Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

Having missed the last two books over the summer I was keen to get back on track with the Bloggers Book Club.  ”Like Water for Chocolate” is a Mexican novel written in the 1980’s and was just the right book to get me back on track.

The main character is Tita and as the youngest daughter in a traditional Mexican family she is forbidden to marry and must look after her domineering mother until she dies.  The problem is that Tita is in love with a local boy named Pedro and when Pedro comes to ask for Tita’s hand in marriage the matriarch convinces him to marry Tita’s sister Rosaura instead.  Tita is devastated but what she doesn’t realise is that Pedro only agreed so that he could be near her.

Tita spends all her childhood in the kitchen with Nacha, the family cook, who is more like a mother to her. Tita grows up to be a fantastic cook and when Nacha passes away Tita takes over her roll as family cook and the story becomes interspersed with Mexican recipes. There are many points where the book takes a turn for the unusual in an attempt to show how Tita expresses all her emotions through her cooking, for example when cooking for the wedding feast of Rosaura and Pedro, Tita cries into batter for the wedding cake and the sadness in her tears makes everyone sick who eats the food.  Later in the book, Tita prepares a quail dish with petals from a rose she received from Pedro, which serves as an aphrodisiac for Tita’s other sister Gertrudis who ends up running off with a soldier and working as a prostitute for months in order to satisfy her needs!

The book pretty much focuses on the strange love triangle between Pedro and the two sisters and the insistence of Mama Elena that Tita and Pedro have no contact at all.  Despite Tita’s bitterness about the marriage she finds much joy in her new nephew and strangely she is able to breast feed the baby while his mother is not.  Mama Elena, suspecting that something is going on between Tita and Pedro, decides to send the couple and their baby away to work in another city.  Without his aunt to feed him, the baby dies, triggering a nervous breakdown in Tita.

Throughout the book Tita remains true to her love of Pedro, even turning down a marriage proposal from the local doctor.  It takes over 20 years for all the obstacles to be removed for Pedro and Tita but things don’t go quite as planned even then…..

It was an easy read but was just unusual enough to fall out of the Chic Lit bracket.  According to Wikipedia the novel uses magical realism to combine the supernatural with the ordinary.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I would definitely recommend it but you need an open mind as there are some very strange bits!

Unfortunately, I again have to bow out of the BBC review this month.  I just didn’t get around to reading it.  I glanced over the other reviews so as not to see any spoilers and the general consensus seems to be that it was worth reading so it’s still on my to-read list.  I’ve only just ordered the next book, Like Water for Chocolate and plan to start it ASAP so that I can get back into the BBC groove again!  Check out the other reviews by clicking on my links at the right hand side.

PS I’ve been updating my Posterous after our few days away so please check that out too.

I literally just finished the book this morning and this will most definitely be my least detailed review yet!

I loved the concept of Colm McCann’s book where all the charcters are entertwined around the tightrope walker and his amazing feat.  Incidentally, have you seen Man on Wire - it’s really worth watching.   My favourite characters are Claire and Gloria.  Claire’s first chapter was so fast paced you could almost feel yourself going off to war with her son. Gloria’s story was fascinating and I absolutely loved how the friendship between Claire and Gloria ended up.  My heart went out to Claire as the ladies were leaving her apartment and she desperately wanted to cling onto Gloria, so much so that she accidentally said the most offensive thing possible to the African-American lady.  As for the other characters/stories, I couldn’t really identify with the Corrigan brothers at all, the monk was just a little bit unrealistic and I just kept wishing that the older brother would do something, anything really, he just seemed so aimless. Although, I loved how the artists and the Corrigan brothers stories ultimately came together and it transpired in the last section of the book that he obviously did acquire some get-up-and-go as he seemed to be a very successful business man.

There is a great little interlude in the middle of the book which tells the tightrope walkers story, this came at the perfect time as I felt there hadn’t been enough about him in the book.  I am so tempted to watch Man on Wire again as it was a phenomenal accomplishment.

It is a really enjoyable book to read, each sentence seems crafted as opposed to merely written and the individual stories are weaved around each other and the walker in a way that really keeps you gripped.  Now, off with you to enjoy a much better review from the other members, the links are at the side.

Update:  Can anyone remind me what the next book is….I have the next two on my dresser but can’t remember which one is next?

Our book for this month was Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.  I have not read any of his other books so I had no idea what to expect with this book.  The book opens in 1950’s Enniscorthy and tells the story of Eilis, a young woman who shows potential but has no prospect of getting the bookkeeping job she would like.   Rose, her older sister arranges for Eilis to go to America to live in Fr. Flood’s parish, he has organised lodgings and a job for Eilis.  Eilis doesn’t seem too enthused about going and she really only goes out of a sense of duty, or an inability to stand up for herself and say no. However she soon settles in and is pleasantly surprised with her situation, she becomes very passionate about her education, she also finds romance with an Italian-American called Tony.  She quite often comments that Rose would love the glamourous clothes she sees and it’s almost as if she finally realises that Rose sacrificed her own chance to live that kind of life because someone has to stay at home with their mother.

I think her romance with Tony is a bit one-sided, Eilis likes Tony but she doesn’t seem ready to commit to him.  She is much more concerned with her education and getting an office job at work.  Eilis is devastated when her sister Rose passes away and she organises a trip back to Ireland to be with her mother.  Tony, predicts that Eilis may never come back to America and talks her into a clandestine marriage at the last minute.  While at home Eilis shows herself to be a very fickle person as she conveniently pushes her new husband to the back of her mind and begins an “almost” romance with a local guy called Jim Farrell, although in my opinion she is more in love with the idea of Jim Farrell than Jim himself, she was only at home for a few weeks, is it believable that she could fall out of love with one man and in love with another in that space of time?

Much of this section of the book is taken up with speculation as to whether she will return to America or not, I found myself routing for her to go back to America as I felt she was being sucked into staying in Ireland out of a sense of duty. But in the end she returned out of a sense of duty.  The events with Miss Kelly and Mrs. Kehoe leading up to her return to the States should be rediculous but in fact I found them completely believable, which is a sad reflection on small town Ireland in the 1950’s.

I think there were some parts of the book that could have been better explained or drawn out more.  For example, what was the point of that scene in the changing room with her supervisor?  Was it just to emphasise how easily led Eilis is since she didn’t once point out that she was uncomfortable?   And why was Jim Farrell so taken aback by the mention of Father Flood?  Could Rose and Father Flood have had a thing?  I Speaking of Rose, the fact that she was so glamorous and well liked makes me question why she didn’t have a boyfriend or husband?  Could this be related to my Father Flood question?

In general I never really warmed to Eilis at all. I didn’t like her half as much as I liked Tony and Jim and to be honest I couldn’t really see what they saw in her? Having said that I really enjoyed the book and have already passed it onto other people and encouraged them to read it.

PS Please don’t forget to read the reviews from the other BBC members, you can find links to their blogs on a separate page, the link is in the side panel.

First off, apologies for the fact that I’m posting this with a few minutes to spare in the Easter Sunday deadline, I had a very crafty day making invitations for my Hen-Party and all thoughts of blogging slipped my mind.

To mark World Book Day, Lily came up with the idea of a Blog Book Club, where we would all read the same book over a month and then review the book on our blogs on the same day.  I had been berating myself for not reading enough so I saw this as a great opportunity.   We chose A Thousand Splendid Suns or rather, I suggested it because I borrowed it from someone ages ago and had yet to read it. Lucky for me, the others were all keen to read or re-read it.  So, here goes.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is the second novel of Khaled Hosseini (he of The Kite Runner fame) and like alot of people, I put off reading A Thousand Splendid Suns because I couldn’t imagine it being as good as The Kite Runner.  I was right, it wasn’t as good, it was even better.  This one is the story of two women in Afghanistan whose lives are brought together by the state of their country.

The book is in four parts, the first tells Mariam’s story, a little girl growing up in Herat as the illegitimate child of a successful business man.  She lives with her mother on the outskirts of the town and is not allowed to meet her legitimate siblings.  When she is still a child her mother tells her that “Women like us.  We endure.  It’s all we have.” This sets the tone of the book and is the dominating theme in Mariam’s story.  As a married woman Mariam endures domestic violence and emotional bullying.  At one point in the book, after seeing some glamorous women on the street the author comments that “these women mystified Mariam.  They made her aware of her own lowliness, her plain looks, her lack of aspirations, her ignorance of so many things”.  Mariam seems ready to accept her lot in life, just as her mother advised, only twice trying anything to change her situation.

The second part of the book tells  Laila’s story, she is about 15 years Mariam’s junior and lives next door to her and her abusive husband.  Laila comes from a family that could be considered quite liberal in that time and place.  Her father encourages her to learn and tells her that “You’re a very, very bright girl.  Truly you are.  You can be anything you want”.  Her friends tell her that they expect to see her picture in the paper for all her achievements while they are at home being wives and mothers.  However, Laila, who was destined for great things suffers the cruelest blow and the course of her life is completely changed.

The third section of the book deals with the story of how Mariam and Laila become friends and ultimately how they form a bond as strong as any maternal bond.  They find strength in each other when their country is being torn asunder and when they are faced with repression, violence and starvation.

The final section of the book switches to present tense which I believe is an indication that the characters have moved on from the horrors of their past and can finally look to the future. The tone is much lighter despite the events that have gone before. You really feel that there is hope for the future of the country and for the characters.

This is a page turner if ever I’ve read one, I read it in about 10 hours over two days.  Khaled Hosseini writes in short, to the point sentences, there is nothing superfluous in the book so it moves at a rapid pace, this suits me down to the ground because I have a terrible habit of skimming over sections with too much description or bits that I don’t think are relevant (hello Lord of The Rings Trilogy!) However “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is not light reading, the themes include oppression of women and shame, the effects of war and there are vivid descriptions of domestic abuse and violence.  This shouldn’t put you off though, the story is quite uplifting and yes you will cry!

And now, I’m off to read every one else’s reviews. And wave to the other BBC members  Lily, Teresa, Cathy, Marie, Lorna, Val, Jenn, Edie, Catherine, Jenny, Kirsty and Steph.