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31st out of 41 books
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Gardens in the Dunes
A sweeping, multifaceted tale of a young Native American pulled between the cherished traditions of a heritage on the brink of extinction and an encroaching white culture, "Gardens in the Dunes" is the powerful story of one woman's quest to reconcile two worlds that are diametrically opposed.
At the center of this struggle is Indigo, who is ripped from her tribe
...morePaperback, 480 pages
Published
April 13th 2000
by Simon & Schuster
(first published 1999)
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I didn’t think I’d like this book because I had a negative impression of Silko, who can really like McArthur genius grantees? But I liked it very much. It’s set in the early 20th century on the banks of the Colorado River near Needles, and centers on two sisters of a almost extinct tribe. Silko uses a third person point of view that is quite rich in its description of the natural world around the character, as well as the character’s inner emotional state. She weaves several peoples stories, ...more
Jan
added it
It was a truly fascinating story raising lots of issues in my mind especially the harsh and inhumane treatment of Indians.
Indigo, a member of an indigenous clan called the Sand Lizard People, is aged around eleven, a very self-possessed young person in many ways. When she became separated from her family I was saddened and wondered about the chances of her ever settling again. She forms a close relationship with both Rainbow, a parrot that rides on her shoulder, and Linnaeus, a small monke...more
Indigo, a member of an indigenous clan called the Sand Lizard People, is aged around eleven, a very self-possessed young person in many ways. When she became separated from her family I was saddened and wondered about the chances of her ever settling again. She forms a close relationship with both Rainbow, a parrot that rides on her shoulder, and Linnaeus, a small monke...more
Essentially a compendium of every complaint ever lodged against "literary" fiction--boring, plotless, needlessly intellectualized/symbolic, striving for profundity--Leslie Marmon Silko's Gardens in the Dunes is far shallower than its lengthy page count suggests, and is "challenging" only in that it is an utterly joyless slog to get through.
If you're looking for long passages (read: pages upon pages) of the story told in summary rather than scene, then perhaps this...more
If you're looking for long passages (read: pages upon pages) of the story told in summary rather than scene, then perhaps this...more
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Book Club selection. I am two hundred pages into the book. It is VERY descriptive. While I enjoyed the first 68 pages of southwest desert description.....I am now skipping paragraphs as every flower in a Long Island garden is described. Because this book has been rated with four plus stars and I do want to know the fate of Indigo, the young girl, I am sticking with it. I think the book would be more enjoyable to me with half ( maybe one tenth as many descriptions.
It got worse......more
It got worse......more
This book started out slow but I was glad I stayed with it. She did a great job of combining her interest in gardens both formal and wild, women who are strong characters. Statements on Sexuality without being in your face about it. An eyeopener for someone not familiar with indian schools and reservations and how we have so mistreated native americans, the politics of water in the west was also addressed. Good book.
A tale of crossing cultures centred on Indigo, of the Sand Lizard people, stolen by the state and forced into an Indian school several states from home, and Hattie, a Dorothea Brook type character, who saves her to become her mentor. The novel takes in Brazil, the stately homes of England and New York, California and the US South West in a tale of redemption, rediscovery of the old ways, and survival (for both Indigo and Hattie) without romanticising native life. Utterly wonderful.
I found that this book was more accessible than Silko's classic, Ceremony. Also, the detailed descriptions of the Arizona desert, and Indigo and Sister Salt's relationship, were very authentic. However, I found myself getting bored midway through(ANOTHER garden description?!?), and the purpose of some of the plot elements (like Hattie's rape) were unclear. Maybe there's something deeper going on?
I finally found it! I read this book in college and have been struggling to remember the title after all these years. WONDERFUL story and so well done! I do have a biased opinion as I had a genius english professor picking apart all of beautiful meanings behind details that you may overlook when reading it solo.
I am going to read this one again as soon as I finish my current book.
I am going to read this one again as soon as I finish my current book.
A beautiful, lush book. As a playwright, I struggled with the lack of dialogue, but I came to appreciate the necessity of the narrative style to the atmosphere of the story. Despite the "heavy" tone and the sorrow that permeates the plot, this is ultimately a hopeful book and one with a message I really needed right now: the Earth, and our connection to it, is what endures.
Quite possibly the best book I have ever read. I totally connected with the main character, Indigo. I was truly sad when I finished the book because it felt like I had to let go of Indigo. I grew very attached to her and no book has ever made me feel this way about any single character.
Ms. Silko has a craft like no other when it comes to creating imagery.
Ms. Silko has a craft like no other when it comes to creating imagery.
But Silko covers ground that includes the early stages of women's rights, emerging female sexuality, the rape of the Amazon, early quack medicine, Gnostic mysteries, Celtic magic, and flower husbandry. Her palette has many colors, but everywhere the garden is a central theme.
At times a great story - boring when describing garden after garden...
At times a great story - boring when describing garden after garden...
It feels as though these authors notice a lack of Native American fiction and thus rush to fill the gap which ultimately makes the stories fall short.
This book could be 200 pages shorter and a lot more powerful. Silko has some great plot devices that she just sort of throws to the side going: "meh." Infuriating.
This book could be 200 pages shorter and a lot more powerful. Silko has some great plot devices that she just sort of throws to the side going: "meh." Infuriating.
By the time I was told that I am a feminist it was too late for me to argue. I think this book is yet another typical read one finds in college classes with titles like "Gender Studies". One does not have to be so enrolled or a woman lover to see the depth in a book like this.
Wow. I actually did not like this book but I did finish it. A very disappointing book from a writer that I think of as very good. Still tons better than that crap Hillerman used to write though.
The story offers a glimpse of the culture of a small tribe in the Southwest, showing how resources can be managed. It shows the strength of character produced by such a life.
I enjoyed this historical fiction about the lingering decline of the American indian in the west. It was very well developed and fun to read.
I love reading Silko's writing. Both Almanac of the Dead and this book have such breadth it's amazing to me.
Silko captures what it must have been like along the lower Colorado as the Conquest came to that region.
Too many threads not well tied to gether; gardens, family, native American treatment, relationships.
A great look at 19th century American Indian life and women of intelligence and curiousity during the late 1900's.
Read it back in 2000 and recommended it for our next Sadmin book club read.
My favorite Leslie Marmon Silko book (yes, even more than Almanac of the Dead!)
An amazing book with tons of detail, Gardens in the Dunes teaches the importance of acceptance and of alternatives to the stuffy Victorian culture most people know.
Started this a long time ago and never finished it. Library copy.
The ending makes it all worth while, a great native american story.
Not at all like Almanac of the Dead. I liked both a lot.
This is a book I'd like to read again--it was that good.
this is one of my favorite all-time books hands down.
I was wary of this book at first, but by the end I was hanging on every word. It was a nice bonus to read it for class and get the benefit of that discussion, but it's a great read regardless. I especially like how it doesn't modernize the characters too much -- you feel that this is really how Victorian people, even unconventional ones, would act, unlike many books/movies where entirely modern ideas about the world and our place in it are taken with the characters into period dress.
I agree with everyone else who reviewed this book. The early stuff about Indigo's idyllic life in the ancient gardens was lovely, but the tiresome descriptions and lack of real wisdom or plot trajectory made the second half pretty hard to slog through. As my mom would say, "Good, though!"
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Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon on March 5, 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 1981.
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“Fortunately, her year of graduate classes prepared her for obnoxious conduct.”
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“the material world and the flesh are only temporary - there are no sins of the flesh, spirit is everything!”
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