The Hummingbird's Daughter (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
Urrea pulls together two decades of personal research into the compelling story of a great aunt who became a sainted icon of the indigenous rebellion against the Porfiriato in late 19th century Mexico. The Hummingbird's Daughter paints a vivid, earthy, fearless picture of the insular rural world of the hacienda of his people, as well as of the nameless masses of "the People," his term for the Indian underclass that populate the background of the story and eventually swell like the tide. Urrea deserves praise for the seamless transitions he makes between the achingly beautiful and the disgusting. He tumbles headlong into both in order to acknowledge that they are equally true, equally parts of life and death in the Mexico he describes. For a book about a woman's holy powers of healing and divine love, there is an awful lot of pig filth, difficult childbirths, gunshot wounds, and skin sores--and this balance is precisely what makes the 500 pages breeze past in a cloud of reality and possibility. Occasionally the accumulated weight of the vast research he has amassed in preparing to tell his family's story will press against the scenery he paints, chink the sky with echoes of a newspaper article or an eyewitness account, wind the narrative into a puzzling gully, but the sum of the book breathes life into a rich world of beauty, faith, and injustice.An excerpt from chapter one to set the scene:Every Mexican was a diluted Indian, invaded by milk like the coffee in Cayetana's cup. Afraid, after the Conquest and the Inquisition, of their own brown wrappers, they colored their faces with powder, covered their skins in perfumes and European silks and American habits. Yet for all their beaver hats and their lace veils, the fine citizens of the great cities knew they had nothing that would ever match the ancient feathers of the quetzal. No cacique stood atop any temple clad in jaguar skins. Crinolines, waistcoats. Operas, High Mass, café au lait in demitasse cups in sidewalk patisseries. They attempted to choke the gods with New York pantaloons, Parisian petticoats. But still the banished spirits whispered from corners and basements. In Mexico City, the great and fallen Tenochtitlán, among streets and buildings constructed with the stones of the Pyramid of the Sun, gentlemen walked with their heads slightly tilted, cocked as if listening to this puzzling murmur of wraiths. They still spoke a thousand languages--Spanish, too, to be sure, but also a thicket of songs and grammars. Mexico--the sound of wind in the ruins. Mexico--the waves rushing the shore. Mexico--the sand dunes, the snowfields, the steam of sleeping Popocatépetl. Mexico--across marijuana fields, tomato plants, avocado trees, the agave in the village of Tequila.Mexico....All around them, in the small woods, in the caves, in the precipitous canyons of copper country, in the swamps and at the crossroads, the harsh Old Ones gathered. Tlaloc, the rain god, lips parched because the Mexicans no longer tortured children to feed him sweet drafts of their tears. The Flayed One, Xipe Totec, shivering cold because priests no longer skinned sacrifices alive and danced in their flesh to bring forth the harvest. Tonántzin, goddess of Tepeyac, chased from her summit by the very Mother of God, the Virgen de Guadalupe. The awesome and ferocious warrior god, Hummingbird on the Left, Huitzilopochtli. Even the Mexicans' friend, Chac Mool, was lonely. Big eared and waiting to carry their hopes and dreams in his bowl as he transited to the land of the gods from the earth, he lay on his back watching forever in vain for the feathered priests to return. Other Old Ones hid behind statues in the cathedrals that the Spaniards had built with the stones of their shattered temples. The smell of sacrificial blood and copal seeped out from between the stones to mix with incense and candles. Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.Mexico. Mexico.
This review has been revised on completion. Teresita, the Hummingbird's daughter, existed. She is an acknowledged saint. In this book you learn about her life in Mexico, until she was forced to leave at the age of 19. You learn about Mexico (food, lifestyle, religious beliefs and customs) and about the Mexican Civil War that took place in the last decade of the 1800s. You learn about her role in this war. Teresita was a distant cousin to the author. Although based on known fact, it is a novel. This book is a beautiful example of what can be achieved through historical fiction. I have listened to the audio version of The Hummingbird's Daughter, and I loved it. It is narrated by the author, so I was a bit skeptical - I mean, he is not a trained narrator! On the other hand, being the author, means he knows what lines he wants to emphasize. He suceeded. It is SO good. The writing is full of imagery. Since I listened to an audio, I sucked on every sentence. I feel the imagery is stronger because of this. So if I you choose to read the book, my advice sould be read it slowly. A word of warning: the imagery is both gtusome and beautiful. You might need a strong stomach for some ot it. There is quite a bit os Spanish thrown in. I did not have any trouble with that, although I do not know Spanish. By the end of the novel I adored the way the author/narrator inbibed the Spanish dialect into the novel.The imagery is what will remain most vivid in my memory of this novel. Three examples: - Her hair reached to her bottom which was like a "plump peach". - There is a child, born smiling, after the prolonged suffering of childbirth. - There is the first time Teresita enters the patron's house and is confronted with the grandfather clock, with its pendulum and rythmic beating. For her it is a tree with its heart thumping. - And the flowers that you experience in all their colors and fragrances and shapes and sizes. Perhaps it is because the imagery of horrible, heartwrenching depictions (for example sores with pus and vermin and stench) contrasts so abruptly with beauty, that I was blown away. Beyond the wonderful imagery, the book teaches about past events and about a different culture. One need not be a devout, believing person to appreciate the events. Teresita is not unbelievable. she cannot cure everyone. She was educated in the science of herbs. Being a true sceptic, I never had trouble accepting "strange mystical events". There is always another explanation to fall back on. Perhaps I so liked the book because the messages imparted were realistic and yet upplifting at the same time. Good and bad were intertwined. The value of family is wonderfully shown. And I grew to love Teresita's father. All his weaknesses only made him more human. I understood his preference for bees over humans. When he pats the pig on the head.... You will meet Huila and so many others, whom you will grow to love.Luis Alberto Urrea has written a follow-up book entitled Queen of America: A Novel, The theme is significantly different. While the first is about the indigenous people of Mexico and their lives at the end of the 19th century, the latter is about the Spanish immigrant ewperience in the in newly industrialized America of the 20th century. Both follow Teresita, the Saint of Cabora.
