Bless Me, Ultima

We all question faith, if you deny so, you are going against your faith by lying. Just my opinion-I say breathing in a sigh and shifting my pants, sitting on my bed to write this review. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya, a prominent Hispanic literary artist, explores faith following a young boy’s transformation into a young man. Throughout the book, Antonio Marez-young boy and narrator-questions the world he lives in as he grows up in a small Hispanic American town. Oddly, it is not the Hispanic American culture that is clashing just after a recent war, but the hereditary history of his parents, his own unique heritage-his culture and family that change with age and time. Tony's feelings become torn when thinking of his future. Especially in what he will be when a grown man: a farmer, a priest, a nomadic herder like his father. But it is the wise woman, Ultima, from his father’s hometown on the golden grassy plains, that brings Tony confidence in finding his own path, his own faith, and to discover, appreciate and contemplate all there is in the world.

 There is not much more to say, I could talk about the wise curandera Ultima, an elder considered a pagan or witch though her cures are rooted deep with life energy and the earth. A natural mystical magic that is pure in essence. I could mention the town or the rolling plains or the school children and the deaths Tony witnesses. His brothers and sisters or all the wondrous scenery that Rudolfo Anaya describes through great prose. But that is not for me to describe, for Tony is to tell you about it. For he lived in a world of ups, downs, upside-down horror, down right madness and complete sadness. His journey through life is his to tell, and I can only say: Bless you on your own should you pick up this terrific read!

Rudolfo Anaya has also written Alburquerque and has won the Premio Quinto Sol, national Chicano literary award.

Next week will be my review of Milan Kundera's The Art of the Novel.

Justin Vaisnor

Interview with The Toucan's Liz Baudler

Well this interview has taken several months to bring to the wide-wide web! In fact-and Dave and I aren't afraid but TOTALLY embarrassed to admit this-we conducted this interview while attempting to create our first project together (that started great but kinda went nowhere...) Never mind that, the past is past and now we are Writers, Writers without a home! Which is more fitting when interviewing the co-creator of a literary magazine instead of for a podcast...So here it is! The interview long overdue! Justin Vaisnor and Dave Karp featuring Liz Baudler! Enjoy!

Review: Politics by Aristotle

First off, I’m not racist, why I start with that statement I will explain soon-I promise you that. Secondly, I am also not a sexist…why I had to state that is because of the book I read and in which you are reading my review of now: Politics, by Aristotle.

            Aristotle, at times, comes across as a bit of a bigot but an even greater sexist and isn’t anymore racist as my Greek uncle who worked and lived on the South Side of Chicago (a bit racist). Aristotle’s racism I would say it stems more from a feeling of nationalism in the Hellenic state (Greece). Aristotle even claimed at one point that the Hellenic people are the best governed and if they could form one state they would be able to rule the world (Aristotle was Alexander the Great’s tutor, so this statement could have been set in his mind as he tried to conquer the known world). Aristotle thought slavery as a possible and normal institution or trade for any state to have. Of course slavery now is thought more of a single race issue, when that is far from true (African Americans may have gained freedom but they are still mistreated and our cultures were segregated {still are a bit}, with one causing great degradation toward another) there is slavery even today in China, Africa, and Indonesia; and then there is the thin line between that and wage slavery. But I’m digressing, Aristotle thought any race could become a slave; which to me was a terrible way to argue that something like freedom and equality in a state is possible when a man can rule despotically over another, or over a woman.

            However, Aristotle makes many compelling observations and logical reasoning in how to govern a state and the many forms of governing. The editor of this edition of Aristotle’s Politics makes a statement I wholeheartedly agree on after reading this philosophical analysis of man being a political animal in it’s attempts to make “a community of free men”, Cora Newald states: “If everyone who votes or holds public office would read this book-what a better and saner world we would have! And what greater understanding of the society in which we live!”

            Aristotle isn’t that difficult to read-although I have been reading this edition for a year periodically-what I lost myself in, and what bored me somewhat, were his examples of tyrants, statesmen, and city states that have been nearly forgotten. But any reader can still draw similar conclusions to his theories and reasoning by taking examples from history and of their world today.

            Aristotle makes compelling deductive reasoning when discussing the ruling by one, a few, or all and which is best. Rule by one is great when that leader is a statesman and is virtuous striving for peace and equality for all in the state, an oligarchy is also great when furthest from an aristocracy (rule by a rich few) and possess a strong constitution, and democracy is the greatest though the worst when a constitution is good-which is something I would argue, especially in our world today where advancement in social media and technology allows people access to events, networks, organizations, url’s where one can vote on something one sees, and an access to another individual half way around the world. Of course people value private lives and private time, which I enjoy myself, the ones that would want everything public are the one’s looking to gain-to continue gaining wealth, property, etc. Freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever a person likes, but requires responsibility to live happily while living for a purpose that would benefit society. The one that finds the cure for all cancers, wouldn’t sell it, but provide it for society. A cure is not a BigMac, just like the vaccine for polio: share something with the “inter-connected whole that is in endless motion”. Something Aristotle viewed society as that modern sciences recently claimed as true.

            Also reader, if you are afraid of tyrants or unjust ruling, here is what Aristotle saw as the ways tyrannies can be preserved: “…for the preservation of a tyranny, in so far as this is possible; viz. that the tyrant should lop off those who are too high; he must put to death men of spirit; he must not allow common meals, clubs, education and the like; he must be upon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either courage or confidence among his subjects; he must prohibit literary assemblies or other meetings for discussion, and he must take every means to prevent people from knowing one another (for acquaintance begets mutual confidence). Further, he must compel all persons staying in the city to appear in public and live at his gates; then he will know what they are doing: if they are always kept under, they will learn to be humble.”

