Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
ISBN: 038542017X (English)
ISBN: 0385721234 (Spanish)

Like Water for Chocolate’s full title is, Like Water for Chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies.

However it is much more than a “diary”.

This book is about relationships: those between a family of women and the challenges borne out of sibling love and rivalry; those affected by a family tradition that is the catalyst for rebellion; and of those between women and the men who pass through their lives.

The setting plays an important part in Esquivel’s narrative, as it mirrors the lives of her characters. In turn-of-the-century Mexico, it is a time of revolution and change. Not only in politics, but in the culture as well. This is clear to see within the family of the De La Garza women as the story moves along from one generation to the next. How they, and the times change, some adapting – some not.

When I first saw the film, I misunderstood the title and its meaning. Not until studying the Spanish language did I realize the error. It was my “Ah ha!” moment. The story, the metaphors, and the beauty of it all became so much clearer, and I was thrilled to finally “get it”. I decided then and there to get the book and read it. I am so glad I did.

The phrase is common in many Spanish-speaking countries and in this book, it applies to those people or emotions (such as anger and passion) that are close to reaching a point where they are about to “boil over”.

The steam rising from the pan mingled with the heat given off by Tita’s body. The anger she felt within her acted like yeast on bread dough. She felt its rapid rising, flowing into every last recess of her body, like yeast in a small bowl, it spilled over to the outside, escaping in the form of steam through her ears, nose, and all her pores.

I love this book. I love the story. I cannot get over the amount of depth and beauty in this book.

*********************

Laura Esquivel’s novel Like Water for Chocolate has sold more than four and a half million copies around the world in thirty-five languages. She has also written Malinche, Swift as Desire, The Law of Love, and Between Two Fires.

 The House of The Spirits by Isabel Allende (1982)
 Translated from the Spanish by Magda Bogin
 Magical Realism, 448 pages
 The Dial Press a division of Random House, Inc.

Synopsis taken from the author’s website:
The House of The Spirits is the magnificent epic of the Trueba family – their loves, their ambitions, their spiritual quests, their relations with one another, and their participation in the history of their times, a history that becomes destiny and overtakes them all.

If word of mouth or reviews do not convince someone to read this novel, the opening sentences will. They immediately draw the reader in, and prepare them for what they are about to read:

Barrabás came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy. She was already in the habit of writing down important matters, and afterward, when she was mute, she also recorded trivialities, never suspecting hat fifty years later I would use her notebooks to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own.

In reading this beautifully woven tale, it becomes evident why it has been consistently on the challenged/banned book list. However, I never took offense at any of the language or subject matter. Never did I sense that any of the passages in question, did not belong or fail to further the plot. It must be noted though, that there will be those who take offense as there are scenes of rape and torture. But the story takes place during a tumultuous time in South American history, thus they have their place.

This was a difficult book for me. I have not read many novels of this nature, so I found that I couldn’t read it for long stretches of time. This is a genre that, for me, requires I digest its narrative slowly. So much is said, and so much is meant by every sentence, many of them long and descriptive such as:

During the summer, she had complained about the stifling evenings, which she spent shooing flies, about the dust clouds in the courtyard, which covered the house as if they were living in a mine shaft, about the dirty water in the bathtub, where her special perfumed salts became a Chinese soup, about the flying cockroaches that got between the sheets, about the burrows of the mice and ants, about the half-drowned spiders she found kicking in the glass of water on her night table each morning, about the insolent hens who laid their eggs in her shoes and shat on the lingerie in her dresser.

Also, the story is told in three “voices” or points of view. The flow was not affected, and I never became lost, as there was always a break before a change. It was just another aspect of the book that I needed to become accustomed to as I read.

I did like the book, and if you are a fan of magical realism, family sagas that span generations, narrative that flows like a raging river at times and a quiet stream in others – then this is a novel for you.

I am giving this a 3 Star rating as it is a good read, but one I could only do in stages. Perhaps it’s me, but I cannot see sitting down with this book and completely digesting it in a single afternoon. I also feel its style may be challenging to others and some of its subject matter too disturbing for sensitive readers.

Don’t let the lower rating fool you. I liked it well enough that it is not the only Allende book in my library. I look forward to reading Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia, whose stories are connected to The House of The Spirits.

Isabel Allende is has written eight novels, which include Portrait in Sepia, Daughter of Fortune, Of Love and Shadows, and Eva Luna. She has also written a collection of short stories; three memoirs, and a trilogy of children’s books.

Dreaming In Cuban by Cristina García (1992)
Fiction, 245 pages
Frist Ballantine Books Edition (1993)
A One World Book
Random House, Inc.

Read for (and cross posted at) the Slaves of Golconda

I love it when a book is not only enjoyable, but brings me to a new understanding about myself, or of something I had not known, or been aware of before.

Dreaming In Cuban by Cristina García introduced me to a genre of which I knew little. The term magical realism would come up repeatedly when I read other reviews of this book. It is a term and concept I had not given much thought to previously, but as I continued reading, I could hardly keep it out of my mind.

According to García, this book began as a poem that quickly grew into a something else:

Dreaming in Cuban actually started out as a poem and slowly grew. After about a hundred pages, I realized that what I was working on was a novel. Nobody was more surprised than I.

Her initial efforts are evident by the beautiful language used when developing her settings and characters:

At the far end of the sky, where daylight begins, a dense radiance like a shooting star breaks forth. It weakens as it advances, as its outline takes shape in the ether. Her husband emerges from the light and comes toward her, taller than the palms, walking on water in this white summer suit and Panama hat.

However, there was much more to what was being said and described by the author. I wanted to understand so I could better appreciate her words and story. Thus I took it upon myself to do some research and find out what this genre was and its impact on literature. It was then that I discovered an essay written by John Christie titled Magical Realism (The Magic in the Real). In it he gave an excellent definition:

…put simply, [it] refers to when an artist blends the fantastic with the real, or mixes the bizarre with the logical and plausible.

I cannot tell you how much this helped when reading García’s novel.

On its surface, Dreaming In Cuban is the story of three generations of women who are dealing with the physical and emotional challenges to their identities as well as their relationships. The story spans eighteen years and takes place in Cuba, New York City, and Florida. Yes the principal characters are Cuban, and this does have a strong influence upon what takes place between them. However, I found the following within the book, and it seemed to me the most accurate way to describe what I was reading:

I’ve been reading the plays of Molière and wondering what separates suffering from imagination. Do you know?

I feel that the author actually succeeds in integrating suffering with imagination. Her beautiful prose shows this in the characterization of Celia del Pino:

Celia cannot decide which is worse, separation or death. Separation is familiar, but Celia is uncertain she can reconcile it with permanence.

and

Death was alluring, seductive, and Celia longed to die in the thrill of it over and over again.

This book touches a lot upon the suffering of its main characters, but not in a way that makes this a depressing book. Somehow, the struggles of each woman, swirls in and around their imaginations, feelings, and memories in a way that makes this a much more interesting read.

The author said it best when asked about what kind of role memory plays in the novel:

Memory is more a point of departure than a repository of facts. It’s a product of both necessity and imagination, of my characters’ needs to reinvent themselves and invest themselves in narratives of their own devising. Each of them needs to be a heroine, to believe she is doing the right thing, choosing the only path to a kind of personal redemption.

This statement, as much as any, speaks of what I liked about this book. However, it is not for everyone, as some readers may not be comfortable with the surrealistic quality of many of the passages.

I am going to give this novel a 4 Star rating. I can honestly say that as much as I enjoyed it, it was not one I could, or would read voraciously in one sitting. There is too much about it, and within it, that deserves that its reader spends more time enjoying it.