This week I read to the fifth chapter of “Bless Me Ultima” and it just keeps getting better and better. This book is heavy with details of every event that happens, and while some may not like that, I love all the fine points of an event that Anaya takes the time to describe.
The book continues on after the murders of both the town sheriff and the man who killed the sheriff, Lupito. Antonio rises on the next morning with his family about to go to mass, and he remembers all the things that had transpired the night before. His family heads to mass and from there comes home. Tony also spends sometime with Ultima near the river picking herbs for all the natural potions and remedies that Ultima uses to cure the sick that come to visit her. The fourth chapter ends with Tony and his family having a rosary to remember his brother’s who are off fighting the war against the Germans and the Japanese.
As far as content or plot goes, these two chapters I read this week weren’t jam-packed with places or people like the first two chapters of this book. What make these two chapters worthwhile are the descriptions that help reinforce the culture and characters of the book. When Tony wakes up and his mother is calling him to get ready for mass that reminded me of the days when I was younger when my father would never be late to wake me up by seven thirty so that we could get ready and go to church on time.
This little event that Anaya wrote about brought back strong recollections on when I was younger. When I would awaken early enough to say the golden rays of the sun stream through my window while I heard my brother argue groggily with my dad in the next room about not wanting to get up for church. Soon after I would hear my dad start to move pots and pans around with the familiar clanks as they were set on the stove to make breakfast for the family. From here the morning ritual to get ready for church would move on, though sometimes slowly. As the comforting smell of eggs, potatoes and toast would waft through the house I would take a shower and put on that awkward button up shirt and stiff pants that were customary for church wear.
To me that’s what I like most about this book. As I read I will be reminded of things that happened long ago, sometimes I remember events or people I haven’t thought about in a long time. This book connects very deeply, because I feel that all the characters are almost like the family I hear about from my grandpa or older uncles and aunt. My family also owned a ranch in the small town of Reserve, New Mexico. My family and all my cousins are traced back to the original twelve siblings that shared this ranch with my parents. Now my great uncles and aunts were not the kind of people that most would want their sons of daughters to hang around with. My family owned a dancing hall and the local tavern, and the men of the family usually stuck together for protection, as well as carrying some brass knuckles in their back pockets just in case. This small town was pretty much run by my family’s likeable qualities as it was run by the fact that there were twelve willing brothers and sisters willing to fight for anything you didn’t agree with them on. However, it didn’t stay like this. As the siblings were getting older a Christian missionary passed through the town one day. I don’t recall who or how, but one of the twelve converted to Christianity and that was the beginning of a movement within my family. One by one, my uncles and aunts put down the alcohol and stopped the womanizing and violence to convert to Christianity. All that helped shape the way I live life now or even how my dad grew up.
Overall, I really like this book.
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