Customer Reviews

Bless Me, Ultima/Special Illustrated Edition

5 star:		(84)
4 star:		(60)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

Set in NM on the border between a small village and the huge llano (plains), Bless Me, Ultima is Rudolfo Anaya's much acclaimed and award-winning coming-of-age novel from the Hispanic perspective. Antonio is torn betw his father's cowboy side of the family who ride on the llano and his mother's village and farming relations. Many conflicts are presented here: Hispanic vs American culture, Catholicism vs paganism, parents' expectations vs the child's desires, Spanish blood vs native blood.

Antonio's life is forever altered when his aunt Ultima, a curandera (healer) comes to live with the family; she teaches Antonio many things, most importantly how to gather the self-knowledge that will help carry him into adulthood.

I have just finished reading Bless Me, Ultima in my English class and I can say that it is a good choice.

The book is about a young Mexican boy, Antonio Marez, growing up in New Mexico during the mid 1940s. It begins when he is six years old, and Ultima, a curandera or healing woman, comes to live with his family because she is getting too old to live by herself. Through Ultima's gentle guidance and support, Antonio faces his uncertainties and learns to go on with life.

Antonio's parents are opposites, his father being a Marez, people of the llano (the desert land in New Mexico), and his mother being a Luna, farmers and people of the moon and the earth. His father wants Antonio to grow up free to roam the land and become a vaquero, as he once was. His mother wants Antonio to be a priest, a man of learning. Antonio is torn between them regarding his future.

Throughout the story, Antonio also faces confusion over religion and spirituality. Ultima believes in God, but she also believes and works magic. But there is no evil in Ultima and Antonio is confused over Catholicism. His mother wants him to become a priest, and though he does believe in God, he wants understanding from Him, answers to his many questions.

From a very young age, Antonio witnesses death. Death of a war-crazed man, Lupito. Death of a good family friend, Narcisco. And finally the unjust death of Ultima, killed by an evil man vowing revenge on Ultima for the death of his two daughters who were brujas (witches).

Through the trials he is faced with and the death of his beloved mentor, Ultima, Antonio learns to go on with life and leave the past behind. He realizes the power of good over evil and understands that truth is more powerful than that which is prescribed by custom.

A lot of what goes through Antonio's mind through the story is similar to the questions I have had through growing up. I can relate to him and to the other characters in the book. And I have learned that mankind is no different in spite of age, race, religion, culture, and upbringing.

Kudos to Rudolfo Anaya for his first novel that brings Mexican-American culture to the reader and a genuinely poignant "growing up" story that can be read by all ages.

"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.

Bless Me, Ultima is ultimately a novel about belief. In Southwestern America, there are many systems of belief which compete for the devotion of an individual--Catholicism brought by the Spanish, polytheism which has existed for thousands of years, and the worship and adoration of nature itself. This book is a story of a young man, Tony, and his quest for truth. He encounters all of these systems of belief, and endures a great deal of suffering in his youth. These experiences mold him, and the book focuses on his attempt to find the great truth amidst so much hardship and among so many types of faith.

Anaya is a great storyteller, and this book certainly does not lack in action. The supernatural element is very strong, and very compelling, and the novel leaves a strong impression of unity and harmony with nature, even in the face of a very real and very powerful evil. This struggle of faith is very well represented in the book.

I do have a few objections to the book. First of all, Tony is a VERY young man, yet he seems to have a maturity level that few adults ever achieve. He speaks very correctly, and ponders things which no seven year old kid has probably ever dreamed of. Also, the actual story is sometimes a little shaky, such as when Narciso is murdered and the jury rules it a suicide (though they found no gun anywhere near where he was shot to death). These are relatively small objections, though, and do not detract from a good book.

This novel is worth reading, even if most of the characters ask questions that don't end with a question mark. Hey, no writer is perfect. It is certainly worth reading, and provides an interesting insight to the unique culture of the Southwest.

Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima" is a wonderful depiction of the Mexican-American culture. I highly recommend this great work of literature to young adult readers since it not only serves as a window that allows them to take a look into the experiences of a Mexican-American family divided by war, but also allows them to view the world through the eyes of a young boy struggling to find his identity.
The universal human concern which seems to be most prominent in "Bless Me, Ultima" is the coming-of-age and self-realization of the young boy, Antonio Marez. Antonio is confronted with numerous conflicts and the need to reconcile the opposites in his life. The strongest conflict for Antonio to face is the clash between his father's pastoral lifestyle and his mother's farming tradition.
Antonio's mother, Maria Luna, represents the farming tradition-settled, modest, devout. As in his dream, the mother's family has expectations of Antonio. "This one will be a Luna,...he will be a farmer and keep our customs and traditions. Perhaps God will bless our family and make [him] a priest" (5).
Antonio's father, Gabriel Marez, is linked to a lifestyle which Maria Luna considers coarse and wild: the life of the cowboy roaming the free plains. Like the Lunas, the Marez family also expects Antonio to carry on their traditions. "He is a Marez... His forefathers were conquistadores, men as restless as the seas they sailed and as free as the land they conquered. He is his father's blood" (6).
Througout the novel, Antonio is being pulled by opposing forces and it is Ultima who in the end helps him find a middle ground. His father and mother's traditions are not the only conflicts he must face. He is also torn between good and evil, love and hate, a Christian God and a pagan deity. It is Ultima's advice that helps Antonio discover who he really is. "LIfe is filled with sadness when a boy grows to be a man, But as you grow into manhood you must not despair of life, but gather strength to sustain you" (245). In the end, Antonio finally understands what Ultima means and thus gains passage from innocence into awareness, finding a balance between the divided forces which tug at him and being able to define his own identity. "Take the llano and the river valley, the moon and the sea, God and the golden carp and make something new,...That is what Ultima meant by building strength from life" (247).

