Storyteller (Silko book)

Last updated
Storyteller
Storyteller, Cover Art, Leslie Marmon Silko.jpg
First edition
Author Leslie Marmon Silko
Cover artistPenguin Edition: Ginger Lagato
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherSeaver Books

Arcade Publishing

Penguin Books
Publication date
1981

1989

2012
Media type Book
Pages278
Preceded by Ceremony (1977) 
Followed by Almanac of the Dead (1991) 

Storyteller is a collection of works, including photographs, poetry, and short stories by Leslie Marmon Silko. It is her second published book, following Ceremony . The work is a combination of stories and poetry inspired by traditional Laguna Pueblo storytelling. [1] Silko's writings in Storyteller are influenced by her upbringing in Laguna, New Mexico, where she was surrounded by traditional Laguna Pueblo values but was also educated in a Euro-American system. [2] Her education began with kindergarten at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school called the Laguna Day School "where the speaking of the Laguna language was punished." [2]

Contents

Silko primarily focuses on the Laguna Pueblo in Storyteller; however, she also draws influence from Inuit culture, which she experienced when she resided in Alaska's Rosewater Foundation-on-Ketchikan Creek while writing Ceremony. [3]

Many of the poems and short stories collected in Storyteller have been reprinted, and several were published previously. [4] The book itself has been published three times between 1981 and 2012.

Background

Editions and versions

Storyteller was initially published by Seaver Books in 1981. In 1989 Richard Seaver republished Storyteller under his publishing house Arcade Publishing. Seaver was also Silko's editor for Ceremony, her preceding novel published in 1977 under Viking Press. [5] Although Seaver was known for working with authors outside of the literary establishment and challenging censorship, when working on Ceremony, he attempted to edits parts that were integral to Silko's story. [5] [6] In one attempt he tried to edit the scene in which a character, Betonie, explains "it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place," a story which is also told and elaborated upon in Storyteller. [5] Seaver also initially deleted the poem that concluded Ceremony, wanting a more conventional end to the novel. [5] However, Silko did not approve those changes, and Seaver ultimately conceded. [5] In 1989 Seaver then went on to republish the even less conventional Storyteller under Arcade Publishing, which he founded with his wife in 1988. [7]

The first version of Storyteller was oriented horizontally because Silko wanted to experiment with space, especially with her poetry. Silko notes in her "Introduction" to the Penguin version of Storyteller that she carefully considered the sizing, orientation, and space on the pages of Storyteller in order to “convey time and distance and feeling of the story as it was told aloud.” [8]

Penguin Books published Storyteller’s second edition in 2012 because they consider it a classic in Native American Literature. [1] Both editions are nine by seven inches, but the second edition is oriented vertically rather than horizontally. Despite the reduction in space, Silko notes that the “wide poems” still have enough room in the most recent edition. Because of this change in orientation, Silko had to remove and replace several photos. However, she added more photos of her family to the second edition. [8]

Genre

The Penguin Random House website categorizes Storyteller as "Poetry" and "Fiction." [9] However, as a collection, it is usually described through explaining its various mediums. In N. Scott Momoday's review of Storyteller in 1981, he calls it "a rich, many-faceted book [consisting] of short stories, anecdotes, folktales, poems, historical and autobiographical notes, and photographs." [10]

Contents

Photography

In the "Introduction" to the second version of Storyteller, Silko writes that she wanted readers to have a sense about the landscape and family she came from, so she included photographs as a way to help give readers this context. [11]

Silko's father, Lee Marmon, took the majority of the photos featured in Storyteller. She writes of his contribution in her "Acknowledgements." All the photos in Storyteller are in black and white. The majority of the photos feature Silko and her family as well as the mesas and landscape surrounding her Laguna village. Within the "Acknowledgements," Silko also includes a link to the New Mexico Digital Collections, which showcases the Lee Marmon collection of photos. [2]

In "The Telling Which Continues": Oral Tradition and the Written Word in Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller," Bernard Hirsch notes how the photographs "are arranged to suggest the circular design of Storyteller, a design characteristic of oral tradition." According to Hirsh, the photographs and their arrangements help merge the "personal, historical, and cultural levels of being and experience." [12]

