Ceremony

1977, 1986 Penguin edition
Leslie Marmon Silko
Ceremony
Original price $3.95, purchase price unknown
Worn paperback with notes and highlighting by previous owner
D+

This book was assigned to me in college 25 years ago, and at the time I thought it was one of the better works we read, although challenging.  So I kept it, not that I would've got much back for it at the campus bookstore, not when so heavily marked up by the last student who read it.  I may've read it once since then, but it's generally a book I avoided because I just never felt up to it.

Reading it now, I was alternately bored, repulsed, and irritated, and occasionally pleased by lovely descriptions, usually of nature.  Rather than ranting on and on, like I did with another D+, The Golden Notebook, I'll just give you a brief summary of the book:

"Tayo was an illegitimate half-breed, so his aunt hated him, especially after he failed to protect her son during World War II.  So he came home from the war and drank a lot and the Bomb was tested and he was tested by adversity, and he looked for cattle and found them, and also the love of a good woman, and the traditions of his people.  And meanwhile he and all his friends pissed and barfed and fought and joked and bragged about having sex with blondes.  Oo, look at the way the sunset hits the sandstone!  All white people are evil.  The end."