Ultima, ultimately

The first time many of us saw Rudolfo Anaya was when he spoke to Highlands students and staff in a packed Sala de Madrid, around 1972.

He had just completed his first — and in my opinion, his best — novel, “Bless Me, Ultima,” now a movie that my family and I saw at a multi-screen theater in Santa Fe last weekend.

Back in the early ‘70s, I was assigned a couple of composition classes that allowed me to teach six sections of a class called Exposition II. I chose Anaya’s new novel as the main component of the course and I get the impression the classes loved it.

Whether it’s a compliment or an indicator of limited post-Highlands reading, a few students have since told me, 40 years later, that Anaya’s book had stuck with them and remains among their favorites.

In the interim, I received some residual fame, at least from a small Taos family. What happened was that the father of one of my former students stopped me at Wal-Mart, where his son was working as a checker. The dad told me I had written a fine book.

Me, an author? Though I would have liked to keep the compliment, I was compelled to ask the man what he meant. It turns out that his son, Bobby, told his parents that I was at least the co-author of “Bless Me, Ultima.”

How did that happen? I once said, in class, “Rudolfo Anaya wrote ‘Bless Me, Ultima.’” Bobby heard me say, “Rudolfo and I — uh — wrote . . .” That’s a big leap: “Anaya” and “And I — uh.”

As with so many authors, I believe in beginners luck. I’ve discovered Anaya has written many books and carved out a name for himself. I think the first one, Ultima, ultimately is the best. Same with John Nichols, the author of “The Milagro Beanfield War.” He experimented with other novels and genres, but nothing in my opinion comes close to “Milagro.” And that book became a hit movie several years ago.

I don’t want to be like the bratty kids who’s seen a movie a dozen times and delights in announcing in a loud voice that the hero doesn’t really die at the end, revealing the plot to all within earshot. So I won’t be revealing the plot, except to say that the movie is remarkably close to the novel.

I marvel at the superb characterization. Whereas many movies about people from this area don’t seem too intent on portraying our people accurately and not really paying much attention to the way we speak, Ultima did a fine job.

In the movie, the choices for the main characters, Ultima, Gabriel, Maria, Tenorio, the Vitamin Kid and especially Antonio are prime choices for their respective roles. The language we norteños speak sounds familiar.

The scene in which the loathsome Tenorio arrives at the Marez home, intent on burning Ultima at the stake, certainly was credible. The accents were perfect, the vocabulary ideal for the occasion, the people and the Puerto de Luna area.

The school scenes, with the obligatory race across the bridge with the Vitamin Kid, reminded me of the VKs of my own childhood neighborhood. No matter how big a headstart my neighbor Waldron gave me, he’d always win the race to Immaculate Conception School.

I wonder whether I’d have perceived the movie differently if admittedly, I’d not been familiar with the novel. I taught the book six times; it was  bound to leave a durable impression. It was the kind of movie I wish hadn’t ended so soon. How does even the best director compress a book of hundreds of pages into a 100-minute movie?

Some of the more memorable parts of the novel don’t appear in the movie. Yet the chronic feuding, the struggles with Tenorio, with accusations that Ultima practiced witchcraft, and other actions come across expertly. So even with the omission of some memorable book sections, the movie comes across excellently.

If it arrives in Las Vegas, see it!

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Klare Schmidt, a frequent contributor to this column, sent me a mug on which are written the titles of many books that were once banned. Naturally, it includes Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Catch 22, Tropic of Cancer, Madame Bovary, Animal Farm, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Lolita, Huckleberry Finn, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ulysses, To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. Ultima somehow didn’t make the list.

Ironically, many of these previously banned books now constitute a large part of college humanities curricula.

Several years ago I wrote about a small-town Texas school superintendent who ordered the burning of Anaya’s tour de force. Had Señor Superintendent read Ultima? Of course not, but he made it clear that books that include witchcraft and the Spanish equivalent of the f-word do not conduce to the learning promulgated by that school district.

I contend that banned books have a better chance of becoming best sellers, just as many owners of old hotels love it when people start to believe rumors that the place is haunted. We love being frightened.

I refuse to believe that any kind of reading corrupts the people. Most critics of Ultima charge that the book teaches and preaches witchcraft. Far from it! Ultima, versed in ancient customs and in the use of herbs, is a curandera, not a bruja, a healer rather than a witch.

Did my pre-teen granddaughters become demented upon reading the book or viewing the film with us? Have Carly and Celina applied for a permit to build their own coven? Hardly.

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Oh yes, did I recommend that you see the movie?