Reviews for Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage

The average rating for Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-15 00:00:00 Ray J WILLIAMS Breathtaking, amazing. Cabeza de Vaca's first person account allowed me to glimpse what it was like for Europeans to encounter a hurricane for the first time, for example, or to realize how utterly helpless the Spaniards were, how lost, when they were first exploring new territory. I've watched Nicolás Echevarría's extraordinary film and have also read three biographies now of Cabeza de Vaca's experiences, but reading the man's own words moved me in a completely different way. I was worried the text would feel obscure but it's completely riveting, a life and death story told in a straightforward style: One of the mounted men, Juan Velásquez, a native of Cuéllar, impatiently rode into the river. The violent current swept him from his saddle. He grabbed the reins but drowned with the horse. The subjects of that chief--whose name turned out to be Dulchanchellin--found the body of the beast and told us where in the stream below we likely would find the body of Cuéllar. They went to look for it. This death hit us hard, for until now not a man had been lost. The horse, meanwhile, furnished a supper for many that night. Cyclone Covey's translation includes in-text notes, offset in square brackets, that are unobtrusive and extremely informative.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-09-19 00:00:00 Tony Gibson O. M. G. There is 4+ hours that I will never get back. 1. It was boring. 2. It made me angry most of the time *To quote my friend Joy [who read this with me] as this was her [and mine] takeaway of this book: " a) Indians are bad b) Christians are good c) We were hungry [when we weren't stealing from the Indians that were bad]" "It is important for us to have this primary document from a Spanish conquistador. If we are tempted to minimize the absolutely ruthless entitlement with which they overran the natives, we can come back to Cabeza de Vaca’s own words." [Joy Walsh] 3. I almost sprained my eyes from rolling them so hard. 4. Heaven help the Indian that didn't want to be converted by de Vaca and his entourage. They were then considered evil and must be robbed AND killed and their women and children taken from them. 5. Heaven help the Indian that actually FOUGHT back against this assault to them and their lands and personal belongings. I swear I was ready to find this dude's descendants and beat the crap out of THEM because I cannot smack de Vaca himself for being a colossal jackass and a totally entitled jerk. This was a tough book to read in the sense that those who came here clearly had no problem running over those who were already here and were also quick to thank God for all their success in stealing and pillaging and killing. It is so disturbing to read an actual account [no matter how boring] of someone who did this. And was proud of how kind they were to those who didn't oppose them. I spent a lot of this book just being totally and completely angry. **NOTE: Please please please stay far far far away from the LibroVox Recording of this book. The narrator is just hideous and I will admit to drifting off at times while she was droning on [because the book itself wasn't boring enough]. It really was horrible. You will be much better off just reading the account.