Customer Reviews

Almanac of the Dead

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In much the same way that her brilliant and beautiful 1st novel Ceremony is intended to function as a ceremony for its readers, Almanac is intended to function as a a prophetic document. Silko's text is inspired by, and meant to serve as an extension of, ancient Mayan codices--books which keep exact and detailed record of Time and attempt to prophesy based on this knowledge. Time is as much a character in this "novel" as the Land is.

Of course, Silko doesn't lay all this out for her reader, but the clues are there. The ancient notebooks that old Yoeme leaves in the hands of the twins Lecha & Zeta are directly inspired by & directly refer to the codices. Twins themselves are of mythological significance in Mayan (and many other Southwestern) cosmologies. Almost every Native American character in this novel can be read as a mythological being in disguise. They all have dual functions, especially the female characters.
Silko has said that the anger which can be so overwhelming in her text does not come from her. She sees herself as more of a conduit for a much more ancient and dangerous rage. What began as a project about the seedy underbelly of Modern Tucson quickly transphormed itself to a work of mythological scope and political indictment.

This novel is demanding, complex, and mind-blowing in scope. It is by no means a casual read, nor is it sympathetic towards its reader. It requires things of you that typical novels don't. It even demands you abandon your theory of what a novel is and does. But if you are willing to follow Silko's narrative & thematic trails, the vision she reveals for you is truly astounding.

Silko's next novel, Gardens in the Dunes, was written, she says, to reward all of us who braved and withstood the onslaught that is Almanac of the Dead. It is true that those who make it through this book develop a bit of an obsession with it. Approach this text with this in mind, and you might make it to the end. But be prepared to return immediately to the beginning--you'll never get the scope of Silko's vision in one read.

I am a Native American woman, and I found this book empowering, depressing and very raw. I can see people that I know in the characters in the book as well as having had some of the same experiences. The book gives a realistic glimpse of a small population of Native American experiences. It shows how hard our world really is, and how Natives struggle through their lives knowing that there is no alternative. This book shows the other, real side to the "noble savage" myth.

Wow, what a concept...we finally have a Native American stream-of-consciousness novel! Enough of these white-man's dreams like The Tunnel or Gravity's Rainbow, we finally are letting some other voices tell the other side of our sorry travels.

Dense. Jumpy. And a few things you might wish you never read. But most of this novel is gripping and, quite sadly so, possibly the truth. If you've read the white man's tales listed above then you really should check this trip out.

Not nearly as complex as some would like to make it. The "land" interacts with people to manifest its spirits. Those who are "cut off" from the land, become alienated and "alien." 500 years is not so long in the grand scheme of things. What is yet to come is what has been before, a people who are shaped by the spirits of the Americas.

Her novel might not make some people "happy." It certainly isn't your romantic "Indian story" (that so many people seem to want). The lives it depicts in fiction aren't far from the convoluted inner workings of some of the indigenous movements here in the Americas (the Zapatista, AIM, etc.) nor from the "cultural elite" who rot in their penthouses in the monuments of Western civilization.

It might not be an "easy" read, but it is certainly an engaging one, and a well-crafted one. Highly recommended.

This novel is one of the great novels of the 20th century--IMHO. It ranks with Joyce's "Ulysses" in dissecting a culture, this one of North America (sans Canada). There are lessons here, and the writing cuts to the bone.

Not F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, to be sure. More like an extended take by Flannery O'Connor from a Native American perspective.

To read (and re-read) "The Almanac of the Dead," "Under the Volcano," (Malcolm Lowry) "Wise Blood," (O'Connor) and "Moby Dick" (guess who) is to obtain a comprehensive view of America from the underside. And the underside, as Carl Jung was at pains to point out, is where the collective unconscious is at work.

This is a novel that's formidable at first sight but well worth reading, or at the very least skimming...

I stumbled upon this book after I was captivated by the cover as a fellow walked by holding it under his arm. I thought "Almanac of The Dead," that sounds like something I'd like to read... It was, just not the way I expected...

With more than 50 characters and a wide array of events spanning hundreds of years and several continents, the plot of this novel is less linear than an elaborate web of events that centers itself on Tucson, Arizona.

