 "Great historical romance" | 2009-03-19 |
| - Reviewed By billh2222 from San Diego, CA USA |
| This book might be the only romance novel that I've read in my life, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It painted a detailed portrait/landscape of what California was like in the late 1800's. |
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| ""Now the Hacienda's Dark, the Town is Sleeping"" | 2008-05-10 |
| - Reviewed By Strawgold from Wyoming |
It has been a long time since I first read this book, but the subject matter will be around for a long time to come. Bewitching love story for which at least one beautiful song has been written, "Ramona" and possibly "Vaya Con Dios". It is a love story, one whose emotion most of us will recognize; another time, another place, from our own Spring Time; woven skillfully into cultural differences, that somehow begets bigotry, born of all the little differences that make each of us unique, but also make us strange and unacceptable to others who cannot accept differences from what they have always known.
The descriptions of that far removed landscape and time are marvelous. The Old early Missions, the sheep, the priests who visit the valley in the traditional way on foot, traveling on ancient footpaths to bring religion to the people (and keep them religious), all are magical in their simplicity as the author brings forth their tale. She is also one of the first to dare write of things unsavory to the average conscience. She took conditions "as they were" and exposed them "for what they were" in the treatment of people displaced.
It's a setting deep within the Old Spanish Mission Country of Southern California, among the sheep ranches, and steeped in Spanish Culture, strict traditions, and unforgiving religion. Times were hard, values were strict and anyone not fitting snugly into a pre-conceived notion of a pre-conceived group was hard-pressed to find a life to live in peace anywhere. It is in this life where Ramona grows up, a child of a misalliance between the former lover of the Senora Moreno's own sister and an Indian woman - that's a twist in the story to be discovered while reading it. The Senora, for a variety of reasons you will understand as you read, agrees to take the child Ramona in to raise, although she never accepts her, because she is not blood family. The description of Ramona is captivating, long black hair of the Indian girl, dark blue eyes of the Scottish father - truly she is beautiful, but it is also apparent that her beauty goes deeper than the skin; she is beautiful of spirit as well as of the flesh.
Alessandro, an Indian lad, comes to work on the ranch early in the spring to help with the annual sheep shearing. Ramona quickly sees in him something she has never seen before - someone who will accept her for whom she is, without reservation, coupled with a gentle mind and character much like her own. She falls in love with him, adding another layer of "difference" to her half-breed status.
Felipe, the beloved son of the venerable, strong and proud Matriarch, Senora Moreno, who rules not only the ranch but her son with an iron hand, falls in love with Ramona himself but knows he can never take her for his own, for many reasons. Those "reasons" finally dissolve during the tragic ending of the story and what remains of the life of Ramona blends again into the home she left as a young woman - as she tried to make a new life with a stranger she has loved deeply. As she is delivered back to a life of security, she is strangely serene - but never again will she feel wild, young excitement once experienced with Allesandro, the Indian. I offer one of the last lines of the epilogue - as she finally stands "quietly in Filepe's arms":
"...how unlike was she to that Ramona who flung herself on Alessandro's breast, crying 'take me with you! I would rather die than have you leave me!'....."
Ramona is well deserving of it's place in Classic Literature - a love and strife story extraordinaire. |
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 "THE TWILIGHT OF HISPANIC CALIFORNIA" | 2008-01-01 |
| - Reviewed By PLUME45 |
Published in 1916 Jackson's classic romance--in every sense of the word--recreates an already bygone era. After the 1834 Secularization of the 21 missions in the chain founded by Father Serra, the California of the grandees slowly, inevitably began to fade into historical memory. Three groups were drastically affected by the disintegration of this social system--admittedly not free of innate injustice. Ruin fell upon the devout Franciscan fathers, the Hispanic hidalgos who had received vast estates from the King, and the Native Americans who first respected the land--ever at the bottom of the social chain.
Depicted as the underlying moral evil of all three groups are the
Yankees--Americans in general, whose greed and violence destroyed innocent lives, trampled decades of royal justice and raped the landscape of Alta California with wanton violence and callous indifference. Dispersed among these recriminations and regrets the author weaves a grimly fascinating tapestry of love, psychological brutality, outraged or warped honor and overbearing pride.
