Julia Alvarez: Thoughts and mini reviews

In the past 2 months I've read my first novels by Julia Alvarez: In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García girls lost their accent. While the novels were originally written in English, I read them in Spanish but I think I could've read them in any language and still been struck by the beauty and pain that Alvarez can convey with her writing.

Both books tell the stories of a group of sisters, all very different and all very strong in their own way. In the Time of the Butterflies takes place in the Dominican Republic when Rafael Trujillo was still ruling the island. The Mirabal sisters, known as the Butterflies eventually (Mariposas), real characters of the revolution, are given a loud voice by Alvarez, who takes you through their beginnings as school girls, the first rebellions of their youth and sadly, the death of 3 of them in an "accident". As background, the pain and suffering of the people, trying to deal with the dictatorship, and the hope of many that something better shall come. Alvarez weaves love and happiness in an otherwise sad story. There is hope in her writing, even as the Butterflies are incarcerated. There is love between them and with their families and all along. The tension builds in a rapid pace, and although I knew what will happen to them, I was still hoping, against better judgment, that everything would be fine.

The Garcia sisters on the other hand, have a very different story. While they are pushed out of the island once again because of Trujillo's dictatorship, theirs is the story of immigrants, not even first generation, since they were all born in the island, but that generation that has to learn to grow with 2 very different identities/cultures. The "freedom" they get living in USA peppered with the restraints that their father will try to impose, as is the way of the island (and most Latin@s if I'm being honest). The forming moments that will make these 4 women who they are at the beginning of the book (the novel goes in reverse chronology), the things that they will never be able to shake off and the things they wished they would've never lost. In essence, what it is to be an immigrant in a country so different from your own.

The same way I really enjoyed Meg Medina's Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your Ass depiction of being a Latin@ teenager in the States, I loved the way Alvarez portrayed the struggles not only of the Garcia sisters, but also of their parents, what it means for them not only to lose their country and their ways, but to lose their daughters too.

Alvarez has won a reader, that's for sure. 4/5 for both books.

El ruido de las cosas al caer (The sound of things falling) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control, perhaps even depends on it.

First impressions

I've been trying to read all of the Alfaguara winners, just as a personal project. I wanted to read this one in particular, since it is a Colombian author. However I was afraid it was another book that is appraised just because it talks openly about drug lords an drug issues in Colombia, but I was wrong/

Final thoughts

People from Bogota had grown accustomed to it [violence]

While the book takes places during a very hard time, late 90s when drug -cartel related-violence was on a peak the story told is not only about it. It is actually the story of people that end up touched by these situations almost as collateral damage. The main character, Antonio, takes us in a journey, his at first and his friend's Ricardo's later.

From the beginning I felt engaged by the voice of Antonio and how he saw his (my) city. While at the time the story is taking place, I was only 9/10 years old, I do remember the fear that was almost palpable in the air. I've heard those conversations between my relatives: where were you when this bomb exploded? What were you doing when X was killed? I am grateful I cannot add many anecdotes to these conversations, but I know it was a very sad reality to live through. However, what made this story different is that after being attacked, Antonio gets intrigued by the story behind Ricardo, by his humanity and not by his crimes only.

(...) Maybe because present doesn't really exist; everything is a memory, this sentence that I just wrote is already a memory, is a memory this word that you, reader, just read.

The descriptions of the city, of the tiny towns, of travelling through our roads, all hit the memories I have as a child. The ways the city and life were seen by Elaine Fritts reminded me of the conversations I had with my now fiancé about my country and how different the same situation would look to each of us.

In Colombia people always managed to be unpredictable

I quite enjoyed the writing and the pacing the author has. I don't know if this is particular to this book, since I haven't read anything else by him, but the tone and rhythm both carry the story nicely. 

Nosotras que nos queremos tanto by Marcela Serrano

It would seem that men live the relationships and it is women who think them

What the book is about

Four friends have the opportunity to spend some days together, just the four of them. Four women that met almost by chance at work and that became friends in spite and because of their differences. The book takes us through their life and the life of those they loved, lost and hated; through their childhood, teenage years and their adult ones; through their bliss and their pain all mixed with a political conflict in the background.

First impressions

I have memories of women in my family reading this book and last time I went home I took a copy with me to read it myself. This is a beautiful book, depicting women with all their nuances. It is a powerful book from the eyes of a feminist, from the eyes of a person who loves women and a person that has been loved by them. The title translates roughly to "Us who love each other so much" and it is a perfect description and synthesis of the book. It is a book of women who love each other, as sister, friends, and even as enemies.

Final thoughts

These women, as I mentioned before, are very different from each other, and in being so they show all the different sides that a woman might have in a life time. During the book I felt that I identified with all of the women at a certain point and that was an extremely powerful feeling.

For me it was a book that had it all, from the deepest friendships to the hardest sorrows, Serrano takes us through the lives of this women and made them feel like it is our own. I am not sure how much of this sense of belonging comes from the Latin taste that covers each character and how much comes from being a woman, but this book reached all possible fibers inside of me.

Love is ever present in the book as I mentioned before, but not only love inside a couple, but fraternal love and off course the love between friends and the love that sometimes we forget to feel for ourselves.

It was a splendid read and I would recommend to all of my contacts and beyond. It has taken me a while to write this review, mostly because I feel that words fall short for what this book made me feel. So I can only say, read it!.

For you should know, Ana, that intimacy for men is the bed itself, no like for us which is after the bed, and hence, way longer.

I have a confession...

I don't read in Spanish that much anymore. That isn't the confession; the confession is that in the last 5 years, ever since I left my country, I haven't done much about it, even if deep down it bothers me.

I am not talking about books translated to Spanish; when given the opportunity I like to read the book in the original language, but alas, I can only read fluently in 3 languages and that limits how often I can actually do so. No, I am talking about books that were originally written in Spanish, independent of them being from Spain or Latin America. Yes there is a difference between books from either region, but we will get to that another time.

I could use the excuse that I moved to a country were Spanish is not the main language and because of that, most of the books I can get through the library (and boy, do I use the library here) are either in English or in French. But no, that's not the only reason, because as it turns out they DO have books in Spanish, I just don't actively look for them. I even know a bookstore that sells ONLY in Spanish, however, for now, on my student income, I can't afford most of these books, since they are quite more expensive that the English versions, and that also applies if I try websites like the Book Depository.

So after a while, I stopped reading books written in Spanish; I received some from my family, here and there, but last year only 3% (a.k.a 2 books) of my reading was done in Spanish. And this actually saddens me. I went back to Colombia for a couple of weeks recently, this time without my boyfriend fiancé, and so I was able to only speak in Spanish for 2 weeks and this made me realize how much I miss it. Not just that I really like my language, mind you I will give you all the arguments I have on how Spanish is a beautiful and easy to learn language; no, I miss it because I learned how to read in Spanish, because there are a bunch of expressions that are impossible to translate but when I see them they make me smile. But most of all, and I realize this might sound lazy, I miss it because of how simple it is for my brain to follow, even when I am exhausted, to read in Spanish. It's easier to engage with the plot; easier to retain the information, even when my brain decides to remember right then that I have to buy butter tomorrow; easier to remember tiny details.

And after telling you this, you are going to ask me: how come you haven't tried harder? Whilst I have no answer to this question, other than I don't know I can tell you that I am committed to changing that. Right now