Poor Felicia...she breaks my heart.
Mama
Monday, December 29, 2008
Felicia
"Felicia hides in her bed. Her son will not leave her, that much she knows. She opens her mouth but her thoughts erase themselves before she can speak. Something is wrong with her tongue. It forms broken trails of words, words sealed and resistant as stones. She summons one stone and clings to it, a drowning woman, then summons another and another until she cries, "Mami, I grieve in my dreams." Felicia page 83
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Is it terribly wrong that I found the egg filled pinata funny?
ReplyDeleteOf course not! Aspects of this novel are grotesquely funny!
ReplyDeleteWhy does this book have to be so sad? I was just talking to one of my non-ap english friends about how sad the book was and I gave her a rough summary of all the "sad things" happening in the book. This is what I wrote her:
ReplyDelete"there's a grandmother in love with a man who ran away (50+ yrs ago), then got married to a man who recently died, but she loves him as well "just not with the same passion"; then a daughter runs away from a mother (a child of the previously mentioned grandmother) who doesn't understand her, that mother's husband is cheating on her; then another daughter of the grandmother marries a man who ends up being a looser (understatement) and then completely burns his face off with rag dipped in oil, then lit on fire and drops it on his face. thats a lot and i'm only 83/240 pages, i'm assuming it goes downhill from here."
I apologize for the informality in the writing but that's what I sent her since she wanted to know why I thought the book was so sad. Then I reread what I wrote-that's a pretty summary. But what makes it so much more depressing for me is when I think and realize that this is a contemporary text-1992. This is what people's lives are like. This is what some people go through and my heart broke thinking about that. I want to do something for them. I don't know.
I just finished up to the quote Ms. Waite posted which is on page 83. I have to admit, that was really sad. "Mami, I grieve in my dreams." Wow! However, I started reading the next section which tells the story from Ivanito's perspective. From reading this, I get somewhat a different perspective. I don't if Garcia wants me to see the characters in the book as fighters or simple as people with really sad lives. In this section, the song Felicia and Ivanito start off the day with is called "Rebel Heart." Rebel Heart? Then you read about how she dances and sings. Garcia juxtaposes the scene where Felicia burns off Hugo's face with this scene, where she's dancing and singing with her son. She does that often-normally starting off with a happy scene and then ends it really sad. I don't know what to make of it. The natural flow of life: from good, to bad, to ugly?
By the way, I really like the idea of the blog. Now I can keep talking about the book even when I'm at home, as soon as a thought comes into my head (hopefully, it'll be intelligent).
Renoj, and all,
ReplyDeleteIs your question the one with no answer in the text or simply one of the unanswerable questions? Is Felica salvageable? Why do I want to save her? Why does Lourdes make me so angry? Is it horrible that she reminds me of my mother? What exactly is Garcia saying about race in Cuba? the world? Why with Herminia and Santera? Wy does Santera terrify me so? What happen to Hugo? The twins?...celia, where do I begin? Why is she so sad? Might it be her own mother relationship? Does she choose men because of her relationship with her own father? Does she feel lost because she does not know her half siblings? How does our past effect our present? How do we escape from unhealthy obsessions?
I know I read this book and see so many sad truths but I do see hope...infinitesimal perhaps but hope never the less. The sadness may beinescapable especially in immigrant families. Which is how I most relate to this text...The move here is all for the dream...but what do we leave behind and how much do we grieve for what is left behind? How do our children, born here cope with the marginalization...the one foot in one culture with the other in the dominant culture? I look forward to our talks. Love you all!
mama
"I do see hope...infinitesimal perhaps but hope never the less." I agree. I do see hope. "And I, I love my mother very much at that moment (Pilar on Page 144)." There's hope, maybe false hope, but hope nonetheless.
ReplyDelete"Maybe in the end the facts are not as important as the underlying truth she wants to convey. Telling her own truth is the truth to her, even if it's at the expense of chipping away our past"-Pilar page 177
ReplyDeleteThe hope I found here was in the ability to chip away at the past. It may seem to exist outside of our own control, manipulating our present to such an enmourmous extent, yet in fact as Lourdes is representative of, it is just as malleable as ourselves. From a different perspective, a different mind, the past transforms and does not remain static. In the case of the incident with Pilar at the airport, who are we to believe holds the "true" account of what happened. Could that ever really be discovered and does it really matter? The feelings associated with the memory from both perspectives are the only things we can really be sure of, but then again, are those feelings not transitory as well? (Also, funny how coincidences happen that this year was the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution)
Lourdes is one of those individuals who must always be right, as if they were to loose the possition they hold in their own societies or families if they were to be wrong. (There is no question that in the Puente Family Lourdes is the alfa male). I think she's afraid of loosing her authoritarian possition in her family, although she's lost that possition in Pilar's life.
ReplyDelete" 'I know someone is there with you,' Lourdes rasps. 'Don't lie to me.'
'Mom, not again. Please.' pg 168
I think that the sad truth here is that Lourdes if afraid to loose her daugther,sadly Lourdes never had Pilar because all of Pilar's life Lourders has been pushing her away,
SPOILER WARNING!! I discuss a bit about the ending!!
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking. What about the end? Why doesn't Pilar tell Ciela the truth about finding Ivanito? Why does she have to lie? Is it because when she found Ivanito that she reaches some epiphany that compels her to keep the truth about Ivanito from Ciela? I'm not too sure. Right after she tells her Ciela that she looked everywhere, Pilar says, "I press my face into my grandmother's neck. But there's no scent of salt or violet water hidden in its creases." From how it's said, I think that Pilar used to be able to smell the salt when she embraces her grandmother, but is no longer able to. I know, that's superficial. However, I don't understand why. Why is there this transformation in Pilar? Why now? What is this transformation?