difficult goal.
This is not an easy read. Watching these characters wallow in their suffering and alcohol abuse, can be painful but the narrative brightens as Tayo pulls out of his tailspin and begins to live again and appreciate the loved ones, who have supported him, through his trials. The writing grows stronger as the novel progresses, rewarding the reader, for hanging in there. This will not be for all tastes, but I can fully understand, it's lofty position in Native American literature.

>23 msf59: I bought myself a lovely new copy of Ceremony, to replace the used one with someone else's mark-up that I read for this challenge, which was the edition you picture there, Mark. Not only do I like its cover better, but it has an interesting preface by the author, and an introduction by Larry McMurtry. I am so glad to have "discovered" this work.