Stamped by the era it was written in and bursting at the seams with addicts, eco-warriors, the homeless, alcoholics, twisted judges, corrupt politicians, the greedy, the unscrupulous and a variety of other unsavory characters, this novel tells a story of oppression, of indigenous people and their allies, of efforts to retake their stolen land and ultimately of a form of healing not often visited by novels...

Perhaps, it's because I live in Tucson, AZ that I was able to transport myself to this parallel universe world so easily but whatever the reason it was like taking a walk through another person's dreamscape. Vast, jarring, complex, upsetting, even a bit boring at times, but always compelling.

I'll never read it again, but I'm glad I read it once.

then again- how often do you get to read about airliners being brought down with static electricity shot from a rabbit's paw? or mulling over what Marx & Engles might have been like as lovers? or what unfettered global trade is doing for all the industries of human misery- organ theft, snuff films, exile-trafficking? Silko wavers in the midst of all the confusion from time to time- but this is marathon writing and the occassional stylisitic speed wobbles are understandable & easily overlooked when so much else is whirling about in the air. Social history has never read so well, come across as so urgent and yet kept its own figures and proponents so unromanticized. Overall a powerful primer for the revolution that will not be televised (all the lights will be out after all) but might wake you up with its echoes as it rolls down your street...

I love Leslie Marmon Silko's book. I was able to relate to the story and the plot is believable. Leslie is a very talented, and worthy writer. While the book was depressing at times, it was filled with truth, righteous indignation, and deep wisdom. It is time to take our lives back from those that destroy and plunder our Earth Mother, and seek nothing more then greed for comfort.

I hope a revolution develops, like the one in Almanac of the Dead. It is time for Indigenous peoples to take back their lands and to put an end to all human suffering.

This book is a message for all peoples of the Earth. It is a change that is necessary to bring peace, and harmony to our lives. Resist!

Leslie Marmon Silko has created an intensely profound window into the deep undercurrents of American civilization. Her complex characters and revealing looks into their lives opens a porthole into the human condition that is intersting and intense all at once. The reader becomes an intregal part of the lives of the characters that she has created. The shortcomings of the characters are buried beneath reality and Silko is able to make a connection that is intriguing. Aside from the all consuming length of the book Silko manages to stay the course and complete a novel that is worthy of the time investment. I read this book as part of an essential study on modern American novels and I agree that this book has characteriscs that make it worthy of its lofty modern day status.

Silko lost control of this one. What she originally intended to be an action thriller about the Tucson-area drug trade exploded into a nearly incoherent assemblage of unresolved and mostly unconnected plots and subplots. Conspiracy theorists will love Almanac, but fans of Silko's first novel, Ceremony, will be disappointed.

Certainly worth reading, Almanac of the Dead is at its best comic and entertaining, with some well-developed and unique characters. The best are Roy Rambo, the chief of the Army of the Homeless in Tucson, whose identifying mark is his crisp, dry-cleaned green beret; La Escapia and the Police Chief in Mexico are also powerfully developed and involved in some of the more interesting scenes in the novel.

Others are disappointing: Beaufrey and Serlo, for example, both misogynist dealers in pornography, snuff films, and white supremacy, are developed into the ground. Silko repeatedly tells us what we can figure out on our own: Beaufrey and Serlo hate women, and they are racists. This tendency to tell rather than show happens repeatedly in the novel and causes it to sag.

Many readers will find the violence and sex in the novel not just gratuitous, but downright sickening. Infanticide, bestiality, torture, cannibalism, autopsies, illegal organ harvesting--it's all here, often described in minute, clinical detail. Although one could argue that Silko is making a critique of the cultures that produce these deviants, clearly her representations of perversions and death are excessive.

Readers looking for insights into problems plaguing contemporary Native Americans found in Ceremony will not like Almanac at all. It goes on and on and on, ending with the reader wondering what it all means. I'm surprised there has not been more scholarship on Almanac--it's so open-ended, one could argue and substantiate virtually anything about it.

The one plus about Almanac is its refusal to create any romantic, idealized notions of Native Americans. Definitely not recommended for those with a low tolerance bloodshed