Ceremony

By: Leslie Marmon Silko / Narrated By: Pete Bradbury

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Wow, this book gets either all love or all haaaate…

I mean, I s’pose I can see why certain people might have a problem with Ceremony. There’s not much of a plot, it jumps wildly back and forth in time, there are stories of myth being plunked right in front of (And interspersed through) a narrative that meanders through bouts of violence, bouts of hard drinking, several forays into sexual escapades… I dunno; it’s not for everyone.

But as someone who’s dearly fond of stories of suffering and redemption, I must say that I, well, I can’t say I enJOYed the book—it’s a little too distressing for that—but I appreciated the story.

Tayo, son of a Native American mother and a white father who isn’t in the picture, comes back from WWII suffering a severe case of PTSD. The white doctors who have kept him in a hospital for quite some time would have him stay there. But he’s being received back by his aunt and grandmother, and he spends the early part of the book huddled in bed, vomiting, and on crying jags. Soon he, like other Native American veterans who fought for the country only to come back as invisible and beneath contempt, self-medicate their sorrows away through swilling alcohol, talking about all the white women they bedded, and boasting of wartime experiences. This troubles Tayo at times because, esPECially one man named Emo, the others seem to have delighted in some of the atrocities they committed against Japanese.

Tayo is torn by these because, even though the Japanese made him suffer and killed his cousin and best friend Rocky, he felt their basic humanity, to the point where he feared his uncle Josiah was amongst the dead Japanese, executed by firing squad—something he could NOT participate in, seeing his uncle’s face everywhere.

The book is very slowly paced, and most people seemed to review the first part of it well, where Tayo’s nightmare of an existence is chronicled in such painful and vivid detail, but they then appeared to dislike all that came after. What comes after is Tayo choosing to find healing through Ceremony, and it’s a long and drawn-out affair, what with healing coming only through time passing, each day being lived, and engaging in activities (Such as bringing back Josiah’s spotted cattle) that bring closure not only to Tayo, but are sure to help the entire culture and world at large.

Pete Bradbury narrates this AWEsomely, going between quiet screams to chanted rites of healing, from despair to healing, from solitude to the terror that is other people.

I think most people reeeeally hated the ending, and I feel a little bit torn also, but I can see why author Silko chose to have Tayo choosing to act by not acting during a verrrrry violent scene. Some said that he was giving up his personal agency by choosing to accept as gospel that which was foretold. I dunno; I rather saw it as Tayo seeing an evil that was inevitable and choosing not to meet violence with violence in the manner he would have in the past.

Make of it what you will, but don’t expect fireworks except for at certain scenes.

Ceremony is quiet… except for when it screams…