Poetry

The poems in Storyteller make up the bulk of the collection, greatly outnumbering the amount of short stories and photographs they accompany. Silko has commented on her poetic structure, saying, “I gave examples of what I heard as best as I could remember, and how I developed these elements into prose, into fiction, and into poetry, moving from what was basically an oral tradition into a written tradition.” [13] Silko gives readers further insight into her writing process in the untitled poem that begins “This is the way Aunt Susie told the story.” She says, “I write when I still hear / her voice as she tells the story.” [2]

In a review of Storyteller, Jim Ruppert points out that Silko uses characters and voices in poems and "creates a reality the merges with" extra-textual reality. [14]

Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico as photographed by John K. Hillers in 1879. POble Laguna.jpg
Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico as photographed by John K. Hillers in 1879.

Short stories

Since publishing Storyteller in the 1980s, Silko has primarily published novels and long works, rather than short stories or collections. "Yellow Woman" and "Lullaby," short stories published within Storyteller, have been widely anthologized. [15]

In The Old Lady Trill, the Victory Yell: The Power of Women in Native American Literature, Patrice Hollrah noted, "Silko prefers promoting a political agenda through her stories rather than any other format...." [16] In Storyteller Silko addresses social issues resulting from colonialism and colliding cultures, which can be seen in some of the works in the collection such as "Tony’s Story," which in part deals with racial discrimination against American Indian men. [17]

Silko's short stories have been compared to work by Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston. [15]

Major themes

Storytelling

In the "Introduction" to Storyteller, Silko writes about the history and importance of language and storytelling as culture and as a way to survive. She details the importance of storytelling both for all people and specifically for the Laguna people. She writes, “The entire culture, all the knowledge, experience, and beliefs, were kept in the human memory of the Pueblo in the form of narratives that were told and retold from generation to generation." [2] Silko notes that the Laguna people were all responsible for telling stories, which were “narrative accounts of incidents that the teller has experienced or heard about.” [2] She writes that she was lucky to have been born at a time when the older members of her community still would tell stories for the children. [2]

Leslie Marmon Silko in 2011 reading from her memoir The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir. Headliner Leslie Marmon Silko at the banquet reading (6233509362).jpg
Leslie Marmon Silko in 2011 reading from her memoir The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir.

Oral tradition

Critics have noted the influence of the oral tradition in Storyteller. Paul Lorenz explains in The Other Side ofLeslie Marmon Silko's "Storyteller," "For the story, the location of events in time is essentially meaningless." [4] Additionally, Bernard Hirsh notes that “The experience in living the reality revealed in her grandfather’s stories has shown her the oneness of past and present, of historical and mythic time, and of the stories, and the people.” [12]

Even though Silko is inspired by the oral tradition and storytelling, she does not consider herself a traditional storyteller. [18] She noted in an interview with Kim Barnes, "I write them down because I like seeing how I can translate this sort of feeling or flavor or sense of a story that's told and heard on to the page." [18]

Reception

When Silko first published Storyteller, she did not anticipate the book having a wide audience. It has generally been well received and is often placed on college reading lists. [4] In an interview with Kim Barnes, Silko explained that “The book is written for people who are interested in that relationship between the spoken and the written.” [18]

Storyteller was reviewed by writer N. Scott Momoday in the New York Times after the books initial release in 1981. In his review he calls the book “a melange." [10] He notes there are “moments of considerable beauty and intensity, moments in which, according to the central tenet of storytelling, the language is celebrated.” [10] He also praises Silko for her sense of humor and keen eye for where “the profound and the mundane often run together in our daily lives.” [10] He closes noting the importance of the distinction of a storyteller and writes, “If [Silko] is not yet a storyteller, she promises to become one.” [10] When Storyteller was republished in 2012 under Penguin, the New York Times placed Storyteller on its Sunday Book Review Paperback Row. [19]

When first published in 1981, it made the Los Angeles Times “Notable" books list. [20] It was also made a "Noteworthy" paperback book by Alex Raksin in the Los Angeles Times in 1987. [21] When it was reissued in 1989 through Arcade Publishing, Storyteller made the "Fiction Best Sellers" list for Southern California in the LA Times. [22]

Previously published

Some of Silko's poems and short stories in Storyteller were also published in other contexts and anthologies. The list of these publications is supplied within the Penguin version as follows:

Further reading

Storyteller has received several critical studies including:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Erdrich</span> American author (born 1954)

Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leslie Marmon Silko</span> American writer

Leslie Marmon Silko is an American writer. A Laguna Pueblo Indian woman, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.

