- The Good: Highly acclaimed literary fiction about identity and war
- The Bad: On the depressing side, so prepare yourself
- The Literary: No chapter breaks; not linear in time, or even storytelling format
Tayo returns home to the Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico after being a prisoner of war during World War II. Struggling with debilitating battle fatigue, Tayo is also burdened with survivor’s guilt, having signed up with his cousin but returning home alone. Most soldiers find comfort in alcohol, and for some time Tayo does as well, but he wants more.
I love so much about this book. First, the sense of character truth and motivation is so strong. In terms of trauma, we believe Tayo’s suffering with his mental disorder, see his triggers, watch him spiral in anxiety attacks until he vomits from little things that remind him of something else. He has very little vocabulary to explain what he’s feeling, but when he says that while he was in the Veteran’s Hospital he felt like white smoke, you understand that Tayo is disassociating and distancing himself, almost as if he were already so insubstantial he was dead.
When Tayo drinks and finally finds relief in the warm numbness of alcohol, you almost breathe a sigh of relief for him. At least he’s able to get out of bed and hang out with friends. But Tayo soon finds it wearisome that all his ex-military buddies only talk about their time in the war, celebrating the violent deaths or the white women they slept with while wearing the uniform. They re-hash their glory days again and again, but Tayo only wants to escape the hallucinations that bring him back there unwarranted.
All of Tayo’s buddies understand that when a native man signed up to fight, he suddenly became a respected member of society, given the same privileges as any white man, even becoming sexually desirable to women previously out of reach. Upon returning home, their service done, they are relegated back to their place of second-class citizens, served last and viewed with distrust. (A powerful moment for Tayo and the reader is when he stares into the eyes of a japanese soldier he’s ordered to shoot, and all he can see is his uncle Josiah. The Japanese look more like his family back home than his fellow soldiers.)
Tayo can’t seem to fit in, and instead lives in a world of extremes that no one else inhabits. This has always been true for Tayo, as the author explores his childhood as an half-native, half-white unwanted child, the embarrassment of his Laguna family. He’s kept out of traditional ceremonies and taunted for something he cannot control. Even the weather is a set of extremes. In the Philippines, Tayo felt suffocated by the tropical wet climate, but at home the land is in drought.
This theme of straddling worlds is emphasized by the format of the book, which moves back and forth in time across multiple stage of Tayo’s life, from his childhood, young adulthood, time in the military, and present day. A sight, smell, or a phrase someone else says can trigger Tayo’s thoughts, and we follow his mind as he travels time and space in his memories, often without any control over what he’s experiencing or seeing.
In addition, there is a mythical story told alongside Tayo’s, emphasizing the themes and arcs of Tayo’s little story into something timeless and much bigger than he is. Hummingbird and Green Bottle Fly must journey to the Fourth World on a quest to ultimately save the Pueblo nation.
Tayo’s journey of healing takes a different course from his friends, which I don’t want to spoil, but it involves storytelling, belief, and ritual. Tayo connects to his culture in a new way, a hybrid way, that allows him to rediscover his identity as an individual, but also as a collective with the Laguna and the human race. I especially love the message that ceremonies are not static rituals—that the ceremonies of our ancestors may not work for us. Ceremonies may be highly personal specific quests, in which the rules are uncovered throughout, and may never end.
Highly recommended as a powerful and challenging novel about native identity and as a fantastic representation of the return to tradition movement of the 1970s!