Reader Response Blog: Bless Me, Ultima 1

I hate french. I am terrible at it; I work my butt off for it, and I still have never gotten an A in Mrs. Corbett's class. It's not that she's a bad teacher either. I think she's great, but foreign languages just don't click with me, and for this reason I hate them.Spanish is no different. This is English class. I speak only English and music. I live in the USA, where we have freedom of speech. I believe they should restrict that to "freedom of speech in English". The Spanish is absolutely killing me in this book, so much so that I cannot appreciate it. Every time I type a little español into Google Translate, I end up looking at it and laughing because there is some funny word. For example, the phrase "una mujer con un diente, que llama a toda gente" (Anaya 34) contains the word llama. It translates to a woman with one tooth who calls all people, and this makes me forget how serious the book actually is. I read things like that and I think of Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. Vota por Pedro! Thus far, I intensely dislike the language of Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.
A little fun fact: I named my clarinet Anaya.
I think that the actual story of Bless Me, Ultima is fairly interesting. I love the contemplation of Lupito's soul, as well has Antonio's father. "Did God listen? Would he hear? Had he seen my father on the bridge? And where was Lupito's soul winging to, or was it washing down the river to the fertile valley of my uncles' farms?" (Anaya 23). A strong question of ethos is posed in this quote. The reader would think that Lupito is crazy after the war, but in actuality he did kill someone, and since he was still armed, he was considered dangerous. Of course, "He was shooting to draw their fire," (Anaya 22), but does that mean it is okay to kill the man? Antonio realized that he was doing this, so why didn't they? Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is am interesting book in the sense that I want to love the plot, but I cannot because of the language.