Should any of these happen, feel free to say you are losing your freedom and right for freedom by a tyrant. Or better yet, read other books like Plato’s Republic or others to think and try to find an understanding of what it is to you to be a good and just citizen. Aristotle’s book Politics is something I would like to see in more ‘to read’ lists or even on more bedside tables than say…the Bible. For rather you believe or not, you cannot deny the book has brought controversy while Aristotle’s Politics is meant to be discussed if there is disagreement and understood that logical and virtuous people want to lead happy, virtuous and free lives. One can still read the Bible, just know one can find a way to be a good person through more ways than reading any book, and one of them is being with people; love or hate them, be with them so as to try-at least try!-to be virtuous and happy, to yourself and to others!

Next review: Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima.

Justin Vaisnor

Also, if you liked this review, take a gander at our Fiction page and check out "Voters". Thanks!

Review of: Impulse

Perfection, is ugly. It is unobtainable, for everything changes so even the idea or notion of perfect will change. But there will always be those striving for it.

After reading the book Impulse by Ellen Hopkins I couldn’t help but think this. The book, with vivid characters written in verse novel, (written in poetry form rather than prose) delves into the lives of maturing teenagers in a mental ward sounding like a nice thirst-quenching retirement home: Aspen Springs. The book holds the reader’s attention by switching-but staying in first person-to the thoughts of one of the three main characters: Tony, Conner, and Vanessa, all   had attempted suicide. The “cure” for each involves drugs, group therapy, and individual therapy by trying to coup with the problems hidden in their past.

Ellen Hopkins has written poetry and several nonfiction novels. She explores everything from belief and belief in love to nature and nurture. The reader witnesses pain and the reason the characters may strive for it, just to feel. There is beautiful imagery and wonderful rhymes spaced throughout the book. The book Impulse has more than 600 pages! But when written with five or less stanzas a page it would take a fast reader a day and a half ride on a quiet el train to finish. Hopkins is great with not only descriptive imagery, but conversations and flashbacks to painful memories in the characters past as they try to change themselves in the present. Try.

And why I began with thinking perfection is ugly, is because of the strive in some of the character’s lives to be perfect and perfect in the way others want them to be. Some strive for perfection without wondering what that would entail and what cost that may come by. If one strives to do what they love and achieve what they want, then maybe that is perfect, perfectly understanding one self and their place in this world.

Ellen Hopkins has written other verse novels and New York Times Bestsellers like: Crank, Glass, and Identical; and also Burned and Tricks. She has a way with words and the form on the page like that only seen in writers when they try a new style, but this she is mastering and exploring as she goes.

Impulse is a brutally graphic and beautifully constructed long short story that discomforts the reader when in the mental ward, and yet that sickening prison becomes a home where all are accepted for being fucked up and not just pretending they aren’t messed up. Again, it is a quick and beautiful read, I highly recommend it! In two weeks check for my review of Aristotle’s Politics.

Justin Vaisnor

Review of: Fahrenheit 451

You are reading-that’s a good start-but you are reading a review on the book Fahrenheit 451 which features a world eerily similar to our own with one major difference-books are banned. Nearly all reading is banned and books are good for one thing only, burning-burning with the houses they were hidden in.

            Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451, written more than 50 years ago, is still relevant and defiant against censorship even today. The book follows a fireman whose job is to burn rather than put fires out. With striking similarities to George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World where books have a profound position in the societies of each: Orwell-individual thought and books are banned, Huxley-there is seemingly no need for reading with so much pleasure and perfection, and in Bradbury’s-books are not needed as they cause thoughts and open a person to the actual real world around them; a world suffering and moving through motions without love and freedom and individualistic expression-which can be said about all three. It is perhaps a world we all fear.

            Ray Bradbury has a heart for freedom of written word, for fantastical and beautifully constructed images that must not-for they cannot-be changed; otherwise one is delving into the mind of the author and changing the very thought they had formed, a thought that is and was undeniably there. A book can be edited, something Ray is wholeheartedly against (and I wholeheartedly agree with him), but it would then lose it’s essence, it’s reason for being a book. Books are stories, thoughts, voices speaking through history and time to the audience here and not yet to come. They reach through to touch hearts and minds to bend and reshape so as we can shape our own. Changing one word the author wrote and was therefore printed, is changing our very existence. Which is exactly what the firemen were meant to do, to edit inside this fearfully split and isolated world.

            The fireman the reader follows in this fascinating novel is Guy Montag. Fireman of ten years, Guy never questioned his life or his reason for burning these books on midnight runs until he meets a young thoughtful girl, enchantingly free and loving-by far not carefree but possesses a great amount of pensiveness-because of her Guy finally felt accepted by someone in a society that follows motions-without logical emotional reasoning-but with logical apathy in order to silence dissent and disagreement. Guy later runs into an old university professor who helps him dream and take action toward a future where people can think for themselves and feel an ounce of worth once again. But Guy has a terrible secret, that if found out, would ruin his plans and his world.

            This book, honestly, is a good read. One that I look back and wished I read early in my life but at least I’ve had the privilege to read it at all without a word changed or cut out. It is short and took me only three or so days to read. I highly recommend it to those that have also taken a liking to the other books previously mentioned in this review (1984 and Brave New World). And if you have read this book but not any of the other two, then I highly recommend those! Thanks for reading! My next review will be in two weeks and over Ellen Hopkins New York Times bestseller: Impulse. Look for Dave's review next Monday on A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway!