Bless Me, Ultima

Rating:
Summary: Once upon a time in New Mexico
Review: A middlebrow Marquez for the masses. It lacks the mythic depth of "A Hundred Years of Solitude" and indeed, is not so finely written. But, it positively brims with ethnicity. So critics were able to let loose with their pent-up 'Poet of the Barrio' and 'Chicano masterpiece'. The market was hungry for ethnicity and Anaya provided it in spades. We even get chapters numbered 'Uno', 'Dos', and so on, along with bowls of atole (I had to look that up on the Internet) for breakfast and much gathering of herbs and roots along the riverbank, all to reassure us how authentic it all is. The result is an uneasy mixture of supernatural thriller and idyllic memoir, wicked witches and cute children, "Halloween" meets "Huckleberry Finn". At one point, there is a huge continuity error, with the boy talking to his father and in the next sentence with his friends on the way to school. How did the editors miss that? But it has its merits. The scenes with the priest are convincing and memorable. Best of all, you get to learn some colorful Spanish vocabulary that you won't find in the dictionary. Bottom line; if you have an interest in Chicano (Mexican American) culture, read this, but if you are looking for great Latino literature, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez.