Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Leslie Marmon Silko (English) Pap

Description: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Larry McMurtry "Demanding but confident and beautifully written" (Boston Globe), this is the story of a young Native American returning to his reservation after surviving the horrors of captivity as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spiritOne of The Atlantics Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years More than thirty-five years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Author Biography Leslie Marmon Silko was born in 1948 to a family whose ancestry includes Mexican, Laguna Indian, and European forebears. She has said that her writing has at its core "the attempt to identify what it is to be a half-breed or mixed-blood person." As she grew up on the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, she learned the stories and culture of the Laguna people from her great-grandmother and other female relatives. After receiving her B. A. in English at the University of New Mexico, she enrolled in the University of New Mexico law school but completed only three semesters before deciding that writing and storytelling, not law, were the means by which she could best promote justice. She married John Silko in 1970. Prior to the writing of Ceremony, she published a series of short stories, including "The Man to Send Rain Clouds." She also authored a volume of poetry, Laguna Woman: Poems, for which she received the Pushcart Prize for Poetry.In 1973, Silko moved to Ketchikan, Alaska, where she wrote Ceremony. Initially conceived as a comic story abut a mothers attempts to keep her son, a war veteran, away from alcohol, Ceremony gradually transformed into an intricate meditation on mental disturbance, despair, and the power of stories and traditional culture as the keys to self-awareness and, eventually, emotional healing. Having battled depression herself while composing her novel, Silko was later to call her book "a ceremony for staying sane." Silko has followed the critical success of Ceremony with a series of other novels, including Storyteller, Almanac for the Dead, and Gardens in the Dunes. Nevertheless, it was the singular achievement of Ceremony that first secured her a place among the first rank of Native American novelists. Leslie Marmon Silko now lives on a ranch near Tucson, Arizona.Larry McMurtry is the author of twenty-one bestselling novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove and The Last Picture Show. He lives in Texas. Review Praise for Ceremony:"An exceptional novel—a cause for celebration." —The Washington Post Book World"Her assurance, her gravity, her flexibility are all wonderful gifts." —The New York Review of Books"The novel is very deliberately a ceremony in itself—demanding but confident and beautifully written." —The Boston Globe"Ceremony is the greatest novel in Native American literature. It is one of the greatest novels of any time and place. I have read this book so many times that I probably have it memorized. I teach it and I learn from it and I am continually in awe of its power, beauty, rage, vision, and violence." —Sherman Alexie"Without question Leslie Marmon Silko is the most accomplished Native American writer of her generation." —The New York Times Book Review Long Description Thirty years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. Review Quote Without question Leslie Marmon Silko is the most accomplished Native American writer of her generation. (The New York Times Book Review) Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION Tayo, the hero of Leslie Marmon Silkos groundbreaking novel Ceremony , is a half-blood Laguna Indian who returns to his reservation after surviving the Bataan Death March of World War II. As he struggles to recover the peace of mind that his experience of warfare has stolen from him, Tayo finds that memory, identity, and his relations with others all resemble the colored threads of his grandmothers sewing basket. The elements of his personality feel knotted and tangled, and his every attempt to restore them to order merely snags and twists them all the more. Tayos problems, however, extend far beyond the frustrations and alienation he encounters in trying to readjust to peacetime. Having risked his life for an America that fundamentally disowns him, Tayo must confront difficult and painful questions about the society he has been fighting for. In the pages of Ceremony , a novel that combines extraordinary lyricism with a foreboding sense of personal and national tragedy, Leslie Marmon Silko follows Tayo as he pursues a sometimes lonely and always intensely personal quest for sanity in a broken world. As Tayo searches for self-knowledge and inner peace, the reader, too, embarks on a complex emotional journey. In observing Tayos efforts to come to terms with a society that does not fully acknowledge his humanity, one may initially feel personal sympathy with his character. However, as Silkos narrative steadily metamorphoses into an indictment of social and historical forces that have led to Tayos suffering, the readers feelings are likely also to transform, as simple pity gives way to solemn contemplation of the atrocities that our native peoples have been forced to undergo. As powerful as Tayos story is, the enduring triumph of Ceremony extends far beyond its narration of events. Interwoven into the tale of Silkos hero, giving structure to the novel and added meaning to its insights, are the ancient stories of the Laguna people--stories that explore the nature of magic, that delve into the origins of evil, and that may also point a way toward purification and redemption. Silkos reader discovers that she or he is, indeed, taking part in a mystic ceremony--an initiation into a new way of thinking and feeling. Both tenderly humanistic and apocalyptically prophetic, Ceremony is truly a novel capable of changing both hearts and minds. ABOUT LESLIE MARMON SILKO Leslie Marmon Silko was born in 1948 to a family whose ancestry includes Mexican, Laguna Indian, and European forebears. She has said that her writing has at its core "the attempt to identify what it is to be a half-breed or mixed-blood person." As she grew up on the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, she learned the stories and culture of the Laguna people from her great-grandmother and other female relatives. After receiving her B. A. in English at the University of New Mexico, she enrolled in the University of New Mexico law school but completed only three semesters before deciding that writing and storytelling, not law, were the means by which she could