Senora Moreno rules her household with an iron fist and a cold heart, except where it concerns her only, somewhat naïve son, Felipe, 20. A master at manipulation this dowager wields absolute power to her vast household and retainers but also behind the scenes, deferring only to aged Father Salvierderra, for whom she has had a chapel built.
Keeping selfish secrets about her dead sister's half-breed daughter (who considers a marriage between a white man and an squaw valid?), she hoards both the jewels and the love int ended for the girl. Obeying only the letter of her promise to her sister, she never intended to honor the spirit of motherhood, thus condemning Ramona to be raised without affection.
At 19 Ramona is lovely, sweet, gentle and genteel (thanks to her convent training) but sheltered in a simple country lifestyle, where she is kept in ignorance of the reality of the present world and her own, mysterious past. This tenuous status quo changes when the annual sheep shearing occurs, the year that 21-year-old Alessandro, the educated son of a chief, leads his band of Indians to the hacienda. Their hidden love smolders until it erupts in a passionate embrace, which is unfortunately witnessed and misinterpreted by the shocked Senora.
Her outraged reaction and fierce determination to punish the
culprits sets in motion a chain of events which result in both the lovers
fleeing the rancho. There follow years of persecution of this doomed pair, as they seek to live peacefully--in harmony with nature and man. Jackson includes heavy themes in this story: racial prejudice, the power of Catholicism, the tension between mother and son, and the regenerating force of love. Partly a novel of social protest, RAMONA--despite its semi-tragic denouement, remains a classic tale of old California, whose pathos and passion reach out to modern readers.
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| "Early California History" | 2007-11-18 |
| - Reviewed By L Berger from Boston |
| Ramona is a historical romantic fiction that was written in the late nineteenth to help publicize the cause of Indian Rights. The author, herself an activist, tells the story of the injustices that were done to the Spaniards, Mexicans and Indians by the early American explorers who came to California. Ramona, who is part-Indian. becomes the heroine in a tale of love and hate. The book is one of the most famous stories ever written about early California, and there have been annual Ramona-festivals in many towns over the years. There is also a town named Ramona in southern California. Most of the characters are very well drawn, but the main character of Ramona is lacking. This does not spoil the impact of the book. As a lover of early western history in America, this book is the best I have ever read about the transition of the old world into the new. Reading it for the second time, I have enjoyed it even more. |
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| "Opens a Window on Another Time and Place" | 2007-10-10 |
| - Reviewed By statesman and philosopher from Hardin, Montana, USA |
Helen Hunt Jackson's two major books, CENTURY OF DISHONOR and RAMONA were on a reading list of mine when I was a graduate student back in the Upper Paleolith. I didn't like either book, but am forced to concede their value.
RAMONA reminded me of trying to eat ten gallons of ice cream. It was too sweet, too melodramatic and I was lucky to avoid death by cloying suffocation from reading it.
It is, however, a great example of late 19th century romance. People didn't have e-mail, text messaging, computers, TV or radio. Instead, they read! A lot of them read RAMONA and apparently enjoyed it a lot more than many of today's readers.
It is dated, but that is its true value, in my opinion. Jackson doesn't step out of her skin, or her age, when she writes. Some of the dated, annoying stereotypes which roll off her pen illustrate the perceptions of the age in which she lived. For better or worse, that's their value.
If you're interested in American Literature, Intellectual History, or regional literature related to California, RAMONA may be of interest to you. I have a copy and enjoy it in small doses as befits an aging Philistine.
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| "Not my typical book, but enjoyed it" | 2005-12-27 |
| - Reviewed By W. Bitner from Upstate NY USA |
| I heard about the book while hiking at Seven Falls near Colorado Springs. HHJ was suppose to have gone to the overlook there to write, including parts of Ramona. This intrigued me and so I checked it out. I don't read much non-fiction, so I enjoyed the idea of a history based novel. It was enough of a love story for me to earn points with female friends, but enough of an adventure to keep me interested. One part of the book that I found distracting was the attempt at phonetic spelling of the Tennessee drawl of a few characters. I had the hardest time reading that, which perhaps is an excellent way of HHJ to capture the difficulty of listening to it. |
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