The Hummingbird's Daughter
by Luis Alberto Urrea
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Book Summary Information
Author: Luis Alberto UrreaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-03
ISBN: 0316154520
Number of pages: 499
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of The Hummingbird's Daughter
Book Review: I Didn't Want It to End
Summary: 5 Stars
Not since I read Mario Vargas Llosa's THE WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD several years ago have I come across a novel whose characters, story, and general aura captivated me so completely that I was sorry to see it come to its inevitable end. Until I read THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER.
Luis Alberto Urrea proves himself to be a consummate storyteller, creating a cast of memorable characters whose intersecting lives blend the traditions of hacienda-owning, Christian Mexico with the pantheistic mysticism of Indian Mexico. Urrea depicts Mexico's ironic mixture of warmth and harshness through countless small touches and turns of phrase, creating a remarkably strong sense of place. In fact, Mexico itself becomes one of the book's major characters - its people, its history, its austere and unforgiving climate and geography. The end result is a novel that traces the evolution of Mexico in the late 1800's and the birth of the modern Mexican state in an America-dominated age. It is no coincidence that a book so deeply rooted in Mexico at its beginning ends a number of years later in a train headed for the United States.
The Hummingbird is Cayetana, a poor but strong-willed woman who gives birth to a daughter. Believing that the choice of name will dictate her child's future, Cayetana christens her daughter Nina Garcia Nona Maria Rebecca Chavez. The Hummingbird abandons her daughter at an early age, leaving her with her aunt and disappearing from sight. The young girl, unusually bright and inquisitive, is eventually given over to the tutelage of Huila, the estancia's resident midwife, medicine woman, and all-around mystical healer. As if to prove her absent mother correct even if her choice of names was wrong, the young girl rechristens herself as Theresa, after Saint Theresa. "I am going to be her," she explains to the dubious Huila.
Theresa's father, we soon discover, is Tomas Urrea, the rich landowner of the Sinaloan estate where they live. Teresita, as she is called, demonstrates mystical powers exceeding those of her teacher, to the point where she becomes widely known as a faith healer and ultimately a threat to a ruthless but inexplicably skittish government. Urrea's characters are beautifully drawn, from the saintly Teresita to the cranky but lovable Huila, from the liberal-thinking Tomas to his jewel- and tradition-encrusted wife Dona Loreto, from the radical but inventive engineer Don Lauro Aguirre to the scampish boy Buenaventura (another of Tomas's illegitimate children) and the honor-bound outlaw, Cruz Chavez.
While Urrea's prose is neither as dense nor as introspective as Garcia Marquez's or Cormac McCarthy's, his storytelling flows at a graceful pace that easily sustains the reader's interest. The writing is filled with small touches that evoke the sights and sounds and smells of rural Mexico: "Segundo shifted in the saddle, and it made its three hundred leather sounds." Then there are the cruel oddities of Mexico, such as the rural policemen who travel the countryside exhibiting the floating head of a captured bandit as a way to intimidate the peasants into obedience, or the Hummingbird's sister, Tia, whose smoking habit includes flicking the burnt ash on her tongue as though it was a naturally consumable part of the cigarette.
Best of all, however, are the stories and traditions Urrea integrates into the people's daily lives, such as the fabled visit of the Virgin Mary to Teresa's ancestors. Mary's heavenly descent ends with the Mother of God stuck on top of a huge cactus, from where she spoke. "What did she say?" Teresa asks. "Get me a ladder," Huila answers. And that's what the people did for the Mother of God. "This is how Heaven works," Huila explains. "They're practical. We are always looks for rays of light. For lightning bolts or burning bushes. But God is a worker, like us. He made the world - He didn't hire poor Indios to build it for him! God has worker's hands. Just remember - angels carry no harps. Angels carry hammers."
Readers who want to be immersed in a story, lose themselves in another place and time and culture, and allow the marvel of great fiction to transport them to a world both forever lost and beyond their own, will surely enjoy THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER. Like me, their only regret will probably be reaching the 495th and last page.
Summary of The Hummingbird's Daughter
The prizewinning writer Luis Alberto Urrea's long-awaited novel is an epic mystical drama of a young woman's sudden sainthood in late 19th-century Mexico.It is 1889, and civil war is brewing in Mexico. A 16-year-old girl, Teresita, illegitimate but beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful rancher Don Tomas Urrea, wakes from the strangest dream--a dream that she has died. Only it was not a dream. This passionate and rebellious young woman has arisen from death with a power to heal--but it will take all her faith to endure the trials that await her and her family now that she has become the Saint of Cabora.THE HUMMINGBIRD?S DAUGHTER is a vast, hugely satisfying novel of love and loss, joy and pain. Two decades in the writing, this is the masterpiece that Luis Alberto Urrea has been building up to.Historical Books
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