From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

Almanac of the Dead

Leslie Marmon Silko

Start date: September 1, 2015

Finish date: October 31, 2015

Discussion: Door Stops

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Door Stops

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What Members Thought

Aug 25, 2015 El rated it it was amazing

Shelves: big-effing-books, 20th-centurylit-late, fantasy, library-borrow, native-american, anarchism-revolutions

Fucking wow.

This is not a pleasure cruise of a read. It's got a lot of things that would be a huge turn-off to many readers - drugs, violent sex, horrible things done to children and animals, disgusting characters of all sorts (racist, homophobic, sexist, abusive, drug-addled and/or drunk, pedophiles, scumbags), and more than can even be discussed on a surface level.

It's rough.

I've read complaints that Silko is an angry, bitter woman. So? Why can't a woman of color be angry or bitter? Does it ma Fucking wow.

This is not a pleasure cruise of a read. It's got a lot of things that would be a huge turn-off to many readers - drugs, violent sex, horrible things done to children and animals, disgusting characters of all sorts (racist, homophobic, sexist, abusive, drug-addled and/or drunk, pedophiles, scumbags), and more than can even be discussed on a surface level.

It's rough.

I've read complaints that Silko is an angry, bitter woman. So? Why can't a woman of color be angry or bitter? Does it make her message any less important? Not in my mind. She claims this story started out as a sort of drug-trafficking thriller, and it turned into this... 700+ behemoth filled with all this other stuff that flat-out hurts to read.

This isn't a book that should be enjoyed, per se. It's not a pleasurable read, but I feel it's prophetic and important. It goes deeper than the flawed characters, or the "flat" writing of Silko that I have seen complaints of - this is 500 years of history about a land (and a culture and a people) that doesn't belong to me originally.

There are many layers of story and history here, and they are woven together like a tapestry. It is non-linear, which can make it a frustrating read, but also requires a bit of responsibility from the reader. The Almanac of the Dead itself is seemingly what holds the story together, though I will admit that it wasn't always as central to the story as I would have liked. This is such an expansive story that I cannot deny that Silko didn't lose some grasp on some of the threads, but I feel the end result is still more satisfying than any other writer would have been able to accomplish. 700+ pages, something like 70 characters, 500 years of history. There is a mystery, there is some magical realism (of sorts), there is history. (Did I mention there is history? Because there is history).

All of the destruction and grittiness in this story is intentional. I feel the characters mirror what was done to the land, to the Native Americans, 500 years ago. While the story is about rising up and taking back what was taken from them, many of these characters seem to be doing the exact opposite of that. Which makes sense, really, if you consider how people (especially minorities) are beaten down until they have no memory of how they should be treated. These characters personify that treatment.

I don't feel that ever saying a story based on such a horrific past is too violent is ever a good enough excuse.

Word by word, the stories of suffering, injury, and death had transformed the present moment, seizing listeners' or readers' imaginations so that for an instant, they were present and felt the suffering of sisters and brothers long past.

...more

27 likes · Like · see review

Sep 01, 2018 Lark Benobi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: native-american, words-without-borders, a-new-way-of-reading, 2015

As damning and excoriating as ever, the second time through. Fearless. Unassailable. Meant to be hated, in a way. I hated it more and enjoyed it less this time through, knowing where I was going, and that really seemed to be the point of it.

First review:

This novel is exorbitantly, lavishly violent. It's a sordid kind of violence, violence done to and by characters with a pathological level of cruelty. It was impossible to not feel assaulted by it as I read. It jolts me right out of my complacenc ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

May 17, 2015 Petra rated it really liked it

Epic. Silko nailed the epicness of this story. She has tried to tell 500 years of North American Native history, since the coming of the white Europeans, with the outcome of anger and hostility, the degradation and defeat of the people but not the defeat of the spirit. The spirit remains strong.

This isn't an easy read at times. It's gritty, detailed, hard, cruel and at times stomach-turning. But it tells a sweeping, deep story of colonization, exploitation, anger, distress, hopelessness, corrup Epic. Silko nailed the epicness of this story. She has tried to tell 500 years of North American Native history, since the coming of the white Europeans, with the outcome of anger and hostility, the degradation and defeat of the people but not the defeat of the spirit. The spirit remains strong.

This isn't an easy read at times. It's gritty, detailed, hard, cruel and at times stomach-turning. But it tells a sweeping, deep story of colonization, exploitation, anger, distress, hopelessness, corruption (so much corruption in so many different ways) in a way that is, while not pleasant, somehow disturbingly real. This is Life as we don't see it because this Life takes place in the dark corners. It's sad and scary to know that this life exists somewhere. One wants to take all this nastiness away from the people and let them see the brighter side of life.

Then, intertwined in all this grittiness, is the Earth and our connectedness/disconnectedness with it. The Earth can be separated from us but we can not be separated from the Earth. Connectivity. No one stands alone. One person's actions will touch us all in some way.

The people in this book (and there are many) are interesting and well portrayed & written but, for the most part, not likable. These are hurt, angry, greedy and/or downtrodden people with axes to grind and faults that put them outside of our normal vision. They are the addicts, the homeless, the perpetrators. There are few redeeming values. Yet they are real, have power, influence the events of their, and therefore our, world.

It's hard to describe a book like this. It's wonderfully told, hard to read (stomach) at times, gritty, hopeful, depressing, horrifying. There's an element of magical realism, giving the story some haunting and mystical sides. It tells the story of connectivity to each other and our world. It tells its story from the dark side; a different perspective than we're used to reading or hearing about.

Throughout this read I was reminded of Roberto Bolano's 2666. It has the same concept of grittiness and showing a dark side of the world that we don't see and yet exists and influences us. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

May 03, 2015 Karen Michele Burns rated it really liked it

Shelves: social-justice-read

I've just finished and it's a 4 star book for me. It was dark and not what I would call enjoyable, but I found it to have interesting messages. Perhaps my earlier years growing up in Colorado and visiting a lot of Native American communities including all 3 Hopi Mesas (a friend was a missionary, so we were allowed as his guests) that were so impoverished and disenfranchised from "The American Dream" had some effect on my feelings about the book --- I'm not really sure. I think Silko is writing r ...more

1 like · Like · see review