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The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir (2010)

by Leslie Marmon Silko(Favorite Author)

3.35 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

067002211X (ISBN13: 9780670022113)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Viking Adult

review 1: Half way through and I just couldn't finish this -- that so rarely happens to me. When Silko was talking about her childhood and her family it was interesting. When she talked about her hikes near Tucson, searching for turquoise it was bearable, if a bit rambling. But when she got into communing with snakes, and the way her house and yard was a snake haven (despite the rattlers biting her dogs)it sounded, well, mad. Disappointed.
review 2: In this stream of thoughts about the author's upbringing and her subsequent life in the Tucson Mountains, there's a heavy emphasis on her friends, the critters, and on rattlesnakes in particular. I especially loved this description of the biggest rattlesnake she ever saw: "The grasslands are full of food and water is plen... moretiful so a rattler can grow quite large. This snake was nearly five feet long and as big as my forearm. It crossed the road in front of the car, swift and sinuous, its head held high through the tall grass and sunflowers." Sounds like the Demon Archetype - the real thing. A few of her experiences leap out: Her communication with Star Beings (Stars that come to Earth every 700-800 years to communicate with artists); her communication with a large grasshopper who visited her as Lord Chapulin's messenger; and her reading of "two Nahuatl dictionaries for coded messages....It is possible to do a great deal with a language we don't speak or understand...," and, she adds later, "The second time I wrote the same Nahuatl words in my notebook the blue rain clouds gathered and the rainwater overflowed the barrels. Apparently, certain Nahuatl words written in ink on paper can bring rain clouds at certain times." All in all, a magic life. less

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