An Announcement and Book Review

Photo by Jensine Odom

Have you ever been surprised by a gust of wind strong enough to push you along? It shocks you so much that you might look over your shoulder to see who did it, rather than what. The lack of control over our own steps turns into stumbling, hunkering down, and pulling our coats tighter around us.

We fight for ground against the wind; the same way we would hold our own against a person.

Is it even a fair fight?

Recently a story about a little boy named Antonio Juan Márez y Luna, “Toooonny!” for short, taught me a lesson, or a few, about unfair fights. I picked up a copy of Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima this summer. We were considering moving west to New Mexico. And at the top of nearly every list of books set in New Mexico was this American classic. A coming-of-age story that once or twice has stirred up trouble.

Antonio is a six-year-old living in tension over adult questions he needs answers for. Living in a grown-up world in a child’s body is never easy. Add older brothers returning from war, addiction, Catholic catechism, and strain from deep family traditions and one quickly relates to why a child would flee to the wide-open plains for fresh air.

The children of Guadalupe, New Mexico grapple with their reality the best they can. The girls become pious women or whores. And the boys become placid farmers or fighting alcoholics. Antonio yearns with a desire for better for his fellow classmates and himself. It earns him the schoolyard nickname, “Tony our Priest.” It is nearly unfathomable to imagine a boy of six facing the conflict that Antonio does. So with him asking of his schooling, of the landscape, of religion, we demand the answer to, “Is this even a fair fight?”

Bless Me, Ultima is a classic for more reasons than one. It questions many of our institutions without demonizing what was created. Traditions stand up against the erosion of time for a reason. And still we must be willing to look at why they were started and shared and hold true to the original purpose.

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A tradition I love to keep, before arriving in new places, is reading books with settings so distinct they are nearly their own characters. And Bless Me, Ultima starts in on page one introducing us to her Llano, or the New Mexican plains.

“She took my hand, and I felt the power of a whirlwind sweep around me. Her eyes swept the surrounding hills and through them I saw for the first time the wild beauty of our hills and the magic of the green river. My nostrils quivered as I felt the song of the mockingbirds and the drone of the grasshoppers mingle with the pulse of the earth. The four directions of the llano met in me, and the white sun shone on my soul. The granules of sand at my feet and the sun and sky above me seemed to dissolve into one strange, complete being.

A cry came to my throat, and I wanted to shout it and run in the beauty I had found.”

Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima ushered me into my new home. It painted the sky that I would follow as I drove from Davenport to Albuquerque. This novel warmed my feelings toward the community that would embrace me as I moved away. And it helped me count the spectacular differences. Each day I am learning, like Antonio, there is a beauty here that raises a cry in my throat and pulls me toward the Sandia Mountains at the end of every long day of work. That beauty is the people of this state who love where they live and want to preserve it for the generations to come.

Bless me, Albuquerque.