Bless me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is a coming to age story about a young Antonio Marez. One thing that really struck me about this novel was that the experience he has with his religion and the magical world makes the story unique as well as cultural.
Antonio lives in World War 2 era New Mexico in a small town called Guadalupe. The story starts when Ultima arrives and performs healing. Antonio gets worried about his religion and the introduction of magic into his life. I understand how he would feel, having something new put into his life while he is already struggling to find his own identity and what he really believes.
Bless me, Ultima is a unique novel that shows the cultural experience of something new and different from the usual.
The Devil's Highway
12 years ago
I agree that Antonio's initial discomfort with magic is one of the central conflicts of this book. In some ways, Antonio needs to reconcile these two different forms of spirituality that have had such a huge impact on his life.
ReplyDeleteYou also brought of Antonio's search for identity. This is also vital, and something I touch on in my own post. Identity is something that I think will come up even more in some of our other readings.
How do you think Antonio resolves his struggle between religion and magic? Would you call what Ultima does magic? Or is it something else? Sometimes the people who are Christian in this novel also treat their religion like magic. Some specific examples from the book would help to clarify what your specific focus is.
ReplyDelete