Silko : writing storyteller and medicine woman / Brewster E. Fitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fitz, Brewster E. (Brewster Edmunds), 1941-

Series:

American Indian literature and critical studies series ; v. 47.

American Indian literature and critical studies series ; v. 47

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Silko, Leslie Marmon, 1948---Criticism and interpretation.

Silko, Leslie Marmon.

Silko, Leslie Marmon, 1948-.

Women and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Women and literature.

Oral tradition.

Pueblo Indians.

Intellectual life.

Criticism and interpretation.

United States.

History.

Western stories--History and criticism.

Western stories.

Pueblo Indians--Intellectual life.

West (U.S.)--In literature.

West (U.S.).

Oral tradition--West (U.S.).

Indians in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 288 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, [2004]

Summary:

Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko was raised in a culture with a strong oral tradition. She also grew up in a household where books were cherished and reading at the dinner table was not deemed rude, but instead was encouraged. In his examination of Silko's award-winning literature, Brewster E. Fitz explores the complex dynamic between the spoken story and the written word, revealing how it carries over from Silko's upbringing and plays out in her writings. Focusing on critical essays by and interviews with Silko, Fitz argues that Silko's storytelling is informed not so much by oral Laguna culture as by the Marmon family tradition in which writing was internalized long before her birth. In Silko's writings, this conflicted desire between the oral and the written evolves into a yearning for a paradoxical written orality that would conceivably function as a perfect, nonmediated language. The critical focus on orality in Native literature has kept the equally important tradition of Native writing from being honored. By offering close readings of stories from Storyteller and Ceremony, as well as passages from Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes, Fitz shows how Silko weaves the oral and the written, the spirit and the flesh, into a new vision of Pueblo culture. As Fitz asserts, Silko's written word, rather than obscuring or destroying her culture's oral tradition, serves instead to sharpen it.

Contents:

Introduction: The Writing Storyteller 3

1. Bears: Writing and Madness 31

2. Back to the Text: "Lullaby" 73

3. "The Battle of Pie Town," or Littlecock's Last Stand 92

4. Dialogic Witchery in "Tony's Story" 115

5. Coyote Loops: Leslie Marmon Silko Holds a Full House in Her Hand 132

6. Almanac of the Dead 148

7. Tolle, Lege: Glossing Glossolalia in Gardens in the Dunes 191.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [267]-272) and index.

ISBN:

0806135840

OCLC:

52979124