or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
Sorry!
More Buying Choices
72 used & new from $4.77

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Surrounded (A Zia Book)
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

The Surrounded (A Zia Book) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Lawrence W. Towner (Introduction)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

List Price: $21.95
Price: $18.88 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $3.07 (14%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Friday, November 13? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
24 new from $11.80 47 used from $4.77 1 collectible from $22.20

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
  Hardcover -- -- --
  Paperback $18.88 $11.80 $4.77
  Unknown Binding -- -- --

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Leslie Silko

The Surrounded (A Zia Book) + Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
  • This item: The Surrounded (A Zia Book) by D'Arcy McNickle

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Leslie Silko

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Wind from an Enemy Sky

Wind from an Enemy Sky

by D'Arcy McNickle
4.3 out of 5 stars (3)  $16.28
Lakota Woman

Lakota Woman

by Mary Crow Dog
4.5 out of 5 stars (37)  $10.07
Sundown

Sundown

by John Joseph Mathews
4.0 out of 5 stars (1)  $14.96
Winter in the Blood (Penguin Classics)

Winter in the Blood (Penguin Classics)

by James Welch
4.0 out of 5 stars (12)  $10.92
Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

Fools Crow (Contemporary American Fiction)

by James Welch
4.3 out of 5 stars (52)  $10.88
Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

As The Surrounded opens, Archilde León has just returned from the big city to his father's ranch on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. The story that unfolds captures the intense and varied conflict that already characterized reservation life in 1936, when this remarkable novel was first published.

Educated at a federal Indian boarding school, Archilde is torn not only between white and Indian cultures but also between love for his Spanish father and his Indian mother, who in her old age is rejecting white culture and religion to return to the ways of her people. Archilde's young contemporaries, meanwhile, are succumbing to the destructive influence of reservation life, growing increasingly uprooted, dissolute, and hopeless. Although Archilde plans to leave the reservation after a brief visit, his entanglements delay his departure until he faces destruction by the white man's law.

In an early review of The Surrounded, Oliver La Farge praised it as "simple, clear, direct, devoid of affectations, and fast-moving." He included it in his "small list of creditable modern novels using the first Americans as theme." Several decades later, long out of print but not forgotten, The Surrounded is still considered one of the best works of fiction by or about Native Americans.



About the Author

D'Arcy McNickle

Product Details

  • Paperback: 315 pages
  • Publisher: University of New Mexico Press (February 1, 1978)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0826304699
  • ISBN-13: 978-0826304698
  • Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #88,918 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category: (What's this?)

    #30 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Native American

More About the Author

D'Arcy McNickle
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Visit Amazon's D'Arcy McNickle Page

Look Inside This Book
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

 

Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The Surrounded: A Book for our Times, December 5, 2005
Some of the best books are those that have been retrieved from the shelf and dusted off. Such is the case with The Surrounded, first published in 1936 by the late Native American anthropologist, D'Arcy McNickle. Through this singular work of fiction McNickle attempted to generate understanding about the realities of a people and a culture disrupted and all but destroyed by assimilation into white society. The Surrounded is a measuring stick by which we can read the failures and progress of first Americans and America itself.
The Surrounded is replete with oral origin stories and native traditions juxtaposed with the poignant stories of characters representative of a culture divided and camped on the edge of extinction. Set on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, McNickle's story revolves around Archilde Leon, a young Native American educated in white ways who struggles with feelings of alienation when he encounters the unchanged dysfunction of his own family and the longing of his tribe for the old ways:

. . . it was funny to come home and sit at his mother's feast. His eyes saw the old faces, faces he had forgotten about, never thought to see again; and now to be sitting in the circle of firelight and looking at them-but it wasn't really funny, not deeply funny. The deeper feeling was the impatience, irritation, an uneasy feeling in the stomach. Why could he not
endure them for just these few hours? Why did they make him sick? (62)

Even as he eventually softens toward his own culture, Archilde is caught up and ultimately destroyed by the influences of the reservation. Archilde's story could be that of any reservation Native today.
The Surrounded portrays a Native culture encompassed and diminished by white neighbors, white law, and a white social system. Rather than blending or accepting help, however, the people cling tenaciously to tribal loyalties, even when it means their destruction. Symbolically, Archilde attempts to rescue an emaciated mare and her foal existing in a grueling land. Despite her extreme condition, the frustrated Archilde cannot reach her-she is simply too wild to understand that he is trying to help. In a desperate attempt to save the creature, he ends up driving her to her death: "The sun had set and in the evening light a rider on a strong white horse led an unprotesting skeleton on a rope. It was grotesque" (241). Prophetically, the scene depicts his own fall, and reflects the fine line that modern first Americans walk.
McNickle's writing captured the Native American heart, at once spirited and broken, and projected it down through the years to the present. As literature that imparts empathy for the dilemma of first Americans, The Surrounded is a book for our times.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts on McNickle's The Surrounded, December 12, 2005
D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded, is an excellent fictional text. Written around the time that can be referredto as "forced assimilation", "The Surrounded" deals with identity conflicts affecting Native youth. Native kids are being forced to attend boarding schools in order to assimilate to white culture. The protagonist, Archilde, is torn between pursuing life within the context of white or Native tradition. His mother is Salish and his father is an immigrant farmer from Spain. This further complicates his search for identity, because, while his mother is Salish, and does not want to assimilate, his father is Spanish, and is already an example of an assimilated minority.
The text does an excellent job of incorporating the thoughts of all the characters, and it is interesting to consider what is and is not "lost in translation" between the characters. I am not speaking merely about the translation of languages, but of the ways in which the characters perceive one another, how correct these perceptions are, and to what degree these perceptions affect their actions in the novel. Native and white cultures want Archilde to assimilate in their interest. The dialogue between language and cultures is fascinating. In the beginning, Archilde seems to be very interested in white culture, but as time rolls along, and he explores the effects of assimilation on the reservation, his viewpoint begins to shift.
Archilde's progression throughout the novel and the ways in which he learns and begins to understand those around him, is written in a poignant and emotional way that does not beg sympathy. Instead, the writing asks for understanding. The reader is asked to consider the perspective of U.S. history from the other side in a way that he/she can relate to through character usage. In this way, McNickle's work is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand a little bit better, one small piece of the complex history between colonists and Indians, as told by one who experienced it.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, November 14, 2007
By Pothron "Farfallina" (Argenteuil,France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I love Native Americans, I'm studying their history in University and this is very interesting. I have to rea this book for this class and frankly, I'm glad of it because it is very well written and amazing!
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars not bad...
As a Senior in highschool, I selected this book as an outside reading material. To my surprise, apart from the boring sections of this book there was actually some really good... Read more
Published on January 11, 2000 by Ginger

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   



So You'd Like to...


Create a guide

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.