Almanac of the Dead
by Leslie Marmon Silko
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Book Summary Information
Author: Leslie Marmon SilkoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1992-11-01
ISBN: 0140173196
Number of pages: 768
Publisher: Penguin Books
Book Reviews of Almanac of the Dead
Book Review: As Gritty, Brutal, and Unkind as the Sonoran Desert
Summary: 5 Stars
To be frank, this is an overwhelming novel in many ways. And it certainly has its flaws. But it is a fantastic book overall, and well worth the time and effort required to read it. First, the flaws: there are, as many reviewers have pointed out, many, many characters in this novel. And, yes, some of them most certainly drop off and are never mentioned again. That is the book's biggest flaw. But the most important characters and their situations are resolved. In fact, if every character were addressed and fully resolved by the novel's end, it would have been twice as long. However, it is completely and utterly a minor flaw in light of what Silko has accomplished in this sprawling book. It is rife with violence, distrust, misogyny and racism, corruption, greed, power, snuff, and any other despicable human act that we as a race are capable of committing. And while it most certainly will be hard to swallow for some, the fact of the matter is that we, as humans, ARE quite capable of all these things. This is why literature like Almanac of the Dead not only deserves to exist but also MUST exist. We must face it. Without seeing the gritty underbelly of humanity (and we are dragged along it for nearly 800 pages here), we cannot know how to improve ourselves as a species, as a civilization, and as caretakers of planet earth. So, yes, this is also (among hundreds of other themes and topics) a book about environmentalism. But it is no sermon. It is simply a fact that the desert cannot sustain the population that resides there, and tough choices must be made. And while the acts of domestic terrorism featured near the book's end might seem over-the-top or even off-putting, it also remains a fact that history and people will right themselves or explode when things reach a tipping point. The political and environmental ramifications of the current state of Arizona (also wonderfully depicted in another brutally beautiful book titled Drowning Tucson by Aaron Michael Morales) are such that this book should be required reading for anyone who makes the choice to live in Tucson or any other desert regions in the country. Read this and then pass it on. Read this and be educated. Read this and realize that reconciliation between varying races, as well as between man and nature, are a long way off if we continue to bury our heads in the proverbial sand. Read this, and then look around and realize that we as humans are capable of unthinkable acts of cruelty to ourselves and others...but also realize that we are equally capable of unfathomable acts of kindness. This is why we live.
Summary of Almanac of the Dead
In its extraordinary range of character and culture, Almanac of the Dead is fiction on the grand scale. The acclaimed author of Ceremony has undertaken a weaving of ideas and lives, fate and history, passion and conquest in an attempt to re-create the moral history of the Americas, told from the point of view of the conquered, not the conquerors. Author readings.Historical Books
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