Caramelo - General Discussion (no spoilers) (May 2019)

[Marc]

Welcome! We'll use this thread to discuss the author and book in general. Let us know if you're familiar with Sandra Cisneros. Feel free to share reviews, interviews, etc.

(links may contain spoilers)
- Guardian Review
- Kirkus Review
- NY Times Review
- Chicago Public Library Interview
- Latino Book Review Interview
- One of my favorite of her short stories, "Eleven"
- Spanglish & the Negotiation of Latina Identities in Sandra Cisneros's Caramelo

[Hugh]

Thanks Marc. Cisneros is a new writer for me. Having read the first few chapters I suspect that my lack of Spanish could be a problem, and my second hand copy is large and unwieldy (as big as most hardbacks), but I don't give up on books easily...

[Marc]

Cisneros will often rephrase a Spanish line into English directly afterward as a way of both reinforcing what she wrote and to open up the prose to non-Spanish speakers (in short, I've got very little Spanish under my belt and did not find this to be an issue for me--I hope that ends up being the same for you, Hugh).

[Hugh]

To be fair, so far I haven't felt it is too difficult to follow what is going on, though some of the playground chants and insults mean very little to me, and I had no idea what the four stock phrases from Mexican soaps meant. I didn't mean to deter anybody from reading it!

[Marc]

I would hope it takes more than that to deter people from any reading! :D

[Kathleen]

Thanks for the links, Marc. I read a few reviews and am even more excited to start this.

I've only read The House on Mango Street, but loved the poetry of it and her unique descriptions. I should have the book and be able to start within the week.

[Marc]

I think her skills as a poet reflect over well into her fiction, as well, Kathleen--glad you can join us!

[Bretnie]

I'm excited to discuss this book! I'm not quite finished, but should be able to this week.

I'm listening to the audiobook and at first I thought it would be a difficult listen (read by the author who reads it in a unique voice), but once I got it to it, I've really enjoyed it.

[Marc]

An interesting perspective from a book discussion guide I happened upon:

Why does the author use so many Spanish words and phrases?
Cisneros’s use of the Spanish language establishes a sense of place and context. For example: While the family is in Chicago, Spanish is used exclusively in the
home or with other members of the Chicano community. While visiting Mexico, however, the use of the language expands to include the world outside the home and family, highlighting the difference between the two environments. Cisneros also uses more Spanish names for places and things in the sections of the novel that take place in Mexico, building a sense of “local color.”

As soon as we cross the bridge, everything switches to another language. Toc, says the light switch in this country, at home it says click. Honk, say the cars at home, here they say tan-tan-tan. The scrip scrape scrip of high heels across the saltillo floor tiles. ...The pic pic pic of someone’s faraway hammer. (p. 17)

The Reyes family’s interaction and the role each member assumes are also shaped by the language they use. The children are frequently addressed as ‘mijo’ or ‘mija,’ a contraction of ‘mi hijo/hija,’ my child. When Lala’s older brother returns from a year in Mexico, this becomes clearer: “He tries talking to us in Spanish, but we don’t use that language with kids, we only use it with grown ups. We ignore him and go back to watching cartoons” (p. 23). For the younger children, Spanish may be the language used with la familia or while in Mexico, but their day-to-day lives, and their connection to the greater world, are in English.

[Mark]

The reviews in the general side of Goodreads include a fair number of readers that found the large number of Spanish words off-putting. I suspect Cisneros would be astonished at this. In fact, one of the prime goals of the book is INTRODUCING Anglos to Mexican culture, with 80% of Spanish words either translated directly or clearly illuminated within a line or two.

Objecting to the Spanish language here is like complaining that a Japanese restaurant doesn't serve good Big Macs.

[Mark]

You can tell a book by its cover!

That cover photo of Edward Weston's "Rose" perfectly encapsulates the cheerful ethnic focus of the novel, and the novel itself fulfills the promise of the cover.

[Lia]

Mark wrote: "In fact, one of the prime goals of the book is INTRODUCING Anglos to Mexican culture, with 80% of Spanish words either translated directly or clearly illuminated within a line or two.

Objecting to the Spanish language here is like complaining that a Japanese restaurant doesn't serve good Big Macs."

How would readers know the prime goals of the book before reading the book? Should I be able to tell just by the title? The cover? The same way I can tell a Japanese restaurant is meant to serve Japanese food?

[Hugh]

Well the title is Spanish, but it is very easy for a non-Spanish speaker to guess what it means. I did French at school but not Spanish, and I struggled more with the grammar than the vocabulary. I suspect that Cisneros saw her audience as mostly English speaking Americans...

