Spin Title: Bless Me, Ultima

By -
Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya

Way back in college I had to take a course on modern American literature, which I was quite annoyed about at the time, but turned out to be a good thing because I found out that there were lots of books I liked after all.  One of our titles was Bless Me, Ultima, and at that time I enjoyed it.  I decided to put it on my Classics Club list as a re-read to see if I would like it again.   

Antonio is a small boy torn between loyalties.  His mother wants him to be a priest and like her family, the quiet, earth-connected Lunas; his father wants him to follow the independent and wild Mรกrez ways.  He loves the church but is drawn to the hints of older animistic beliefs he sees around him and wonders if the golden carp in the river might be a better god to follow.  As Antonio starts to grow up and witness the tragedies that happen in his town, he depends on his special relationship with Ultima, the curandera, for stability and comfort. Ultima seems to be the only person who might know how to resolve all these tensions and help Antonio know what to do.

My verdict?  Although I enjoyed several things about the novel, I think I liked it better the first time.  This time around I got very tired of the small-boy antics of Antonio's friends, which are described in loving (if gross and tiring) detail.  Antonio himself struck me as oddly mature, intelligent, and introspective for a little boy--not that I haven't known some real-life boys who were intelligent and introspective (I have!)--but it was laid on awfully thick.  Antonio is presented as a visionary, almost like a child in a medieval story of a martyred saint.  I'm sure that was on purpose, but it was a bit much for me.

I also get impatient with stories that present old pagan beliefs as kinder and gentler than Christianity.  The golden carp is described as punishing those who don't act the way he wants, especially anyone who fishes for carp, so I'm not sure why Antonio thinks he's all that nice and will fix everything.  While Antonio is worried about which system to choose, Ultima says they are all one anyway.  She is presented as a good Christian, but that is secondary to her powers as a good witch that come from her knowledge of nature.  There is evil as well in the three malevolent witches in town; Ultima defeats them, but at the cost of her own life.

It was interesting to revisit the book, but I'll stick with reading more of Thomas Pynchon if I'm going to revisit old modern lit courses.

Comments

  1. Ruth @ with freedom and booksApril 2, 2014 at 9:09 AM

    Hi, Jean,
    I don't know how else to get a hold of you privately. I sent a msg via FB. Anyway, I nominated you for the Liebster Award. If you are interested in participating - I do hope you are - then you can check out the info on my link:

    http://greatbookstudy.blogspot.com/2014/03/liebster-award.html

    ~ Ruth

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of...
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the s...
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he ...
Read more