Latino Book Club meets for its coffee hour on Saturday, 28th February.
Some topics:
1. Religion
2. The most interesting member of the family
28th February
Latino Book Club met today. Thanks to Irene, Cathy, Kathy, Lizzy, Annetta (who joined us for the first time) and our newest member Donna Treolo, for coming out on an awful rainy day like today. Also, thanks to Olga for sending her comments.
We talked about Loida Maritza Perez’ Geographies of Home. The novel has a lot of things that one can talk about and we did: dysfunctional families, domestic violence, poverty, mental illness, and religions (yes, that was a really interesting discussion). None of us knew much about Seventh Day Adventist, but we did figure out that it is a very “strict” way of being. If you know more, please enlighten us by leaving your comments on the blog.
It did lead us to talk about other religions and also the folk forms that we see in the novel (Caribbean/Dominican) and had seen earlier in Bless me, Ultima (South Western/ Mexican).
Despite being a serious and dark in many aspects we enjoyed it. From the technical aspect too, this novel offers quite a bit, in the way things and actions are described and how many of the chapters seem complete in themselves. Some of the characters are simply just so well developed that you actually see them right in front of your eyes.
Moving on to next month- we are reading Victor Villaseñor’s Rain of Gold.
In April we will read Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban and in May Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan. (We will need an anthropologist to lead us through this one).
We are running out titles. Please send us books that you have wanted to read or have heard about. Our only criterion is that it has to be a Latino author of the United States writing in English.
Also, if you remember we had learnt that the public library did not carry any of the books we are reading. Kathy spoke with the NH Public Library and they have agreed to acquire some of the titles. Please send your recommendations, for the must have books.
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2 comments:
Para empezar es una familia REAL Y TOTALMENTE disfuncional.
La pobreza en la que viven es como un obstáculo para poder abrirse como individuos. Los padres viven con ese peso de nunca tener. Lo poco que tienen lo toman casi como algo que ellos no merecen (la casa). Es deprimente ver como la falta de comunicación entre ellos es un problema que va escalando a través de los años. Todos tienen problemas de identidad y emocionales.
El padre vive toda una vida con una culpa de la muerte de Anabel y usa la religión como un escudo protector. Tanto él como la madre no tienen la madurez emocional para lidiar y confrontar los problemas de su familia. Nunca fueron el pilar emocional que sus hijos necesitaban para sobrepasar la transición de venir de la RD a los EU. La frustración de su existencia se lidia con violencia.
Todos los hijos son violentos. Si no físicamente, verbal o emocionalmente. Auto destructores. Los hijos se van alejando de los padres evitándola y algunos de ellos la perpetúan (Rebecca). Iliana se toma mucho tiempo en regresar para ser atacada no por la violencia en sí, sino porque los padres ignoraron el problema de la hija violada (Marina) y acabo en violencia.
El uso del realismo mágico se presenta un poco confuso. Aurelia no quiere aceptar su herencia y repentinamente la vemos metamorfoseándose y trasladándose a matar a su yerno. No me gusto como desarrolla la autora esta característica.
Desarrolla muy bien la psicosis y enfermedad mental de Marina y Rebecca. También las interacciones familiares durante la Navidad.
No me gusta mucho el fin, se me hace muy rápido el cambio de Iliana. Su reacción no tiene sentido. Posiblemente acostumbrada al silencio y la inhabilidad de sus padres de actuar ante las crisis? Muy estoica.
¿Porqué no busca ayuda profesional? Ella se lo sugiere a Marina, sin embargo ella no lo hace, solo va con su amigo.
El perdón de su padre viene en un sueño (no es real). Finalmente ella hace un esfuerzo mental por elevarse individualmente y distanciarse de su familia- en lugar de hacer un esfuerzo y dirigir a ellos el problema con más fuerza para una resolución.
Bueno, creo es todo
Una historia triste y deprimente.
Nos vemos, Olga
Drama! Drama! Drama! I had the hardest time getting through the first half of the novel with so much pain and suffering and then almost like a climax all the pain seemed to stop and things started to take a better turn. Rebecca leaves Pasión. Marina goes to the hospital and now will get medical attention. The grandkids find a mother figure in Aurelia, and the family comes together. It was just too good to be true and boom, like that the dream is broken, as Rebecca and her sisters fight about Pasión and Caleb and Gabriel get their feelings out over the ex-wife.
Problems don’t just vanish like that, especially in this family where is so much that has gone wrong, some bought upon themselves and some just plain old bad luck.
I do agree with Olga about Aurelia’s magical powers. Was it necessary? And then she did killed Pasión- that is illegal. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Natural justice and all, but there is something called social services, and police which kind of functions in this country.
I also agree with Olga that Iliana’s reconciliation with her father was rather quick and easy, but I did not get it that it happened in a dream as Olga suggests. Maybe I missed it.
I did like the fact that the novel tries to develop many characters and it is not just the story of Iliana, although she is structurally the one who opens and ends the novel. I also found it interesting that Papito is given a much deeper character, unlike many other novels by women authors who do not fully develop male characters especially when there are such complex female characters like Marina, Rebecca, Iliana and Aurelia.
As for religion, I am not a religious person myself, and I find it very hard to swallow when religion tells us that we are sinners or we are always at the point of being taken in by evil, Satan, whoever. I don’t believe religion should put fear in us; rather it is the realm for each to find their own connection with what they believe to be the guiding force of their life.
In an interview Perez says that she decided to use the Seventh Day Adventist because, “… Latinos are usually portrayed as Catholic, I wanted to delve into one of the Protestant and increasingly proselytized religions such as that of Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventist,— Mormonism, Pentecostalism, or whatever. Choosing the most restrictive of these religions enabled me to provide more of a contrast with alternate forms of spirituality and folk religions.”
I did find the novel ending too quickly, with Iliana reconciling quickly to her situation, maybe the author wanted to end the novel and I think Tico could have had more development. I guess there were too many characters.
I did like how many of the chapters seemed complete in themselves, like short stories.
As a whole I liked the novel.
Amrita
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