Ceremony
SynopsisPlot
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, and filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power.
Story
About this book
Ceremony follows Tayo, a young man of mixed ancestry, as he returns to the Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico after World War II. He survived captivity as a prisoner of the Japanese, but the experience has left him hollowed out, struggling to function or connect with the world around him. Back home, he finds that his community offers little comfort. Other returning veterans cope through drinking and aggression, and Tayo's own sense of estrangement only deepens.
Rather than following the same path, Tayo begins turning toward the traditions and stories of his people. His search for stability draws him into older ways of understanding illness, evil, and recovery. Leslie Marmon Silko, herself from Laguna Pueblo, weaves oral narrative forms and Pueblo myth through the novel's structure. Poetry and prose alternate, and the ancient stories told within the book run parallel to Tayo's own experiences, linking personal trauma to larger patterns.
The novel's central concern is whether inherited knowledge and ritual practice can address wounds that seem entirely modern. Silko sets this question against the specific landscape and culture of the Laguna Pueblo people in the postwar Southwest.
