Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World (American Indian Literature & Critical Studies Series)

By Gerald Vizenor

Book Overview

Gerald Vizenor gives life to traditional tribal stories by presenting them in a new perspective: he challenges the idyllic perception of rural life, offering in its stead an unusual vision of survival... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080612427X
• ISBN13: 9780806124278
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Dead Voices suggests a change in our perception of nature.

The message in Dead Voices is simply that I am energy, all matter in the universe is energy, therefore I am the universe and the universe is me. And that such energy is constantly being transferred from one entity to another, always reshaping itself. What the protagonist in Dead Voices does is ride this energy. Getting rid of such neurotic thinking patterns of distorted human identity and its relation to everything else in nature brings true divinity and enlightenment. Almost all tribal cultures provide their young with the opportunity to seek their selves and enter adulthood with a spiritual connection to the Universe. The visions obtained from such experiences provide the young with self-actualization and a strong connection to their surroundings, animate and inanimate. Western Civilization somehow thinks itself separate or divorced from Nature. Vision quests provide the young with the opportunity to find their innerselves . The sociohistorical concept of race and identity that newly borns are thrown into is but the neurotic social residue of previous generations. The vision quest to understand nature serves to dissolve this neurotic state and allow for the evolution of higher, more intelligent and all-encompassing cosmic consciousness of non duality. But instead, our young are faced with this neurotic social residue and brainwashed, forced to conform to compulsory education/ignorance and once their fragmented and confused self is formed , thrown into stale and meaningless lives to suffer in a racist system. Gerald Visenor in puts it so clearly, they are dead men and dead women in a dead world. The visionary experience dissolves one's socially conditioned, 20th century, hive mind allowing the self to come to its senses. "If the door of perception were cleansed open everything would appear to man as it is, infinite" writes William Blake in . As exemplified by "WE" the self-actualized identity sees intelligence in its raw form--Nature, which operates in complete harmony, without effort or waste. The realization that YOU and I are WE and not that you "black" and me "white" or that you are a cat and I am a human, leads to one of the most ancient philosophical principles, cosmic consciousness. The connection between universe (nature) and humans is evident even in the most basic fact of life--nutrition. "The sun belts out photons of intelligence we call sunlight. That sunlight is captured by plants and is trapped in the excited electron orbits of carbon based molecules. We humans eat the plants, exhale carbon dioxide and release the stored sunlight into our consciousness" writes Michael Eisner. The problem is that Western Civilization denies itself "the photons of intelligence" by not realizing this. Gerald Visenor in suggests that perhaps what Western Civilization so desperately needs is to take a deeper look into the psyche of pre-literate tribal peoples, if we are to survive and reach a peaceful future resembling ou

Classic Vizenor

Throw out your old, tired American Indian stereotypes before stepping through Gerald Vizenor's looking glass, Alice; there are bears and tricksters in here! Very funny and true-to-form

Vintage Vizenor!

Throw out your old, tired American Indian stereotypes before stepping through Gerald Vizenor's looking glass, Alice; you'll find bears and tricksters in here! This is wonderful and true-to-form and very funny