Bless Me, Ultima

I read this for a class almost ten years ago... and I have shared this book with everyone from my brothers and sisters to my cousins, grandmother and even work collegues ever since. This book awakens every ounce of magic you have in your mind, body and soul. It's a great work of fiction with every aspect you could ever want in a story: Action, Good vs. Evil, History, Love, Family, Pride, Justice... You name it, it's got it. The best character I've ever met in any novel... Ultima... guides us through building our own sense of pride for our culture and allows us to grow as she shows us the most important things to live for. This is a story for the entire family and crosses multitudes of cultures... Read this to yourself or to your kids, and I'm telling you -- YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. Enjoy!

Beautifully written, Anaya brings the culture of the southwest Chicano alive. Antonio grows up before our eyes, nurtured and taught by wise and magical Ultima. He is struggling with faith: Catholism, local legends/myths and the magic he witnesses that heals and transforms. He asks the age old questions concerning life and death, god's purpose and meaning in the world and the life force of the earth, the plants and animals and the curandera. I was particularly struck with a conversation between father and son, "You mean God doesn't give understanding?" asks Antonio. His father replies, "Understanding comes with life, as a man grows he sees life and death, he is happy and sad, he works, he plays, meets people--sometimes it takes a lifetime to acquire understanding, because in the end understanding simply means having a sympathy for people. Ultima has sympathy for people, and it is so complete that with it she can touch their souls and cure them--"" Bless Me, Ultima was Anaya's first novel, and the first book of his I've read. I very much look forward to reading all the works of Mr. Anaya!

I have read this book more than once. The first time, I was forced into reading it. Like most students, I rushed through it as quickly as I could. During my process of speed-reading, I noticed that this novel had characteristics that distinguished it from others that I was also forced to read. Maybe it's because I am Hispanic, like a majority of the characters in the novel, that I could more closely identify with it than a number of my classmates. The second time, I chose to read it. I wanted to analyze the book and give it a closer look that I know I didn't give it the first time. I understood the novel well. Thanks to my unrelenting English teacher, I quickly picked up on much of novel's symbolism, imagery, and motifs that I hadn't noticed the first time. Not only did the analysis give me a better understanding, it practically changed the meaning I acquired the first time from reading it. To the untrained eye, the large amounts of Spanish contained in this novel could have made it extremely difficult. The dialogue gives it a realistic atmosphere, which is further emphasized by the profanity used by the characters. I thought it was funny, actually. I can vividly recall my elementary classmates displaying an array of colorful four-letter words when the teacher's back was turned. In that aspect, I closely compare it to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The imagery in this book was gorgeous. Anaya did an excellent job of describing the scenes, characters, and action sequences so much that it seemed like I was actually witnessing them. An example of imagery that particularly stood out was the illustration of a rabid character with "saliva curled around the edges of his mouth and spittle threads hanging down and glistening like spider threads in the sun." The story raises the complicated relationships between medicine and belief, mysticism and the supernatural, and the long time disputed argument, does God really exist? Throughout the novel, Antonio, the main character, repeatedly battles with himself over many issues that we, especially those of us in our adult-lives, are facing day by day. All of the characters were beautifully crafted, especially Antonio. The quality that makes them so attractive is their realism. Bless Me, Ultima, is an extraordinary window into the mind of growing six-year-old learning, living, and experiencing. While reading this book, you don't tell yourself that you are indeed reading, but you make connections with all of the characters. I recommend this book to everyone. This novel challenges the audience to recognize that there is a mystical dimension to everything. It's an easy reader, but you may want to keep a Spanish-English dictionary available.

"Bless me Ultima" is a wonderful story based on the "Chicano" or Northern New Mexico native people culture, religion, and customs that tells us about the relationship between a six year old boy called Antonio and an Old wise Lady called Ultima who is a "curandera" or healer, and how Anotonio faces a lot of difficulties and has to deal with curses, healings, dead people and mean friends and becomes a man of learning throughout his chilhood with Ultima's help. Since the author is from Northern New Mexico and the book takes place in two real small villages called Las Pasturas and Puerto de Lunas wich are located North of New Mexico i think Rodulfo Anaya put a little bit of his life experience into the story to remark the origins of a culture that tends to dissapear as new Chicano generations come to this world which makes the book more exciting and more valuable.I really enjoyed reading this book because i could follow the story very well considering that english is my second languaje and that i'm still having some problems with grammar and sentence structures and because i like reading mythical stories and i'm very familiar with them. Another aspect of this book that i liked and i found familiar was that New Mexican culture and Colombian and Latin Americna culture in general have a lot of things in common such as believing in ghosts, witches, curses, spirits, etc; and that the religion is the same and that there are not really too many differences within it.