[Lia]

Well, I have neither Spanish nor French, I didn’t even know the title is Spanish. Sorry for being An ethnocentric hack then.

[Lily]

Do know that typing se followed by the Spanish word you would like translated will take you to its English translation via WordReference (at least in some browsers). (es will take you from English to Spanish.)

[Lia]

Thanks Lily. I voted for this book because it’s available in my library; I didn’t know it’s full of Spanish from page 1. I ended up buying the ebook via google play, because google play books automatically detects and translates the language with two clicks — I got tired of thumbing every Spanish sentence into my phone.

[Lily]

Lia wrote: "I got tired of thumbing every Spanish sentence into my phone...."

My current life happens to take me into situations where Spanish is spoken all around me. (Part of why the discussion here is interesting me in this book.) I grew up in a family where the proud lore was that, when the children (my mother's generation) were having difficulty in school, their European tongue was abandoned in the home! In mid-career, I frequently demonstrated systems to European visitors using English for my descriptions. They often conversed behind me in their native tongues, to which I was unable to respond without help.

[Lia]

Lily wrote: "My current life happens to take me into situations where Spanish is spoken all around me. (Part of why the discussion ..."

That’s probably why I’m struggling with it :-)

I’ve seen American TV shows with Spanish dialogues, but I can get around that by turning on the subtitles. I lack that kind of lived immersed experience (in Spanish) and I’m treading water with this book. I don’t think I’m the intended audience (or reader) for this book.

[Lily]

Lia wrote: " ...I don’t think I’m the intended audience (or reader) for this book...."

Or maybe you are? (What part of the country do you live in? I don't know if that would make a difference or is even relevant to reading this book, but I have totally ambivalent feelings about a multi-language culture/identity/nation.)

[Lia]

Sorry didn’t mean to make this conversation about me; I hope you guys get back to the book itself!

Meanwhile, I’ll skip back to McD where I obviously belong. I don’t think I can finish this book.

[Marc]

No one is going to hold it against you if you decide to bail on this book, Lia. I'm sorry the Spanish is proving to be such an obstacle to enjoying the book. I really think Cisneros does a fantastic job providing context and or paraphrases for almost all of the Spanish, but maybe I've picked up more Spanish than I realize. I wouldn't assume anything about the language used in a book from the cover design or title--you might get a gist of the subject matter, but you would have little clue as to how the narrative is approached.

Much of this mirrors Cisneros's own childhood growing up as many second-generation immigrants do in a bicultural way (often speaking their parents' native tongue at home, and the dominant language everywhere else). Part II seems less heavy on the Spanish to me, but I'm not through reading the whole thing.

I would get frustrated with any book where I felt I had to look up words every few sentences.

[Mark]

Lia, judging by the reviews, it sounds like you're in good company, but Cisneros was trying hard to keep the book open for the McD readers, to show what two-track thinking Mexican-Americans like her must do with every word they speak. She continually supports each word (well, 90%) of the Spanish vocabulary, either with a direct side-by-side translation, a following translation in the next sentence, or a restatement of the same idea in English. I looked up a number of Spanish words in the early going until I started to trust her to explain.

If you want to stick with it a little more, perhaps slow down a little. Perhaps you don't need to translate that word this instant -- you may see what was being described in the next sentence. My grandfather would substitute "axhandle" for any word he didn't know when reading the paper. He generally got the point of the article, though.

You may find how affectionate "viejo" can be.

I'm a non-Spanish speaker, but, thanks to the extremely consistent pronunciation rules that Spanish follows, I can get a glimpse of the thoughts being expressed in Spanish.

[Mark]

One other thing: to get a sense of the setting, see the movie Roma.

[Hugh]

There is no way 90% of the Spanish is immediately translated, my estimate would be more like 70%. Admittedly some of these are then re-used later, but there are also songs, nursery rhymes and other phrases that are not translated at all. I suspect that this is more obvious to a non-American who has never learned any Spanish beyond the few words remembered from TV/film/other books or as borrowed slang used in America. I can confirm though that this is no obstacle to understanding the book or the characters, and it does add colour to the descriptions.

[Bretnie]

I didn't mind the stretches of Spanish that I didn't understand, for some reason. It meant that I probably missed some context and humor, which can be hard, but I tried to let go and just enjoy being on the periphery of the family.

[Marc]

I meant to track this down during our discussion but life intervened...

In Part I, the Awful Grandmother wakes everyone to sing happy birthday to Lala's father. Then they blast "Las Mañanitas" sung by Pedro Infante throughout the house. Listen along here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Q6Zg8LPM4
More about the song here:
https://www.tripsavvy.com/what-is-las-mananitas-1588859