Monday, November 26, 2007

if anyone is clicking here, I feel sorry for you
Ceremony - Knots vs. Patterns
report on a novel by: Leslie Marmon Silko
By: Conrad Collins

Ceremony tells a story of Tayo's journey in finding patterns in what appear to be knots of information as portrayed by Silko's style of writing throughout the book.

Throughout Ceremony, there are constant changes both in the way that the story is told and Tayo's perception of his own mind and his memories. These changes are made to coincide with one another as made evident by the style of writing being choppy and full of time skips during periods of confusion for Tayo, while more concise and straightforward as Tayo gains further grasp of his thoughts. In the beginning of the book, Tayo's mind is an absolute mess and his thoughts seem to be entirely disjointed. The narrative reflects this in that the very first sequence of paragraphs jumps all over time and memories, barely remaining coherent while spewing seemingly random information in regards to Tayo's memories.

In the beginning, and up through the first 100 pages or so the narrative continues in what could almost be seen as brief vignettes telling random pieces of Tayo's story that only seem to pile on top of each other in a growing heap of unnecessary baggage weighing his mind to the ground. None of the information promotes an over-arching story or goal or antagonist, but a tangled knot of emotions and memories with little visible meaning.

As the story continues, though, there become less jaunts through time and randomness while Tayo's journey begins to take shape. This transformation begins most blatantly in Tayo's meeting old Betonie. During this portion of the tale, the writing continues to be a little disjointed, and still lurches along with bits of information, but remains in a consistent chronological motion. This matches Tayo's mixed feelngs toward his situation with Betonie, wondering if the man is trustworthy and going to set him on his path, or a crazy old psychopath.

At this point in the story, we also begin to see a dramatic increase in frequency and length of the 'stories' or poetic narration that are dispersed throughout the novel. In Ceremony, greater understanding of life and the world is represented through stories, which are said to be the most important things in life. The stories represent understanding, and thus as Tayo begins to understand the world around him, the stories become more prominent and even more coherent in relation.

From this point forward in the book, Tayo's memories are not only fewer, but wen they are shown, they are often lengthier. As well, they become more coherent and rather than seemingly random bits of information, their purpose is explained more clearly as they are introduced. This is done so that the reader can experience the journey in the same way Tayo does - at first seeing everything as mindless knots and then slowly recognizing the connections between stories, memories, and happenings as a definite pattern.

In addition to coherence, Tayo's memories become more fond and far less dark. Whereas in the beginning, he remembers only things such as the war, the death of his close family members, and tragic events with Emo; later in the story he remembers fond times with his uncle and other events that show him connections between the events in his life. Steadily, his hope and understanding as well as the readers come into focus.

There are moments in the story where Tayo falters, and the narration reflects these times as well. When Tayo finds himself several times riding around with Harley and Leroy having fun, he begins to doubt his journey and regress, and during these times the narration also becomes foggier, jaunting a little bit as it did in the Betonie scene, but in the wake of these events he only becomes more assure of himself and as he reaches the peak of awareness, the narration becomes full-force straightforward and all of the events begin to take shape as a coherent whole.

There is a single definitive moment in which Tayo's awareness comes full-circle and the final loose ends of Tayo's thought as well as the story's plot are tied into the rest of the now-complete pattern. The moment is when Tayo realizes that the Japanese who he'd killed and the faces of Josiah and Rocky that always came into his head when he thought of them were connected. He realizes then that all things are connected, and they are so through "witchery". It is not merely a thought of Tayo's, but a statement by Silko that "From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve thousand miles away (Silko 246)". In this instant, Tayo's realization of the nature of the world is complete and simultaneously so is Silko' portrayal of the nature of the world complete.

As was done throughout the story, the reader and Tayo progress together, and both come to the same realizations at the same time, equally tying together the threads into the ultimate, definable web of information that is the real nature of the story as well as the nature of Tayo's journey.