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The Names
Of all of the works of N. Scott Momaday, The Names may be the most personal. A memoir of his boyhood in Oklahoma and the Southwest, it is also described by Momaday as "an act of the imagination. When I turn my mind to my early life, it is the imaginative part of it that comes first and irresistibly into reach, and of that part I take hold."Complete with family photos, The Names is a book that will captivate readers who wish to experience the Native American way of life.
170 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
5 people are currently reading
435 people want to read
About the author
N. Scott Momaday
80 books574 followersN. Scott Momaday's baritone voice booms from any stage. The listener, whether at the United Nations in New York City or next to the radio at home, is transported through time, known as 'kairos"and space to Oklahoma near Carnegie, to the "sacred, red earth" of Momaday's tribe.
Born Feb. 27, 1934, Momaday's most famous book remains 1969's House Made of Dawn, the story of a Pueblo boy torn between the modern and traditional worlds, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and was honored by his tribe. He is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society. He is also a Regents Professor of Humanities at the University of Arizona, and has published other novels, memoir, plays and poetry. He's been called the dean of American Indian writers, and he has influenced other contemporary Native American writers from Paula Gunn Allen to Louise Erdrich.
Momaday views his writings, published in various books over the years, as one continuous story. Influences on his writing include literature of America and Europe and the stories of the Kiowa and other tribal peoples.
"Native Americans have a unique identity," Momaday told Native Peoples Magazine in 1998. "It was acquired over many thousands of years, and it is the most valuable thing they have. It is their essence and it must not be lost."
Momaday founded The Buffalo Trust in the 1990s to keep the conversations about Native American traditions going. He especially wanted to give Native American children the chance to getting to know elders, and he wanted the elders to teach the children the little details of their lives that make them uniquely Native American. Once the Buffalo Trust arranged for Pueblo children to have lesson from their elders in washing their hair with yucca root as their ancestors did for as long as anyone can remember.
"In the oral tradition," Momaday has said, "stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed."
Born Feb. 27, 1934, Momaday's most famous book remains 1969's House Made of Dawn, the story of a Pueblo boy torn between the modern and traditional worlds, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and was honored by his tribe. He is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society. He is also a Regents Professor of Humanities at the University of Arizona, and has published other novels, memoir, plays and poetry. He's been called the dean of American Indian writers, and he has influenced other contemporary Native American writers from Paula Gunn Allen to Louise Erdrich.
Momaday views his writings, published in various books over the years, as one continuous story. Influences on his writing include literature of America and Europe and the stories of the Kiowa and other tribal peoples.
"Native Americans have a unique identity," Momaday told Native Peoples Magazine in 1998. "It was acquired over many thousands of years, and it is the most valuable thing they have. It is their essence and it must not be lost."
Momaday founded The Buffalo Trust in the 1990s to keep the conversations about Native American traditions going. He especially wanted to give Native American children the chance to getting to know elders, and he wanted the elders to teach the children the little details of their lives that make them uniquely Native American. Once the Buffalo Trust arranged for Pueblo children to have lesson from their elders in washing their hair with yucca root as their ancestors did for as long as anyone can remember.
"In the oral tradition," Momaday has said, "stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed."
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 4, 2018
An interesting approach to a memoir and it works, especially when accompanied by the photographs of his family members.
May 2, 2020
The writing style of The Names was intriguing at first. However, as the book went on I found it less and less captivating, which is due in part because, while beautiful, I found the style of writing hard to read and interpret, and the longer I read it the more tired I got. If the book had been shorter I think I would have come out of it feeling less disappointed.
December 30, 2022
As much as I liked the writing style, I'm glad I read the translation. This way I could focus more on enjoying the poetic descriptions that mix memories, legends, and imagination in a way that can at times be difficult to tell them apart. But is there really that much of a difference between a creation myth and an interpretation of memory from early childhood?
I found myself enjoying the family stories much more than the author's own memories. The photos attached definitely helped picturing fully the people and their lives.
I found myself enjoying the family stories much more than the author's own memories. The photos attached definitely helped picturing fully the people and their lives.
May 6, 2022
Momaday's writing is beyond unique. His articulation of language changes from chapter to chapter. He uses both poetic prose and stream of consciousness to engulf you in his story. At times, I must admit, I was lost, but I was always amazed at the ease with which he tells his story.
December 6, 2017
pls no
January 23, 2021
A vivid and poetic account of the ways Names and landscapes shape our reality.
June 29, 2022
I read this for a class, and am dismayed to realize it is not my cup of tea. Momaday writes in a broken style, which is interesting and artistic, but not for me.
Want to read
October 9, 2024What cultures of people went exploring to learn about other people and not to colonize them? By MSL
SOME OF MY MOTHER’s memories… 22
Continue on page 26
SOME OF MY MOTHER’s memories… 22
Continue on page 26
Read
February 6, 2025no rating because it feels too difficult, but phenomenal storytelling in a way that I've never experienced. Beautiful and weird and more beautiful.
May 11, 2014
This was my second time to read The Names. I'm unsure what I was thinking the first time, when I loved it. Now, six years later, it reads different to me. I cannot name the difference, other than to say that these days I am reading with more of my heart than I have before. Thank goodness for the chance to try somethings over and have them be fresh, ready.