Storyteller, story teller, or story-teller may refer to:

<i>House Made of Dawn</i> 1968 novel by N. Scott Momaday

House Made of Dawn is a 1968 novel by N. Scott Momaday, widely credited as leading the way for the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and has also been noted for its significance in Native American anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Gunn Allen</span> American poet

Paula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies of Native American women.

The Native American Renaissance is a term originally coined by critic Kenneth Lincoln in the 1983 book Native American Renaissance to categorise the significant increase in production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States in the late 1960s and onwards. A. Robert Lee and Alan Velie note that the book's title "quickly gained currency as a term to describe the efflorescence on literary works that followed the publication of N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn in 1968". Momaday's novel garnered critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luci Tapahonso</span> Navaho poet laureate

Luci Tapahonso is a Navajo poet and a lecturer in Native American Studies. She is the first poet laureate of the Navajo Nation, succeeded by Laura Tohe.

Joseph Bruchac is a writer and storyteller. He is best known for his work regarding the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a particular focus on northeastern Native American and Anglo-American lives and folklore. He has published poetry, novels, and short stories. Some of his notable works include the novel Dawn Land (1993) and its sequel, Long River (1995), both of which feature a young Abenaki man before European contact.

Adrian C. Louis was an American author. Hailing from Nevada, Louis was a member of Lovelock Paiute tribe who lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He has taught at Oglala Lakota College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fabula and syuzhet</span>

In narratology, fabula equates to the thematic content of a narrative and syuzhet equates to the chronological structure of the events within the narrative. Vladimir Propp and Viktor Shklovsky originated the terminology as part of the Russian Formalism movement in the early 20th century. Narratologists have described fabula as "the raw material of a story", and syuzhet as "the way a story is organized".

Denise Low is an American poet, honored as the second Kansas poet laureate (2007–2009). A professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, Low taught literature, creative writing and American Indian studies courses at the university. She was succeeded by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg on July 1, 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oral storytelling</span> Tradition between the storyteller and their audience

Oral storytelling is an ancient and intimate tradition between the storyteller and their audience. The storyteller and the listeners are physically close, often seated together in a circular fashion. The intimacy and connection is deepened by the flexibility of oral storytelling which allows the tale to be moulded according to the needs of the audience and the location or environment of the telling. Listeners also experience the urgency of a creative process taking place in their presence and they experience the empowerment of being a part of that creative process. Storytelling creates a personal bond with the teller and the audience.

The Native Writers' Circle of the Americas (NWCA) is an organization of Native American writers, most notable for its literary awards, presented annually to Native American writers in three categories: First Book of Poetry, First Book of Prose, and Lifetime Achievement. The awards are voted upon by Native American writers, making it one of the few literary awards presented to Native Americans by Native Americans.

<i>Ceremony</i> (Silko novel)

Ceremony is a novel by writer Leslie Marmon Silko, first published by Viking Press in March 1977. The title Ceremony is based on the oral traditions and ceremonial practices of the Navajo and Pueblo people.

Native American literature is literature, both oral and written, produced by Native Americans in what is now the United States, from pre-Columbian times through to today. Famous authors include N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Simon Ortiz, Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor, Joy Harjo, Sherman Alexie, D'Arcy McNickle, James Welch, Charles Eastman, Mourning Dove, Zitkala-Sa, John Rollin Ridge, Lynn Riggs, Diane Glancy, Hanay Geiogamah, William Apess, Samson Occom, et al. Importantly, it is not "a" literature, but a set of literatures, since every tribe has its own cultural traditions. Since the 1960s, it has also become a significant field of literary studies, with academic journals, departments, and conferences devoted to the subject.

Evelina Zuni Lucero is a Native American novelist, poet and journalist. Her novel Night Sky, Morning Star won the 1999 First Book Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

<i>Bad Indians</i>

Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir is a mixed-genre book by Deborah Miranda published by Heyday Books in 2013. The book is part tribal history of the California Mission Indians and part family memoir. It combines different media and genres including oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, poems, and personal reflection to narrate the stories of Miranda’s Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen family along with the experiences of California Indigenous people from the time of the Spanish missions into the present.

