Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit (Paperback)

by Leslie Marmon Silko (Author) "YOU SEE THAT, after a thing is dead, it dries up..." (more)
Key Phrases: giant stone snake, nonfiction prose, Border Patrol, United States, Laguna Pueblo (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In her title essay, famed novelist, short story writer and poet Silko recalls her encounters with racism while growing up on a Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico (she is of mixed Indian, Mexican and white ancestry), then goes on to explore sexually uninhibited Laguna society before the arrival of Christian missionaries, when women took lovers as freely as men, and hunted and went to war along with the men. That provocative piece sets the tone for an outspoken collection of original essays in which Silko criticizes tribal councils as puppets of the U.S. government and blames President Clinton for what she considers racist immigration policies and for abetting the white and mestizo ruling classes of El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. She writes beautifully of Maya, Aztec and Mixtec codices, or folding books, relating their visual language to frescoes on pyramids and ancient dwellings. Her explorations of Pueblo myths and oral narratives emphasize the inextricable links between human identity, imagination and Mother Earth, a theme that resonates in an evocative essay, augmented by photographs, on the exotic rock formations around her home in Tucson's hills.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Another collection of essays, this from noted Native American novelist Silko (Almanac of the Dead, LJ 10/15/91).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684827077
• ISBN-13: 978-0684827070
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #241,528 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reveals The Landscape of Silko's Spirit, July 25, 2000

By	Mark Valentine (Port Angeles, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Silko's collection of essays present an open, expansive view of her mind and art, her background and destiny. If you've read any of her other works, reading this short book will enrich your appreciation as well as assist you on the next step of your journey. If you haven't read any Silko yet, this is a gentle way to ease you into her writings.

I read it for the background that she gives about storytelling and the narrative process; for wonderful sentences like this: "The storyteller did not just tell the stories, they would in their way act them out. The storyteller would imitate voices for vast dialogues between the various figures of the story. So we sometimes say the moment is alive again within us, within our imagination and our memory, as we listen."

I read it for the wisdom of the old ways of the old-time people; like this: "...time was round--like a tortilla; time had specific moments and specific locations, so that the beloved ancestors who had passed on were not annihilated by death, but only relocated to the place called the Cliff House. At Cliff House, people continued as they had always been, although only spirits and not living humans can travel freely over this tortilla of time. All times go on existing side by side for all eternity. No moment is lost or destroyed. There are no future times or past times; there are 'always all' [her emphasis] the times, which differ slightly, as the locations on the tortilla differ slightly. The past and the future are the same because they exist only in the present of our imaginations...." and she continues, but, isn't that powerful? As well as good writing?

I also enjoyed reading of her political activism and her position on many issues of the west and Native-Americans.

For me, highly recommended. Can't you tell?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Silko at her best and most urgent, March 16, 2000

By	Tony Christini - See all my reviews

I was extremely surprised to find this collection of essays not reviewed here. The title essay alone, "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the spirit," carries more weight than most books in total, given the revelatory descriptions of traditional Laguna Pueblo culture.

Also, Silko's essay "The Border Patrol State" and other notes on border militarism and race related discrimination are important and timely, and increasingly relevant.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, June 21, 2001

By	Edward Bosnar (Zagreb, Croatia) - See all my reviews

The quality varies in this collection of essays, newspaper/magazine commentaries and other textual fragments. Also, because they often touch on similar topics, the book is a bit repetitive at places - especially in the case of "Fences Against Freedom" and "The Border Patrol State," which contain a number of identical passages. Even so, it is in these two pieces in particular that Silko provides some of her sharpest insights and most damning criticism of official U.S. policy toward Mexico and toward its own citizens living in the Southwest. Also interesting are Silko's observations on the concepts of collective memory and consciousness contained in the complex system of oral narratives among her own Laguna Pueblo nation. Although none of the contributions in this book are in-depth studies, taken together they all offer a great deal of food for thought.