Review of 'Ceremony' by Leslie Marmon Silko

This was the most eye-opening and thought-inspiring book that I've read in a long time. It's also the first adult book that I've ever read that discusses the life of a Native American. This is honestly a novel which I think we should all read. It discusses good and evil, life and death, war and peace and all the grey areas in between in a variety of different forms. As well as narrative we have poems, which are more like oral ceremonies of tradition. These intertwine with the main plot of the novel as it draws towards a close. 

Ceremony's main character is Tayo, a young man suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after returning fighting in World War II. He is consumed by guilt after the deaths of his cousin Rocky and uncle Josiah. After the war, Tayo spends a few years in a mental institution, trying to recover from the hallucinations and physical symptoms of his PTSD. He gets a little better, and returns to his home with his auntie, but is by no means anywhere near recovered.

Tayo has been an outsider his whole life. His mother abandoned him when he was young, and his father was one of a possible myriad of white men, making him mixed race. Although he lives with his auntie and Grandma, he knows he is not respected by the community they live in as being a 'true' member of the family. 

He turns to alcohol to deal with the trauma of being a war veteran, as do his closest friends. The story of Tayo's recovery from being on the battlefront is interspersed with memories from the war, and his childhood and stories from folklore. The novel in itself becomes a sort of 'ceremony' of recovery. Tayo uses old Pueblo methods of healing to help move forward, and the modern story of the war is bound up in these.

I would definitely recommend reading this! Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of The Boxer, Reinhard Kleist

Theodor Adorno once said that “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”. By this, he implied that the horrors that occurred in this death camp, amongst others, could not and should not be talked about. The Holocaust is a topic which is almost taboo in literature, which makes it incredibly hard for authors to find a successful way to write about it. This makes graphic novels an appealing literary platform as they offer artists the chance to express their impression of the effects of the Holocaust without limiting them quite as much.

The Boxer follows the biographically accurate story of Hertzko Haft (later Harry Haft). Hertzko was a Jew who had the unfortunate destiny to live in Belchatow, Poland during World War Two. As the war developed Hertsko tragically took his brother’s place in a ghetto registration which took him to a concentration camp. The book outlines his struggles in the camp. One of the best aspects of this graphic novel, in my opinion, is the way in which the prisoners are drawn. Kleist sketches these figures in a way in which reminds me of the idea that these men and women were “the living dead”. He presents them as skeletal figures: they are consigned to the world of the dead, but ought to be alive. This is an innovative way to explain the horrific starvation method of torture employed by the camp’s guards. I feel as though it went some way to express these inhumane living conditions.

The novel then moves on to follow Hertzko’s struggle with his own morality. He is forced to commit some atrocious acts in order to survive his ordeal at the death camps. This raises the question as to whether the holocaust made monsters out of both its perpetrators and victims. This question becomes most potent when (not really a spoiler – it is in the title!) Hertzko is forced to box other dying prisoners to entertain the guards: if he doesn’t kill them, the guards will kill him. Thus, Hertkzo “Harry” Haft’s boxing career is born. The rest of the book narrates his journey to America where he once again enters the ring and finds out that the post-war world of boxing is not all it’s cracked up to be …

I have to say, I was slightly disappointed by this graphic novel. Perhaps my expectations were too coloured by the fact that I recently read Spiegelman’s Maus. This novel also follows the true story of a man who struggled through World War II as a Jew living in Nazi-occupied territory. However, I feel as though Spiegelman made better use of the medium of a graphic novel, employing clever symbolism and ideas throughout.

Still, if you want to read an inspiring true story about how one man made his way through the death camps of World War II to freedom, then have a look at The Boxer. It’s a quick, easy read and has some incredibly poignant and thought-provoking images in it. 

The relation of flesh to money and value in various literary modes

In this blog piece, the term “flesh” will be used to describe both human and animal bodies. The question of whether flesh and money are inextricably linked appears to require the answer “yes” as throughout history they have been. Not only is there the obvious value in human sexuality through prostitution, which has been prevalent for hundreds and hundreds of years, but also the value of a dead body is important. I am going to discuss three pieces of literature here which discuss the issue of the value of flesh in the 1600s in England, the 1800s in America and the Second World War in Germany. The temporal and spatial spread of these texts allows for some recognition of the universality of the flesh trade.

Firstly, Thomas Middleton’s play A Chaste Maid in Cheapside examines the importance of the value of flesh in a time at which the consumption of meat had been banned. During Lent at this time people were not allowed to buy or sell meat unless it was for someone who was pregnant or very ill and therefore needed it. Thus not only was animal meat incredibly valuable, but also incredibly hard to find. Another level of value was attributed to the meat as a result of the corruption of the officers who were controlling the consumption of meat: bribery was not unheard of. There is an irony in this play in the comparison between animal meat and children. A child is unfortunately misrecognised as being a piece of meat and thus is seized by the officers. The mother, willing to get rid of the child, gladly hands it over to them. Thus, the corruption of the officers resulted in flesh losing them money rather than making them some. Children are valued as being a negative type of meat for some and a positive type for others. For example, for Allwit “his” children are a source of revenue as they allow for his luxurious lifestyle. On the other hand, Touchwood is too fertile and has too many children which are draining his income and so he values them much less. Kix is unable to produce children, and has a lot of money and land which he needs an heir for to pass them down onto and thus children for him are worth more than any kind of physical wealth.

On the other hand, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian does not value flesh in terms of food or children, but in terms of death. The Glanton gang, which includes all of the main characters in the book, are hunting Native Americans and scalping them to earn their income. There was no difference in value between the scalp of a man, woman or child and so they did not allow for any sympathy for the defenceless women and children of the tribes. In fact, they were an “easy kill” and thus had a greater value to them because they took less time to kill. Indeed, as the book progresses there is a great deal of confusion between the Natives, the Mexicans and even towards the end, the blacks because not only does a dried scalp look the same regardless of race, but the gang kill both Natives and Mexicans without prejudice. Moreover, towards the end there is a great deal of emphasis placed upon the value of flesh in a sexual manner. The mention of “whores” becomes highly prevalent and surrounds the last few chapters of the book. Also, the kid/the man uses a whore for the first time, thus connecting women with value, as well as being raped himself. Once the judge has committed this atrocity to him he finally kills him as his flesh has no value anymore.

A third and different approach to flesh and value comes in the form of Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. This records his father’s memories of the atrocities committed against human flesh in the Second World War in Poland and in particular in Auschwitz. Vladek, Art’s dad and the main character of the text, was a Jew living in Poland. He emphasises throughout his telling of the events which happened to him the fact that bribery was incredibly important in his survival of the war. He bribes members of the enemy to ensure his survival in Auschwitz, he bribes people to hide him before he is finally captured and he even bribes members of his family to help him. The last point is questioned by his son who can’t understand why one would not save the flesh of a member of his family without requiring payment, but Vladek states that his cousin needed the money to survive. Flesh and money were inextricably linked. Moreover, there is the obvious link between the members of the Nazi party who earned their wages by reducing living human flesh to nothing. This links to the devaluation of flesh in the Second World War as human beings who did not cohere with Hitler’s idea of an Aryan race were made to be worthless. They were treated as though they had no value and came to realise that this was how people thought of them.

When cross-examined, these three texts highlight how human beings are only valued as being worth something in a subjective way. There is no objective value for human flesh. People are worth however much money you lose or gain from their birth or death.