Caramelo - Part I (May 2019)

[Marc]

For those who want to discuss as they read along or just want to delve deeper into Part I, please use this thread.

Initial reactions to the prose?
What do you make of the narrative voice and how does this set up your expectations of what is to come?

[Hugh]

I have just finished the first part. Took me a while to settle into it and appreciate the language and the humour, and I definitely felt that knowing a little more Spanish would have helped, but I still followed most of it easily enough.

I am not sure that I like having the footnotes at the end of each chapter - I like to read footnotes in context, and in some of the longer chapters finding the footnote was quite disruptive to the flow (but then some of the footnotes are quite long, which left me wondering how the audio version handles them). I have resorted to finding the chapter end before starting a chapter and moving the bookmark if it has a footnote!

[Lia]

I got a library copy; but I got so sick of thumb-typing on my phone to google-translate, I ended up buying the ebook.

I would have bailed if it weren’t for the voters-bail-out-threat!! I’ve been reading a ton of books that insert random Greek or German quotes and expect readers to just get it; which conditioned me to compulsively translate every foreign word I encounter, which got really tedious for what is supposed to be light reading.

I’m not really catching the humor yet, I did notice the encyclopedic or exhaustive lists of stuff...

[Marc]

This is a reread for me, but it's been a while. Some things I don't remember picking up on the first time around:
- That there seems to be a Mexican prejudice against darker skinned Mexicans and/or those with more Indian bloodlines (which, I suppose is really just the same type of racism that seems to manifest itself across our globe)
- The importance of gender within the family and greater culture

I did recall how big a theme storytelling is and what it means to have a child narrator on top of the author already choosing to play around with truth, memory, family lore, etc. Identity seems to play a big role, as well.

[Mark]

My take is that Cisneros has two goals for this book:

1) Open and celebrate Mexican culture for Anglos and those whose background about Mexican history is weak.

2) Play with the interactions of story, history, memory, and lies.

My feeling is that both goals are fully accomplished. In this first part, having the narrator be a child emphasizes the fluid boundary between stories, history, and lies.

[Lily]

Mark wrote: "...In this first part, ... emphasizes the fluid boundary between stories, history, and lies...."

I must say, this is one of only a handful of book discussions on a Goodreads board that has peaked my interest enough to request the book from my library system to try it myself! Thx, I think, esp. Mark & Hugh.

Mark, even prior to my seeing the text itself, will you comment on your choice of the series "stories, history, and lies." Is this one the author makes or is it yours as a reader? Specifically, why the choice of the category "lies" versus "fiction"?

Of course, the current U.S. political arena is one of the instigators of my question. But it is also a literary question, with roughly these considerations:

"lie" -- a deliberate untruth told in order to deceive or mislead.
"fiction" -- a description or story that may not have factually occurred, but may nonetheless reveal profound truths.

Or maybe there is another perspective that I have not considered here.

[Marc]

Lily, I'll let Mark answer for himself, but I can say that there are parts of the story where the family and/or the narrator admit there is a place for lies in life and in storytelling. Exaggerating, omitting, embellishing.. these are all part of how we learn, how culture is transmitted, how myths are ingrained, etc.

I almost forgot the book starts with this passage:

Disclaimer, Or I Don't Want Her, You Can Have Her, She's Too Hocicona for Me
The truth, these stories are nothing but story, bits of string, odds and ends found here and there, embroidered together to make something new. I have invented what I do not know and exaggerated what I do to continue the family tradition of telling healthy lies. If, in the course of my inventing, I have inadvertently stumbled on the truth, perdónenme.
To write is to ask questions. It doesn't matter if the answers are true or pure cuento. After all and everything only the story is remembered, and the truth fades away like the pale blue ink on a cheap embroidery pattern: Eres Mi Vida, Sueño Contigo Mi Amor, Suspiro Por Ti, Sólo Tú.

[Marc]

Mark, I really like that you used the word "celebrate" because this book does feel like a celebration. Of Mexican culture and life itself. Cisneros conveys a real alegría de vivir.

[Kathleen]

I just got my copy and am flying through the first few chapters. I agree about the celebration.

I love the description of traveling with family (something I did often as a child) and also the way she gives us arrival in Mexico through the senses.

What I enjoyed most about her The House on Mango Street was how it reflected a child's viewpoint--that vivid, sensory discovery of the world. I'm happy to find that here too, and am anticipating this viewpoint will develop as the character(s) age, which should be fun to experience.

[Mark]

Lily, to your first question, as others have noticed, "lies" is the exact word Cisneros uses. This is not an attempt to mislead, but to introduce story elements that illuminate the spirit of the character in action.

Obviously, this book is called a novel, and unless Cisneros tells us an event is a lie, we would have no basis to dispute it. By saying "this is a lie," she shows how the characters think about their history.

[Lily]

The writer/reader in me and the news follower of U.S. politics was intrigued by Cisnero's description of crossing the border:

"Not like on the Triple A atlas from orange to pink, but at a stoplight in a rippled heat and dizzy gasoline stink, the United States ends all at once, a tangled shove of red lights from cars and trucks waiting their turn to get past the bridge. Miles and miles. .... fanning herself with a Texaco road map."

No wall, no "Triple A atlas from orange to pink," but "dizzy gasoline stink." I skip words here in this excerpt, but Cisneros touches geography, politics, climate, feelings, and much more in her few words on crossing a border, a particular border.

(I am reminded of the Ambrose's walking to the boat on the streets of London in Melymbrosia , where Woolf says as much about the city as she does her characters in that opening of her story.)

[Elaine]

I've almost finished Part I, and like others, I find myself caught up in the exuberance of the writing. It does read as a celebration, which is underscored by the birthday party -- however that doesn't end too well. But the spirit continues on as the family heads out to Acapulco. I like the way Cisnero reminds us of how the story is being spun, many exaggerations and outright lies. As she says, embroidering the truth. Using names like the Awful Grandmother links the story to fairytales or folklore, the oral tradition. It definitely has a made up quality, yet conveys the chaos of Mexican family live.

[Marc]

Part I sort of ends on its own "cliffhanger," Elaine! Glad you're enjoying it. Great point about her naming linking the story to fairytales/folklore and the oral tradition. It's almost like myth-making.

As Kathleen mentioned above, it's not the first time Cisneros has used a child narrator--she has a real gift for capturing the wonder, confusion, and volatility of life through a young narrator.