I read Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya years ago when I was in graduate school. It is a phenomenal book, and one I highly recommend to anyone simply because it's a great book. I have always wanted to read more of Anaya's work and have collected several of his books over the years but I haven't read anything else until now.
If you've been observant, you'll notice that I changed my "book I'm reading now" earlier this week without providing a review of that book. That's because I couldn't finish it. It was Jalamanta by Anaya and it was so horrible that I didn't even make it through 40 pages. The premis was ok: An exile returns home to help out his people as they are being persecuted by the dictatorial regime. But the way it was told was just awful. It sounded like some weird mish mash of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and New Age tripe that I couldn't take it seriously, much less actually care about any of the characters. I put it away disappointed in Anaya and wondering if Ultima was his only good book.
But, I decided to pull out another of his books just to help myself answer that above question and so that I wouldn't avoid him forever if Jalamanta was an anomoly. I'm relieved to say that this next book, Alburquerque (misspelling intentional) is excellent. I was hooked from the first sentence, and committed by the second, and that doesn't happen in very many books. I'll be devouring this one.
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