I kinda wish Gambler would take the rain clouds away...

Author:
Leslie Marmon Silko

Setting:
Mostly post-WWII in the southwest United States (New Mexico). Includes flashback-like passages set in the same area, but pre-WWII.

Plot:
Tayo has just returned from the Philippines and fighting in WWII to a world completely different than the one he originally left. His uncle and cousin are dead and there's been an awful drought in the area. The changes and just being in the war in general have left Tayo unable to live the life he had before; he constantly throws up and can't hardly sleep, always dreaming when he does get some sleep. Tayo slowly starts getting better(ish) and he realizes that the other guys who were in the war are also having a hard time getting back to normal. They've all turned to alcohol as a way to self-medicate. Eventually, Tayo and his family come to terms that white medicine won't help him, and Tayo sees Ku'oosh, who performs an ancient ceremony on Tayo. That doesn't fix everything though. Ku'oosh sends Tayo to Betonie, another medicine man with more expertise in the interactions between Natives and whites. Betonie performs part of a "new ceremony" that he and Tayo come up with. He then sends Tayo home to finish it himself. Tayo meets up with Harley and Leroy and slips up a little, but moves on and continues his search for Josiah's cattle, as part of the ceremony. Tayo heads north into the mountains and finds the cattle in a white man's pasture, thanks to the help of a mountain lion. Two patrolmen then find Tayo, who has trespassed, and they arrest him. However, when they find the mountain lion tracks, they let Tayo go so that they can track the animal. It starts to snow, so Tayo knows they'll never have a chance of finding the mountain lion. He follows his cattle down the mountain and ends up at the house of T'seh and a hunter, where the cattle have been corralled. T'seh keeps the cattle until Robert can bring the cattle truck to bring them home. Shortly after his return home, Tayo has to run from the police and Emo, and he avoids capture by following T'seh's instructions. Tayo runs to a mine and realizes he must stay the night there in order to fully complete the ceremony. However, Emo shows up and beats Harley to death to try to get Tayo to come out, but he doesn't. After he completes the night there, Tayo goes back to Ku'oosh and tells him about what happened. Ku'oosh says that T'seh was actually a spirit who had given Tayo her blessing. Tayo spends one last night in Ku'oosh's house and then the ceremony is over and the drought ends and the destruction of the whites is stopped.

Significant Characters:
Tayo- half white, half Laguna Pueblo. Story follows him through his ceremony completing to heal himself as well as the land/people.
Grandma- Grandma Spider figure. Super traditional. Tries to help Tayo where she can.
Rocky- Along with Harley, Emo, etc. Rocky shows the side of the Native Americans who fully embrace white culture and are embarrassed by Native culture.
Josiah- Tayo almost-replacement for his absent father. An awkward mixture of Native and white culture, but generally a decent role model for Tayo.
Night Swan- almost a Yellow woman figure. Provides the way for the cattle to be in the story, which is important. Tayo and Josiah both sleep with her. Lots of blue, which I guess is associated with holy people, so apparently she's holy.
T'seh- Yellow woman! Helps Tayo find the cattle and finish the ceremony. Restores life to the earth.

Style:
Has a limited omnipresent voice, but who is actually speaking is somewhat unclear. Possibly Grandma Spider, possibly Yellow Woman, possibly Tayo (though telling a story about yourself in 3rd person is weird). The narrative mostly focuses on Tayo, though there are parts that deviate from that and tell stories of other characters also. The story seems so unbiased about the events that the tone is hard to decipher, though it does give the feeling that certain things (alcohol) are terrible and other things are much better. There weren't a whole of profound examples of figurative language, though there were some similes thrown in to help with understanding. The biggest (or I guess just my favorite) example of symbolism was in the cattle and how they represented a "new breed" of Indians that were needed for the changing times, ones who could accept white culture, but not give into it completely. As for motifs, there were lots of circles and colors and the number 4 and wind directions.

Quotes:
"But it left something with him; as long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on" (88).
~I can't remember why I liked this quote so much, but I had it starred. I think it was because it showcased the fact that we all can find something happy and meaningful even when everything seems ruined.

"The liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed the lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other" (177).
~I feel like this, along with the rest of the paragraph it's a part of, is really the whole point of the story. That until we know who we really are, we'll never be able to see who anyone else really is. That was the problem with Emo and them: they didn't know who they were, so they only saw Tayo and white people as terrible things. And because they (we) don't know who they (we) really are, the hatred for the other people they (we) don't understand is what's going to (is) destroying the world.

Theme:
Nothing is all good or all bad.
~Yes, it is actually a quote from the book. But I feel like it really summed up the whole point of the book. Tayo eventually learns that white culture isn't completely bad, but parts of it, like the alcohol and destruction of the land, are. The idea that there's a balance in everything shows up in the fact that Tayo is half-white, half-Indian and in the cattle being part Hereford, part Mexican.