> I lead a monthly book group in West Hartford, Connecticut, and would
> like to assign either "Ceremony" or "Almanac of the Dead." Does anyone know
> of any articles, book reviews, or other studies of Silko and her work?
Here's my review of "Almanac of the Dead" from the archives of
rec.arts.books.reviews at gopher.colorado.edu:
ALMANAC OF THE DEAD by Leslie Marmon Silko. Penguin Books
(Contemporary American Fiction), 375 Hudson St., N.Y., NY 10014.
Map. 763 pp., $13.00 paper. 0-14-017319-6
REVIEW
"Almanac of the Dead," out in a paperback edition this month,
is one of the most complicated and depressing books I've read in
some time. I'm betting that there will be several English
Literature dissertations on its themes, and others critisizing
them. The book was written to be discussed.
The most striking facet of the book is its characters.
Beginning with elderly Native American twin sisters in Tucson (they
are compiling the almanac, the pages of which are made from horse
stomachs), she jumps to a larger world populated with druggies,
corrupt cops, crooked judges, members of the mafia, vietnam
veterans, sellers of stolen weapons, nude dancers, and American
Indians.
Most of them are misfits: having a hole in their head, heart,
or stomach. Some don't even have skin, as the captives of De
Guzman, the invader of Sonora, who made them into lampshades.
The almanac is a document full of prophesies that fortell the
European conquest of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the
American Southwest. And through it, Silko indicts the Europeans
for their hundreds of years of crimes. The prophesy also tells of
a future in which the domination ends.
The novel, in many respects, is similar to Ken Kesey's "Sailor
Song." Both are set in a near future in which the earth is an
environmental cesspool (but Silko includes the Glen Canyon Dam
blowing up), and the characters are revolutionaries or oddballs.
But while Kesey had fun with his characters, Silko writes painful
passages about lives that are heart-wrenching.
While there may be confusion about what character is doing
what, Silko's message is clear: while there are several tribes (of
Native Americans, Whites, Mexicans, and others), there is only one
world. We can't improve our lives while it suffers.