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

"The Hours" by Michael Cunningham

Review by Dave Karp

            “Yes, she thinks, this is probably how it must feel to be a ghost. It’s a little like reading, isn’t it-that same sensation of knowing people, settings, situations, without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer.”

            This is probably one of the most haunting lines that stuck with me from Michael Cunningham’s fantastic novel, The Hours. A friend/mentor of mine let me borrow the book, knowing that I so much loved Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando: A Biography, which made me fall in love with Woolf. And, after reading The Hours, I can tell you this: This is one of the most haunting books I have yet to read, but in a unique way that maybe Mrs. Dalloway did for her generation, though I have yet to read the famous Woolf novel yet. The novel has been made into a movie as well, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep as the leading ladies (and, may I add, a haunting score by Philip Glass). I recommend the movie, as it was a very good adaptation of the book and brought the haunting atmosphere the novel did to the screen, and stayed true to most of the book. But, back to the novel!

            Cunningham takes the day in the life of three different women in three different time periods. There is Virginia Woolf herself in the early 1920’s in a suburb in London. Then, there is Laura Brown in 1950’s suburban Los Angeles. Last, but not least, is Clarissa Vaughan in New York City, 2001. Woolf is beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway, Laura deal with the disenchantment of suburban life with her husband, son, and another child on the way, and Clarissa is trying to get a party put together for a very dear friend and poet. We are thrown into the lives of these characters as well as their ghosts and troubles, and at the end of the novel, we find how all three of these stories and these lives come chillingly together.

            This is a novel rich with not only story, but description. We look at the world these characters are living in almost poetically, and it works. Of course, there is dialogue, but the imagery that Cunningham gets on the page is very rich and he makes you see everything clearly as you are brought into the lives and environments of these characters. It’s some of the strongest description I have read in a while, and it really brings a whole other layer to the story, one that really makes you feel as if you are an “observer” or a “ghost”.

            The story is one that you become quite curious and enriched in, and is very well written. The thoughts of these characters come out on the page amazingly as well, which makes us feel for them even more, and we understand their struggles all the more. The three women are haunted by many things, and we see that clearly, almost as if in some way it mirrors the lives you and I are living, and questioning how much happens within a day of the lives of everyone.

Which brings me to the thing I may have liked about it the most and was one of the most haunting aspects for me: It was an epic about the everyday life. Such as what Woolf did with her novel Mrs. Dalloway, Cunningham brings into his novel and adds his own flair to it. He brings out the power and the epicness of everyday thought, worries, and questions. With the question the three main characters have, you can’t help think about your own life and your own time you are occupying. The book gets even philosophical about living day after day, and why life is, in a way, both tragic and beautiful. But we are left with remembering that we have many days, many hours, and we should always remember that there are good things and bad, luck and bad luck, but that also, strangely, life is a beautiful thing and the only real enemy is time.

            
         

Jessica Abel's "La Perdida"

Review by David Karp

            Jessica Abel’s graphic novel, La Perdida, follows the adventure of Carla, a Mexican American, and her move to Mexico City to learn more about herself and her identity. She crashes with her ex-boyfriend, Harry, who is following the steps of the likes of William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac and crashing in the city, struggling to find inspiration for his writing. Disenchanted by each other, they come to an inevitable clash and Carla goes to join her new friends, natives Memo, Oscar, and others. Carla eventually finds herself “in too deep” in the Mexican underworld and her good intentions of trying to be a part of the culture and no longer an “outsider” gets her into trouble.

            Ok, I loved this graphic novel for many reasons. One of the reasons is the cultural aspect of the novel the story and the artwork brings. We are brought with Carla on her journey through the good and the bad Mexico City, and it is done with careful detail and enriched language. The use of Spanish is very cleaver, and it’s brought to any non-Spanish speaking readers in a very helpful, easy to grasp, and even information and educational way (parts of the novel also having subtitles which is fun!). Any words or phrases that one would need help defining are in a convenient glossary in the back of the novel.

            The story is very compelling, and the characters are certainly very outspoken. I honestly don’t think there was a character I didn’t get frustrated with at one time or another in the novel because of their words or not-so-wise decisions, but you end up getting to know the character’s views and dreams very intimately.

            That’s the other thing about this novel; it’s very conversational (which I love to read in any type of novel). Yes, it’s a graphic novel, so yeah it’s going to be, but this was in a very unique, almost (at least in the beginning) in a Woody Allen like way in its philosophy and its political/cultural undertones.  The characters very much express their views (especially the character Memo, who seems to always get into arguments with everyone) and have very thoughtful conversations about the differences of Mexico and America as well as the culture of Mexico and what it is to live as a real Mexican, which is, of course, one of the big themes of the novel, as well as Carla’s goal.

            Admittedly, I have not read that many graphic novels in my life, and being introduced to La Perdida has made me want to explore more, and more specifically ones that fuse different cultures into it. Yes, the fusion of culture in Abel’s novel is very good and the story makes us think about our own views towards other countries and the differences of being a tourist and being an “insider”. The form of a graphic novel was a very cool way to see this kind of cultural story play out, as I like the idea of introducing culture through both words and pictures.

            Of course, the artwork of the novel is really good. It captures the story, characters, and culture of Mexico City really well as the pictures guide us through the stories and the emotions. The artwork is black and white, which brings another unique feel to it; a rawer storytelling feel which I like. It also brings an urban air to it, which fits well into the setting of Mexico City and its darker side as you progress in the novel.

            So, all and all, I really suggest checking out this graphic novel, as you will not only be introduced to some Mexican culture, but also thrown into a unique journey and a different viewpoint of Mexico City that makes you think, all through the awesome art of graphic novel.

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!