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Title: GARDENS IN THE DUNES: A Novel by Leslie Silko ISBN: 0-684-86332-4 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Gardens in the Dunes is a masterpiece
Comment: This new novel by Leslie Marmon Silko is a masterpiece. Silko has written another wonderful book about Native Americans, but at the same time we can read the history of Western civilization following the story of these gardens and plants. The prose is always original, intense, lyrical.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb Victorian Odyssey of Young Native American Woman
Comment: Leslie Marmon Silko moves to the first rank of American novelists with this haunting, exquisitely written tale of a young Native American woman's odyssey through Victorian Age America and Europe. Her keen observations on 19th Century women's rights and exploitation of nature are still quite relevant today. Anyone who has enjoyed reading Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" and Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" will find this magnificient book just as poignant and mesmerizing a read. "Gardens in the Dunes" truly deserves a wider readership than it's earned so far.
On a personal note, I remain indebted to Leslie Marmon Silko for taking the time to read a science fiction novel I had written that was rich in ideas and deficient in character development. Her generous advice I wasn't able to heed, but I hope a current work which a literary agent is now reading will bear some promising fruit.
Rating: 5
Summary: Enchanted Gardens, Lush and Vivid botanical descriptions
Comment: I loved this novel because of its vivid descriptions of plant life and gardens. I live in an urban environment and flowers, trees, colors and scents are not part of my daily life. I just couldn't get enough, and Silko creates dazzling gardens everywhere throughout her book.
The first section is about a young Native American girl named Indigo, her Sister Salt and their Grandmother Fleet. They are making a life for themselves in a small town in the American Southwest around the turn of 19th century. Their greatest wish is to return to the home of their people, the Sand Lizards, and tend their desert garden in the dunes. But they are in constant fear of being caught by the white government and forced to live in schools or on reservations.
Although the beginning of the book is wonderfully descriptive, I became very engaged with the characters about 50 pages in. Indigo escapes from the Indian school and wanders into the gardens of Hattie and Edward, a wealthy married couple. Edward's monkey, Linnaeus, charms Indigo out of hiding and as the 2 get acquainted, we learn of Hattie's life.
Hattie was a scholar devoted to studying the role of women in early Christianity. However, the all male Harvard review board rejected her thesis topic and when she returns home, she meets and marries Edward, an older man with a professional interest in botany. Edward travels the world in search of plant specimens and his trip to South America to gather rare orchids is described in detail. In Brazil he was sabotaged, causing him personal injury as well as legal and financial difficulties. His leg was hurt so badly that intimacy is painful and unlikely for him, but Hattie wished to marry him regardless of their passionless future. With the intention of curing his money problems, Edward seeks out profitable citrus cuttings guarded closely by the Italians.
Hattie becomes attached to Indigo and persuades Edward to let Indigo travel with them. Edward has planned a trip to Italy and en route they visit their families in Long Island where we get a glimpse into the frivolous lives of the wealthy and visit their cultured gardens. Indigo meets other Native Americans whose land and lifestyle has been taken from them. The story turns to Sister Salt who is now living in the Southwest with other Native American Indian girls. Sister Salt has become a laundress and works in an area where the government is building a dam to divert water to California, taking more life-sustaining farmland away from the Indians. Meanwhile, Indigo, her pet parrot Rainbow, Hattie and Edward travel to England and visit enchanting gardens in Bath, then more charming gardens in Italy where Edward pursues his illegal scheme. There is an underlying theme of the deification of snakes and the worship of the Mother figure that is explored and lends an air of mysticism to the novel.
Throughout the story Indigo and Sister Salt long to be reunited with one another and we always wonder if it will happen. The story could have been edited in several places and I was upset by the violence against Hattie in the end of the novel. Could the author have still made her point without Hattie's loss being so extreme? Overall, I enjoyed this book immensely and I loved the journey it took me on. It is laced with many issues that are thought provoking and still relevant in today's world: feminism, religion, environmental awareness, class structure, oppression and beliefs about our relationships with others, the earth and our spirituality. I loved Indigo, Sister Salt and Hattie. I loved the mesmerizing Ghost Dance, Grandma Fleet's apricot tree, the lively Linneaus, the miniature farm animals, the Rainbow parrot, the eccentric Aunt Bronwyn, the allure of long distance travel by train and by boat, the snake in the water hole and most of all the lush and enchanting gardens.
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Title: YELLOW WOMAN AND A BEAUTY OF THE SPIRIT by Leslie Marmon Silko ISBN: 0684827077 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko ISBN: 0140086838 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1988 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Almanac of the Dead: A Novel by Leslie Silko, Leslie Marmon Silko ISBN: 0140173196 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch ISBN: 0385496753 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 02 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Storyteller by Leslie M. Silko ISBN: 155970005X Publisher: General Pub. Date: 28 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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