Here are some of the quotes I love, one of which brought me to tears:
"There came about a great restlessness in my father, I don't know when. I believe that this restlessness is something in the blood. THe old free life of the Kiowas on the plains, the deep impulse to run and rove upon the wild earth, cannot be given up easily; perhaps it cannot be given up at all. I have seen in the old men of the tribe, especially, a look of longing and--what is it?--dread. And if dread is the right word, it is a grave thing, graver than the fear of death; it is perhaps the dread of being, of having been in some dark predestination, held still, and in that profoundly shamed." (36)
"Memory begins to qualify the imagination, to give it another formation, one that is peculiar to the self. I remember isolated, yet fragmented and confused, images--and images, shifting, enlarging, is the word, rather than moments or events--which are mine alone and which are especially vivid to me. They involve me wholly and immediately, even though they are the disintegrated impressions of a young child. They call for a certain attitude of belief on my part now; that is, they must mean something, but their best reality does not consist in meaning. They are not stories in that sense, but they are storylike, mythic, never evolved but evolving ever. There are such things in the world: it is in their nature to be believed; it is not necessarily in them to be understood. Of all that must have happened to and about me in those my earliest days, why should these odd particulars alone be fixed in my mind? If I were to remember other things, I should be someone else." (61-63)
"And suddenly he knew how small he was, how little he mattered in the laughter of God, not at all, really. He knew at once that this moment, the blink of an eye, held more beauty and wonder than he could know. He had not enough life to deal with it. He could only suffer the least part of it; he could only open his eyes and see what he could see of the world. And again he laughed together with God. And he thought: Wait a moment, God. Give me a moment. I have a moment, and it is too big for me, and I cannot hold it in my little hands. And you, God, you gie me the night and the world. It is a good joke, and, God, we laugh. But I have seen how you draw the sky with light." (80)
"I try now to think of the war [WWII], of what it was to me as a child. It was almost nothing, and nothing of my innocence was lost in it. It was only later that I realized what had happened, what ancient histories had been made and remarked and set aside in a fraction of my lifetime, in an instant. And there is the loss of innocence, in retrospection, in the safe distance of time. There are the clocks of shame; we tell the lie of time, and our hearts are broken." (91)
"I went on, farther and farther into the wide world. Many things happened. And in all this I knew one thing: I knew where the journey was begun, that it was itself a learning of the beginning, that the beginning was infinitely worth the learning" (159).
Here are some of the quotes I love, one of which brought me to tears:
"There came about a great restlessness in my father, I don't know when. I believe that this restlessness is something in the blood. THe old free life of the Kiowas on the plains, the deep impulse to run and rove upon the wild earth, cannot be given up easily; perhaps it cannot be given up at all. I have seen in the old men of the tribe, especially, a look of longing and--what is it?--dread. And if dread is the right word, it is a grave thing, graver than the fear of death; it is perhaps the dread of being, of having been in some dark predestination, held still, and in that profoundly shamed." (36)
"Memory begins to qualify the imagination, to give it another formation, one that is peculiar to the self. I remember isolated, yet fragmented and confused, images--and images, shifting, enlarging, is the word, rather than moments or events--which are mine alone and which are especially vivid to me. They involve me wholly and immediately, even though they are the disintegrated impressions of a young child. They call for a certain attitude of belief on my part now; that is, they must mean something, but their best reality does not consist in meaning. They are not stories in that sense, but they are storylike, mythic, never evolved but evolving ever. There are such things in the world: it is in their nature to be believed; it is not necessarily in them to be understood. Of all that must have happened to and about me in those my earliest days, why should these odd particulars alone be fixed in my mind? If I were to remember other things, I should be someone else." (61-63)
"And suddenly he knew how small he was, how little he mattered in the laughter of God, not at all, really. He knew at once that this moment, the blink of an eye, held more beauty and wonder than he could know. He had not enough life to deal with it. He could only suffer the least part of it; he could only open his eyes and see what he could see of the world. And again he laughed together with God. And he thought: Wait a moment, God. Give me a moment. I have a moment, and it is too big for me, and I cannot hold it in my little hands. And you, God, you gie me the night and the world. It is a good joke, and, God, we laugh. But I have seen how you draw the sky with light." (80)
"I try now to think of the war [WWII], of what it was to me as a child. It was almost nothing, and nothing of my innocence was lost in it. It was only later that I realized what had happened, what ancient histories had been made and remarked and set aside in a fraction of my lifetime, in an instant. And there is the loss of innocence, in retrospection, in the safe distance of time. There are the clocks of shame; we tell the lie of time, and our hearts are broken." (91)
"I went on, farther and farther into the wide world. Many things happened. And in all this I knew one thing: I knew where the journey was begun, that it was itself a learning of the beginning, that the beginning was infinitely worth the learning" (159).
December 26, 2016
An impressionistic account of the author's childhood, spent mostly in Jemez, New Mexico. It is as much of an Indian life as could be had in the 30s and 40s. There is not much mysticism, but there is a sweet, familiar nostalgia and a deep attachment to place and people. Momaday is a poet, and writes prose with a poet's feathery touch. The images are beautiful, but it would've been great to read more about his writing career.
June 23, 2014
The first half is beautiful, but the latter half gets a little too stream-of-consciousness for me. Hard to follow. But - again - the writing sounds beautiful; it's just the content gets a little dry.
September 5, 2009
A magical story about a boy growing up in New Mexico and taking frequent trips to Oklahoma. I enjoyed the way the language changed as the boy grew.
January 9, 2011
I only read the first half of this family memoir, and it was certainly names-- relatives and origin, not captivating, style distracting, didn't let me in.
August 7, 2011
amazing
November 26, 2011
I found the first half more compelling than the second.
May 26, 2014
One of my top 10 favorite books
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews