For July we read Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros.
We met at Pam's on Thursday July 19th
In the true spirit of book club the food was fantastic. (See pictures below) Almost unintentionally everything was in the three colors of the Mexican flag, from the guacamole to the strawberries. The book was a little less fantastic. Only Kristine managed to finish in time for our meeting. Judy and Brian aren't planning to complete it. And Pam, Carmyn, and Larry all hope to..... eventually. (I'm still working on that!) Our responses to Caramelo were mixed, though it was evident no one LOVED the book and everyone thought it dragged. Several in the group had read House on Mango Street or "Eleven" and expected this to be similar in style or format and found that Cisneros didn't quite live up to that expectation.
The structre of this novel seemed different from her previous ones, and we focused on that for awhile commenting, too, on the placement of the footnotes and what we thought of them. I didn't mind them, but agreed that they broke up the flow of the reading since they were at the end of the chapter. One suggestion was they'd be better placed at the bottom of the page where the notation occured rather than at the end of the chapter because they slowed down the reading or caused you to have to flip back and forth or forget why it was marked.
Judy pointed out that if this book had been written with a language other than Spanish sprinkled in, the sheer volume of the foreign words would not have been tolerated. It DID had an impressive amount of untranslated Spanish in the book and we spent some time looking at examples of that and shooting words Pam's way seeking explanations.
Pam liked the middle section best... while Larry prefered the first section. I didn't really have an opinion on that. I did, however, have a bit of trouble keeping the various characters straight in my head... we were learning about a young girl, her father's and mother's stories, and her grandparent's stories as they happened in Mexico City, Acapulco, Chicago etc.
I think Cisnero's style of language is pretty poetic... but Kristine had the exact opposite perspective on that. She didn't like the way Cisneros' sentences seemed so staccato while I found tons of rich description and poetry in what she wrote. Brian felt that there was TOO much description in the story and it detracted from whatever current story she was on... you'd lose track of the thread in the midst of the description.
Another thing Kristine pointed out had to do with the title and its role in the story. Caramelo. The grandma had a caramelo scarf in the story and it is also the name of the book... Since she alone, completed the book, we asked her what happens with the scarf. She felt the idea wasn't developed... she said it was like Cisnero's editor told her to go back and mention the damn scarf every 75 pages or so to keep the continuity but it really wasn't any big thing and it held no epiphany and it was more than anything contrived and lacking what it could possibly have offered.
Still, it was a good discussion and the book was interesting. I'm just not sure it was one I would recommend. Try another Cisneros book first.
Kristine's Mexican Flag Veggies
Larry's Dos Equis Beer and Pam's Flautas
Mexican candy to add even more authenticity.
2 comments:
i logged on today nov 16th 2008 specifically to look for an image of "Caramelo" so i can put this image in my personal page to recommend this book to the world. It's shocking to read your book club's opinions, because i dont understand how some of your reviews could be so cold. Cisneros’ chapters have endeared themselves to me, i have laughed, contemplated, and even cried in some chapters. She has masterfully knitted the hard struggles of universal human life sprinkled with the magic that it is to be alive WITH education of the history of Mexico's people there and in the U.S. Cisneros’ wisdoms is like that of the old tamales vendor woman who tells pregnant Soledad “ Si, tanta miseria, but also so much humanity to make up for the cruelty.” I don’t know if it is this moment in my life or perhaps because I have an affinity to Cisneros’ style and magic, that this book is making a place in my heart. This book is inspirational to me. Mucha Magia!
Also Judy's comment, which coincidentally enough is my name, is interesting because it brings the question if this book is accessible to an international audience? to know the language is to also know the culture or vice versa, and in this case its Mexican culture. So perhaps some of the spanish words are even lost to dictionary translations because they also have complex cultural understandings of those words and used in certain context, like all languages etc. But i hope this does not deter people's appreciation, if anything this book is sharing the beautiful Mexican culture with any audience that cares to pick up the book and read. Perhaps it is also Cisneros bilingualism, bi or multi culturalness, that allows here to play with the two languages and in one sentence, English flows smoothly into Spanish. So the language is like it’s people living in the U.S. playing around with different aspects of cultures and making up their own. =)
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