best promote justice. She married John Silko in 1970. Prior to the writing of Ceremony , she published a series of short stories, including "The Man to Send Rain Clouds." She also authored a volume of poetry, Laguna Woman: Poems , for which she received the Pushcart Prize for Poetry. In 1973, Silko moved to Ketchikan, Alaska, where she wrote Ceremony . Initially conceived as a comic story abut a mothers attempts to keep her son, a war veteran, away from alcohol, Ceremony gradually transformed into an intricate meditation on mental disturbance, despair, and the power of stories and traditional culture as the keys to self-awareness and, eventually, emotional healing. Having battled depression herself while composing her novel, Silko was later to call her book "a ceremony for staying sane." Silko has followed the critical success of Ceremony with a series of other novels, including Storyteller, Almanac for the Dead , and Gardens in the Dunes . Nevertheless, it was the singular achievement of Ceremony that first secured her a place among the first rank of Native American novelists. Leslie Marmon Silko now lives on a ranch near Tucson, Arizona. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Readers sometimes find the reading of Ceremony a disorienting experience, in part because Silko frequently shifts scenes and time frames without warning. How does this technique help the reader to participate in Tayos thoughts, emotions, and experiences? Is its influence on the narrative consistently the same, and is it always effective? How does Tayos status as a half-breed influence his choices, his thinking, and the way he is perceived by other characters in the novel? What tensions and conflicts does his mixed ancestry contribute to Silkos story? For what reasons do Tayo and his cousin Rocky join the Army? In what ways do they and the other young Native American men benefit from their armed service, and why do these benefits evaporate once the war is over? Ceremony has been described as a story of struggle between two cosmic forces, one basically masculine and one essentially feminine. Assuming this to be true, what are the images of masculinity and femininity that Silko presents? Is this gendered analysis an adequate way of understanding the novel? Are there important ideas that it leaves out? Ceremony offers the suggestion that the European settlers of America were created by the "witchery" of a nameless witch doctor. What is the effect of this assertion? Does it make white people demonic by intimating that they are agents of evil, incapable of doing good? Or, to the contrary, does it somehow absolve them from blame because they are merely tools of the "Destroyers" and are not really responsible for their actions? How do the poems and legends that are interspersed in Silkos text influence your reading of the novel? Why do you think Silko centers Emos tale of debauchery (pp. 57-59) on the page in the same way that she centers the older, sacred stories? One aspect of white culture that Tayo especially resents is the way in which its educational practices, particularly instruction in the sciences, dismiss Native beliefs as "superstitions." What are the similarities and differences between the way Tayo feels about the treatment of his ancestral beliefs and the way in which a believer in the creation stories of Genesis might respond to Darwinism? To what extent is the novel a story of the struggle between technology and belief? Silkos use of symbolic imagery often makes use of contrasting opposites: dryness and wetness; mountains and canyons; city and country; sunrise and darkness. Choose one of these contrasts (or another one that you have observed); what values does each of the two terms represent? Do their meanings remain constant? Blindness and invisibility are recurring motifs in Ceremony . What does Silko suggest through her repeated uses of inabilities or refusals to see? How do the cattle and other animal presences in the novel function to illustrate the traditional values of the Laguna tribe and their conflicts with the principles and desires of white Americans? Tayo believes that Emo is "wrong, all wrong" in his attitudes toward Indian identity and other aspects of life. What is the nature and what are the causes of Emos wrongness? Because Silko presents a number of Native American characters with drinking problems, her novel has been accused of playing into a negative stereotype. Do you think this charge has merit? Why or why not? Silko, who has suffered from headaches, depression, and nausea similar to those that plague Tayo in her novel, has said, "I wrote this novel to save my life." How is Ceremony a novel of salvation, for Tayo, for its author, and for its readers? What are the limits to the salvation that it appears to offer? Excerpt from Book Table of Contents About the Author Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Preface Introduction Ceremony Sunrise. About the Author LESLIE MARMON SILKO was born in Albuquerque in 1948 of mixed ancestry--Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white. She grew up in the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is the author of the novel Almanac of the Dead , and her stories have appeared in many magazines and collections (including Writers of the Purple Sage ). She is the recipient of a five-year MacArthur Foundation grant. LARRY McMURTRY is the author of twenty-eight novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove . His other works include two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, including the coauthorship of Brokeback Mountain , for which he received an Academy Award. He lives in Archer City, Texas. PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press 1977 Published by New American Library 1978 Published in Penguin Books 1986 This edition with a preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry published 2006 Copyright Details ISBN0143104918 Author Larry McMurtry Short Title CEREMONY Language English ISBN-10 0143104918 ISBN-13 9780143104919 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Audience Age 14-18 Residence Tucson, AZ, US Birth 1948 Series Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Imprint Penguin Classics DOI 10.1604/9780143104919 Subtitle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2006-12-26 NZ Release Date 2006-12-26 US Release Date 2006-12-26 UK Release Date 2006-12-26 Pages 272 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Year 2006 Publication Date 2006-12-26 Replaces 9780140086836 Audience General Illustrations 1 B&W ILLUSTRATION We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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