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!

Bless me Ultima is a good story about a small boy and his trials of living in and growing up in New Mexico. This is no ordinary little boy though his destiny was sealed at birth by an old woman know as Ultima. Ultima is an old curandera, a woman of good magic and healing. Antonio, the little boy, is the crossing of two ancient bloodlines the Marez and Luna. These families are as opposite as night and day, the Marez being wanderers and herders while the Luna are constant and silent like the earth that they till. Antonio is torn between becoming the preacher that his mother wants and going to California to make his father's dream come true. His life is forever changes when La Grande comes to join the family. Ultima introduces Antonio to a world that is new to him the world of magic and pagan gods. When Ultima comes to live with the family she instantly gains a rapport with the little Antonio who spends much of his time with her learning about her herbs and even help her to save the life of his uncle Lucas. Trouble follows Ultima many of the Catholics in the town believe her to bee a witch but she finally dispels this notion by walking through a portal that is protected by the sign of the cross. Antonio eventually goes to school and is confronted by the local kids but when he stands up for himself he is praised and asked to join their little gang. He eventually realizes that he is different that the others and finds himself in with a group who stands out as well. Antonio is troubled by dreams in which God is angered at him for doubting God and believing in the golden carp. Ultima reveals that it is Antonio's destiny to be a man of learning which makes his mother very happy but crushes the hopes of his father who's other sons have forsaken him, Antonio was his last hope for his dream of a vineyard in California. Bless me Ultima is a story that is told wonderfully from the eyes of a child who sees his whole world change as he learns more and more. The perspective of the child lends an unbiased view to all of the action which is nice to see. Even as Antonio changes and sees his whole world change around him he still seems to view things through the innocent eyes of a child and we are still kept interested in the book by the internal and external conflicts that Antonio faces. This is a book that I would recommend to anyone out there. The various lines throughout the book that are in Spanish make some things a little tough but they can be easily translated with the help of a Spanish-English dictionary. The book is a slow read at first but is overall worth the time to read. It is a very good book and I highly recommend it.

The religious and spiritual symbolism in Anaya's book, Bless Me, Ultima blend beautifully with the powerfully described New Mexican setting and culture that surround the novel's main charatcer, Antonio, and place him at the center of a series of thematic struggles including the classic struggle of good vs. evil, the difficult decision of choosing between one's apparent destiny and giving in to one's choices, and the intense discovery and formation of alternate beliefs in a higher being.
Anaya places Antonio in a Catholic household of Mexican descent in the rural setting of Las Pastures, New Mexico; illustrating the natural beauty and land-based lifestyle that Antonio grows up knowing. Tony's mother is a faithful and passionate Catholic, believing in the imporatance of direct prayer to God and the adoration of the Virgin Mary. She sees and feels the holyness that surrounds Tony's being from his birth, and raises him in hopes that he will some day become a priest. The characterization of Tony's father provides a nice contrast that lends an insight into the formation of Tony. His father is a man of the land, using it respectfully and living in symbiance with it to ensure the heathly lifespans of both his family, and his family's land or llano. The contrast in Tony's parental upbringing sets the stage for his future conflicts concerning the true existance of a God, and the reasons for the existance of good and evil that he witnesses in life.
Symbolism is a cetral tool that Anaya uses to artistically convey Tony's journey and his discoveries, amazments, and disappointments along the way. Perhaps most finely crafted is Anaya's creation of the golden carp, used to represent the startling effect of peace and joy that Tony feels after discovering its existance. The golden carp itself is a symbol of an alternate idol of worship besides the Christian God that Tony had grown to believe in through the teachings he recives at home, school, and at church. The fact that Tony is willing to belive in the golden carp's existance, as he is both amazed and mystified by its beauty, is made to appear especially surprising through the description is the things that Tony is denying in order give into the peace and happines he feels in the golden carp.
At one point, Tony is at sunday school at church, and the priest is describing to the students the concept of an eternity. An eternity, he proceeds to explain, is the amount of time it would take a bird to pick up every grain of sand on a beach, one by one, and fly it across the pacific ocean to deposit on a shore in Japan. And then, when the entire beach has been transported, he does it again, and brings every grain to the other side, a million times. That's how long an eternity is, and that's how long you will stay in heaven or in hell. This concept frightened me like a week ago, I can imagine how it might affect an eleven year old boy. Yet, the beauty of the golden carp, and the balance that it's existance creates within Tony is more than enough to allow him to betray the doctrine he has been taught to believe in and risk finding out the hard way exactly how long an eternity is.
The book's symbolism is far deeper than what I can describe in this review, and it includes themes like free will vs. destiny that I have not mentioned. Overall I can say it is a beautifully written book, with easy to recognize parallels to the inner-turnmoil of the reader, and I recommend reading it at least twice to truly appreciate the ideas and messages conveyed in Anaya's novel.

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!

Although this novel brought out great controversy in our community, the students responded so positively concerning the battle between good and evil where good must always triumph, along with the battle for a young boy to gain wisdom through conflicts, tragedy, and life choices, it proved the worth of the novel. The book also enlightened many of us readers to the difficulties of one culture and the conflicts we have in common concerning faith and religion. It continues to be an enriching book in its layers of symbolism, magic, and faith.