The Block By Victor Villanueva Summary

The Block, a piece by Victor Villanueva, contains a story of great meaning. I found that the battle for understanding the piece was incredibly difficult. The story was very difficult to follow due to the mess of words and context. I found that reading the story was similar to playing a video game, the first few pages were easy to read, but the further into the story I got, the harder it was to understand. After reviewing the story a few times I was finally able to understand the meaning behind Villanueva's context. I found that Villanueva was telling the story of his life and the sacrifices that he made in order to be who he is today. This made the story interesting because it was based on his life. I also liked how Villanueva used a bit of casual comedy in his piece to make it more enjoyable and not as serious. I believe that he used this to show that his previous lifestyle wasn't as important to him as his lifestyle today.
In every book, there are always going to be flaws.
In this particular piece I found that Villanueva's "street talk" made it hard to understand, such as "Bed-Stuy." In addition to Villanueva's poor English, his sequence of events in the story made it very difficult to follow. He would jump from talking about one event in the story, such as school life, to something totally different, such as boxing. Both poor English and jumping to different events often happened simultaneously toward the ending of the story, which made it nearly impossible for me to read. Toward the back half of the book, I would often read a portion of the story and wonder what I just read. I would read one paragraph of the story and feel that I had a good grasp of what was going on in the story, and then move on and read the next paragraph, and be left clueless on what he was trying to talk about, because the two topics didn't have any real
relevance. Villanueva's descriptions of his childhood years, along with the poor English, made the piece great. When I read the piece, it made me feel like I was actually looking back on a portion of my own life, as if I had grown up on the block myself. He would describe people and what they were saying not only extremely well, but he would also add in a bit of comedy, making fun of the way people look. I found that this was extremely creative and have never come across another writer who has even close to the same style of writing. Villanueva's writing is both unique and hard to follow. This story is a very good yet hard piece to read. I enjoyed reading about how a boy who was nothing but a little ghetto boy, making himself into a very successful man, and never really had anyone but himself supporting him in what he did. Even though he never really felt that he deserved to get his Ph. D., I felt that there was no one else who deserved it more then he did. I found that if Villanueva had told his story of growing up any other way, then it wouldn't be half as good as it is. His story is hard to read and understand, but that's what I think makes it so great. It may have taken me a few times in order to actually picture what was happening, but when I did, I found that his word usage and placement of events in the story was what made it the way it is, genius. Villanueva's story is both unique as well as inspirational to hear about a child growing up in the ghetto, planning on going nowhere with his life, and being given the opportunity to go to college and receive his Ph. D. and live the life that others only dream about.