A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff is an American writer and academic, known for her work collecting and analyzing literature of Native American writers. She was instrumental in establishing the academic discipline of Native American literature. Ruoff wrote what UT Arlington professor Kenneth Roemer called the '"bible" of the field, her 1990 volume American Indian Literatures, which surveys oral and written literatures. Chippewa author and UC Berkeley professor Gerald Vizenor has commented about Ruoff's work, "She has done more for Native American literature than anyone in history... She's done it with determination and brilliance.".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susie Rayos Marmon</span> American educator, oral historian, and storyteller

Susie Rayos Marmon was an American educator, oral historian, and storyteller, and supercentenarian who was committed to the education of children at Laguna and Isleta Pueblos, New Mexico, United States. She received accolades from New Mexico Governor Garrey Carruthers, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Senator Pete Domenici, and President Ronald Reagan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Radiant Curve</span> Compilation of poems and stories written by professor Luci Tapahonso

A Radiant Curve is a compilation of poems and stories written by professor Luci Tapahonso. It is one of six collective poetry works by Tapahonso. A Radiant Curve is a work with basis in daily life, which is closely related to Luci Tapahonso's Navajo culture. These stories include memories of her family, generational teachings, and her perspective as a Navajo person living in modern times. A Radiant Curve tries to emphasize storytelling in order to speak to the commonality of the shared human experience across cultures as evidenced by the double use of both Navajo and English. The book was published in 2008 by The University of Arizona Press.

References

  1. 1 2 "Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Silko, Leslie Marmon (2012). Storyteller. New York, NY: Penguin Books. ISBN   9780143121282.
  3. ↑ Silko, Leslie Marmon (1977). Ceremony. New York, NY: Penguin Books. ISBN   9780143129462.
  4. 1 2 3 Lorenz, Paul (Winter 1991). "The Other Story of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Storyteller". South Central Review. 8 (4): 59–75. doi:10.2307/3189623. JSTOR   3189623.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Karem, Jeff (January 2001). "Keeping the Native on the Reservation: The Struggle for Leslie Marmon Silko'sCeremony". American Indian Culture and Research Journal. 25 (4): 21–34. doi:10.17953/aicr.25.4.c48143225467300t. ISSN   0161-6463.
  6. ↑ "Richard Seaver | Authors | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  7. ↑ "About Us". Arcade Publishing. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  8. 1 2 Silko, Leslie Marmon (2012). Storyteller. New York, NY: Penguin Books. pp. xxvi. ISBN   9780143121282.
  9. ↑ "Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Momaday, N. Scott (1981-05-24). "The Spirit in Words". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  11. ↑ Silko, Leslie Marmon (2012). Storyteller. New York, NY: Penguin Books. pp. xxv. ISBN   9780143121282.
  12. 1 2 Hirsch, Bernard (Winter 1988). ""The Telling Which Continues": Oral Tradition and the Written Word in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Storyteller"". American Indian Quarterly. 12 (1): 1–26. doi:10.2307/1183784. JSTOR   1183784.
  13. ↑ Lorenz, Paul (1991). "The Other Story of Leslie Marmon Silko's 'Storyteller.'". South Central Review. 8 (4): 59–75. doi:10.2307/3189623. JSTOR   3189623.
  14. ↑ Ruppert, Jim (1981). "Story Telling: The Fiction of Leslie Silko". Journal of Ethnic Studies. 9 (1): 53–58.
  15. 1 2 Graulich, Melody (2000). "Leslie Marmon Silko" . In Gelfant, Blanche (ed.). The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story. New York: Columbia University Press. pp.  515. ISBN   978-0-231-11098-3.
  16. ↑ Hollrah, Patrice (2004). The Old Lady Trill, the Victory Yell: The Power of Women in Native American Literature. Routledge.
  17. ↑ Seyersted, Per (1980). Leslie Marmon Silko. Boise State University. p. 21.
  18. 1 2 3 Silko, Leslie Marmon (2000). Conversations with Leslie Marmon Silko. University Press of Mississippi.
  19. ↑ Taylor, Ihsan (2012-09-28). "Paperback Row". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  20. ↑ "5 Jul 1981, 198 - The Los Angeles Times at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  21. ↑ "4 Jan 1987, 298 - The Los Angeles Times at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  22. ↑ "3 Dec 1989, 458 - The Los Angeles Times at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.