Monday, February 12, 2007
Como Agua Para Chocolate
I read this book fast as it was fairly easy to read. I’m not sure why Esquivel bothered referencing each chapter for each month of the year since the story does not really follow this particular timeline. Although it was easy to read, I found the recipes time-consuming and so I end up skipping most of the parts talking about the recipes to go right to back to the story. Tita’s cooking will end up affecting every character’s life including her. The role of the villain in this story is Tita’s mother who incarnates the typical traits of an abusive/severe mother. That reminds me of the “Mother” (from “Memoirs of a Geisha”), who runs the Geisha house and the way she treats Sayuri to teach her the hardship of becoming a Geisha. I guess there was nothing surprising on the mother’s death, but I didn’t quite understand why the narrator foreshadowed Rosaura’s death to end up talking about her as if she were still alive, it confused me at first, I had to go back in the reading to make sure I understood what was happening. The author makes great use of the magical realism throughout the story. Like when Tita prepares the wedding cake for Rosaura and how everyone ends up sick so much she hated Pedro and her sister’s union. Or when she makes some kind of chocolate recipe and everyone ends up having intercourse anywhere and everywhere. Tita’s fear of pregnancy from her encounter with Pedro in the “dark room” ends up being her menstrual cycle, which adds more drama in her tumultuous relationship with Pedro and the other characters. The narrator makes this tragic ending a la “Romeo and Juliet” sound like a legend, a myth with this “magic” recipe book being passed on and Tita and Pedro’s passionate relationship living on from the ashes of the dark room. I’m actually curious of the movie adapted to the book. Last class someone mentioned the movie was better than the book, that’s actually quite rare when that happens. Overall I didn’t like the mix of recipes with the story. As it was mentioned at the back of the book, I would probably consider this story as a “telenovela” but not a literature book.
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5 comments:
I agree that the mixture of genres leads nowhere, the recipies, the monthly delivery, the novel. if everything is Tita's cookbook inherited by Esperanza's daughter, does she comercialize this book and make it into a "novela de entregas"? It seems to me a pointless pastiche of feminine genres but with no interesting effect. ana
I was also wondering why Esquivel labeled each chapter as a month. It didn't make sense and seemed completely irrelevant to the story. Even though the recipes are important to the story because they were important to Tita's life (even though it's not Tita who narrates them) , it was a bit much to read them once or more in every chapter.
I find it interesting that someone told you that the movie was better than the book, I would say they were actually pretty comparable. The movie follows the book almost exatly, at least when I remember the movie and read the book there seemed to be no obvious differences like there are with some books adapted to film.
I actually enjoyed the recipes in the novel. I thought they were innovative and different. I guess it's because I enjoy reading cook books so they were just fun additions to a book. I agree with you that the author made great use of the magical realism element.
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