Alfredo Véa
Paperback | Pages: 320 pages Rating: 4.15 | 325 Users | 39 Reviews
Declare Books Toward La Maravilla
| Original Title: | La maravilla |
| ISBN: | 0452271606 (ISBN13: 9780452271609) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Narration As Books La Maravilla
"Buckeye Road wasn't much of a town, just a place where a pocked and pitted road met an invisible street....It was less that unincorporated, it was unknown..."Yet it is here in the desert outside the Phoenix city limits that Alfredo Vea, Jr., finds a world of marvels spilling out of the adobe homes, tar-paper shacks, rusted Cadillacs, and battered trailers that are otherwise known as "Buckeye." Three thousand years of history and the myths of many cultures, as well as the fates of a dozen unforgettable characters, will all collide one hot summer in 1958; and the events played out on Buckeye Road will amount to nothing less than a new and life-affirming vision of the American Southwest...and of America itself.The vivid symbol of Buckeye Road is La Maravilla—the blanket of marigolds laid upon graves in Mexican cemeteries, and the mythical dog, sacred to the Aztecs, who returns from the under-world to lead his master to Mictlan, the land of the dead. La Maravilla is the embodiment of belonging to two worlds, and of being torn between the love and fear of both. It is the condition and mystery borne by all who inhabit this American outback—whether they are Blacks, Chicanos, Asians, Native Americans, Mexicans, European immigrants, or Anglo misfits. For Beto, the young boy at the center of this magnificent story, it is the dilemma that he must somehow resolve and emerge from whole. For Beto has no parents to guide him—his mother has fled the "old ways" of her Mexican family for a bright new American life beyond the desert sunset in California, where "Indians are history and Sunday is for football, not church!" But in her place, and more than filling it, is Beto's aristocratic Spanish grandmother, a Catholic curandera with a passion for the music of Duke Ellington. He also has his grandfather, a Yaqui Indian whose spirit soars above a desert without frontiers. With this extraordinary first novel, Alfredo Vea, Jr., takes his place in the first rank of America
Present Regarding Books La Maravilla
| Title | : | La Maravilla |
| Author | : | Alfredo Véa |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 320 pages |
| Published | : | April 1st 1994 by Plume (first published January 1st 1993) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Magical Realism. Literature |
Rating Regarding Books La Maravilla
Ratings: 4.15 From 325 Users | 39 ReviewsEvaluate Regarding Books La Maravilla
I read this book years ago and I'm looking forward to a revisit. I'm so excited I happened upon it at the library today."3.5+ stars, maybe even 4 stars. Something about the story is captivating. Was required reading in an American Ethnic literature course I took, but I never got around to reading it until now. The book made me cry a little at the end. I think I will appreciate it a lot more the second time around.
a wonderful and magical coming of age book, with so much rich culture set in a world that normally feels fearful to me, but is full of depth and imagination. i loved this book....
This book is quite unbalanced and full of dead ends. One minute it is taking you this way, and another minute that. New developments - stories - within the story are advanced then left behind. That said, some beautiful sentences mixed in:"For a hundred yard glowing cigarettes flickered in the dark, were stomped out and were lit elsewhere. Black and brown facial features flashed on then off as each Ohio blue tip flared then died."No more Alfredo Véa for me.
I liked the book a lot better once I finished it. Up to the end, there is a lot that is confusing which is Vea's way of writing. He messes with time throughout, and that can be kind of confusing. I read it for a class, and the professor had some good advice: read the prologue AFTER you finish the book.
Ah. A beautifully written book set in one of my favorite parts of the world, the Sonoran desert. Magical realism at its best. I cannot wait to get my hands on another of his books.
This is pretty much my favorite book of all time. Beautiful, personal, gritty, authentic... A gorgeous work of magical realism that draws one in on a window of the desert in a time and place on the edge... Lovelovelove it
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