Scan barcode
jml4231's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
danir98's review against another edition
5.0
I actually really loved it and thought it was a compelling read. The ending left me perplexed.
mayog's review against another edition
4.0
This book took me forever to get into, because it is not told in a linear fashion. It jumps back and forth between the childhood history of the main character, Tayo, his current reality, his experiences on the Bataang death march, and the stories of the Laguna Pueblo.
Underlying the novel is a decidedly postcolonial recontextualization of the European colonialization of the Americas as a result of witchery intended on destroying all of creation; and the need for ceremonies to make ourselves whole.
Tayo, a biracial Navajo-European man, suffers from PTSD. The entire novel is the ceremony that makes him, and his world, whole again, bringing back the rains from a period of drought.
I would have preferred more forward female characters that were not mythical (presumably). Still, the novel was worth the work.
Underlying the novel is a decidedly postcolonial recontextualization of the European colonialization of the Americas as a result of witchery intended on destroying all of creation; and the need for ceremonies to make ourselves whole.
Tayo, a biracial Navajo-European man, suffers from PTSD. The entire novel is the ceremony that makes him, and his world, whole again, bringing back the rains from a period of drought.
I would have preferred more forward female characters that were not mythical (presumably). Still, the novel was worth the work.
eleanorfranzen's review against another edition
This tale of the gradual healing of a Laguna Pueblo man with severe PTSD from his time in the Pacific theatre of WWII strikes me as the kind of book it would be very easy to teach to high schoolers. That’s both not a bad thing and a somewhat telling thing. There’s a lot of symbolism (the herd of skinny spotted cows; the physiological trait of being light-eyed and what it means about a person’s ancestry; the role and function of alcohol in mediating between the novel’s characters, particularly Native men who are now-unwanted US Army veterans). There are a lot of parallels: the spiritual sickness of Tayo, our protagonist, and the spiritual sickness of the land in which he grew up, which now contains a mine for the uranium that went into the atomic bomb; the interspersed Native myths about quests to save the people from physical starvation and the efforts of Native healers Ku’oosh and Betonie to save Tayo from emotional starvation. It reminded me sometimes of a less oblique Winter in the Blood or a less self-consciously stylised Cormac McCarthy (the latter mostly in the matter-of-fact descriptions of action within landscape: “That last summer, before the war, he got up before dawn and rode the bay mare south to the spring in the narrow canyon. The water oozed out from the dark orange sandstone at the base of the long mesa. He waited for the sun to come over the hills.”—p. 86). It’s super atmospheric, even if it also seems to contain less plot than its length could hold. I’m not convinced by the ending, in which Tayo’s inaction leads to the death of another Native man at the hands of two more; the idea seems to be that by not resorting to violence, he has reached his cure or salvation, but it seems hard to reconcile to the fact that he might have been able to save a life and chose not to. I would love to read more considered criticism, especially Native criticism, of Ceremony; my edition just has a short, appreciative but not very informative foreword by Larry McMurtry.
petenewlove's review against another edition
5.0
Glad that I reread this book. It strikes me as the type of book that you get more out of with each read. Beautiful, and still, after all these years, necessary.
jazzeeazz's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
genderoutlaw's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
tcole7's review against another edition
4.0
A richly symbolic work that amplifies marginalized voices.