What do You think about The Hummingbird's Daughter (2006)?
Based on the legend of Urrea's sainted cousin, the author uses historical fiction to bring 16 year old Teresita to life, during a period of violence and political upheaval in Mexico, near the end of the 19th century.What I liked about the book: learning about Mexican culture, the civil war and some of it's causes, Teresita's early life and her relationship with her father. I am fascinated with the lives of saints, and was excited to learn that The Hummingbird's Daughter would chronicle such a life, but this is by no means a religious book. In fact, it has a distinctly secular tone.What I didn't like about the book: The characters are really kept at arms length. Despite the abundance of drama in the book, I never felt connected to any of these people. I wish the author had included more background information because much of the culture and politics of 19th century Mexico eludes me. I felt thrust into the midst of it without reference, and it left me with many questions unanswered.I have, on several occasions, tried to read novels about Latin America, and have never found one that I really enjoyed. I don't know if something gets lost in the translation, or if I just lack enough background information about the culture and history of Latin America to truly enjoy what I'm reading. I will say that this novel is one of the better ones I've read, but I still can't give it more than 3 stars.
—Suzanne
Yes, it's an outstanding piece of historical fiction and the reader can learn much about Mexico in the Porfirio Diaz era just prior to its bloody revolution. Yes, it's an extraordinary example of magical realism that can bear the weight of comparison to Gabriel Garcia Marques's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude." Yes, it's a breathtaking epic novel that sweeps the reader up with many finely drawn characters and exciting twists and turns of plot. In looking over the reviews, I agree wholeheartedly with these opinions. What is particularly interesting to me, and what I haven't seen mentioned in what I have read, is that 'The Hummingbird's Daughter' was written in English by an American who lives and teaches in Illinois. Mexico is us; we are Mexico. California, where I live, used to be in Mexico. While there is no doubt the United States and Mexico are two distinct nations, the border we have drawn is arbitrary and fuzzy, except to those who make maps and build fences. Indeed, to escape Diaz's thought police, one of the novel's more important minor characters moves to El Paso. Read this beautiful book to get in touch with your Mexican heritage. Viva la Santa Teresita! Viva la raza!
—Lars Guthrie
This is a phenomenal, picaresque story. Teresa (Teresita) Urrea, the Hummingbird's daughter, possessed me, made me want to dig my bare feet in the earth and rub rose petals and lavender all over my body. She is now my beloved hero of contemporary literature. Strong, courageous, formidable, guileless, beautifully vulnerable, compassionate, quick-witted, and luminescent, Teresa is a modern-day *saint* without the dismal, pious sobriety of one. She is more like a noble iconoclast. She hikes up her skirts and rides a horse better than any man, eats like a lumberjack, and engages in astral projection. She denounces organized religion and behaves more like a pantheist. She can heal with her hands, bandy words with politicians, and flirt with the infamous.The author based this work of fiction on real events in the life of an eponymous blood relation, circa 1880 (when the story also takes pace). He spent 20 years in the research and writing, which is evident in the stirring, complex, yet easily digestible, mouth-watering narration of this novel.Teresa is the illegitimate daughter of wealthy (and married) south-of-the-border rancher Don Tomas and a fourteen year-old peasant Indian woman who fled Sinaloa for greener pastures. Raised initially by her mean-spirited aunt, her adventurous spirit eventually delivers her to the house of her father at a tender, young age. The protective, flinty Huila, a medicine woman who works for Don Tomas, apprehends Teresa's destiny and mentors her in the art and botanical science of healing. Huila is also aware that Teresa has a native and inherited shamanic talent way beyond midwifery and organic medicine.Filled with a sprawling and vivid cast of characters--vaqueros, caballeros, Indians, pilgrims,politicians, the wealthy as well as the indigent, apostates as well as the devout, this is a colorful, astutely comical allegory that is ripe with thought, action, and spirit. It is a story of familial love and redemption and the vastness of the soul. It is a tale of adventure that you won't want to end. (Rumor has it that a sequel and a film is in the works.)Luis Alberto Urrea is an exuberant storyteller oozing an alchemical mixture of warmth, humor, satire, and vigorous vitality. His style is a reminiscent witch's brew of the best of outlaw and magical realism--The Milagro Beanfield War; Lonesome Dove; a dose of Garcia-Marquez; a glittering sprinkle of Isabelle Allende. But it is its own mystical and magical epic story of community and faith, of an unforgettable daughter and the people who loved her.
—switterbug (Betsey)
