Ashley Duvelius Loves The Muy Caliente Chocolate Esquivel Serves!

          Buenos noches, mis amigos!  Well, good evening to my fellow bloggers!  Oh my goodness!  Ladies and gentlemen, I have just finished a novel that set my soul on fire!  Laura Esquivel's passionate read Like Water For Chocolate opened my eyes to a new level of magical realism.  (Si- I was excited to know the title translated to Como Agua Para Chocolate!)  My confession for this week is that I am not a very good cook.  Hence why I enjoyed Esquivel's brilliantly original use of recipes which directly addressed me, as the reader.  Yet wait!  There's more!  I enjoyed the exaggeration of people, events, things, and actions most!  That mis amigos, es the nueva magical realism experience I had!  For lighting my inner match, I'd like to thank and highly recommend this book!
          Esquivel's idea to start the reader off with instructions to chop onions was bold and luring.  It was almost a foreshadowing of the heart ache and weeping that was to come throughout the whole novel.  I, myself, do not like chopping onions:  I am a crier.  It is because of this irritating reaction I shared with Tita that I felt a connection to her.  Also, speaking of onions, I felt another connection with the story through the author's use of recipe preparations.  The tense would shift from third person point of view to second person so smoothly that is was refreshing.  It kept me interested!  Best of all, the deliciouso breaks left my imagination time to roam and wander about the romance that continued to bloom in the story.  What's going to happen next?  Are they going to kiss?  So exciting!  Alright, here is my next confession: indeed, I do enjoy a good romance read every now and then. I must say, Esquivel's richly Latin forbidden love was far more attention-holding than Hollywood's supposed true love.  Would it be fair to compare Tita and Pedro's love and fate to that of Romeo and Juliet?  That is up to the reader, as an individual, to decide.  Well, I'll tell everyone my opinion of the tasty Chocolate!
          I would certainly like to think and hope that I have found my true love.  Si, I am a believer of true love between two people.  I believe that there is another soul out there for every single person, someone waiting, who is destined to be one's soul mate.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?  If only it were this simple in real life.  That was what fascinated me about Tita's life and changed my view on what makes for a happy ending in love.  I felt so sorry for Tita, who was constantly controlled by and overcome with obstacles.  She proved to me that true love can be better tended to in the afterlife!
          Just so, I was immediately repelled by Mama Elena's Anglo-Saxon/Puritan mindset and her dictator tendencies. Her oppressive government of a ranch was such a horrible life for Tita.  Just so, this was not one's typical love story.  Si, Tita and Pedro were true loves, and their tale was not fairy-like!  I hoped that if I were to ever be in Tita's situation, that I would be able to leave that kind of life in a heartbeat!  However, that was not the decision Tita made.  Instead of running off with her true love, she stayed and endured the physical and emotional abuse of her mother!  Aye, aye, aye! Mama Elena was a perfect example of the archetypal figure, the shadow.  I felt that her negative presence was necessary, though.  It was a metaphorical parallel to symbolize what was occurring in the Revolution.  Battles and romance, what a mixture!
          Mama Elena's repulsive tradition for Tita offended me.  I felt that it was very wrong to strip one of such personal freedoms.  One should be able to love and be with whomever they want!  I respected Tita for her strength through her downward spiral but was still saddened by her resistance to Pedro.  I would have given into running away with my true love!  Like Gertrudis!  Yes, I have to say something about good old Gertrudis.  What a woman!  She stood up to Mama Elena, found her true love, and had also become the General in the Spanish army!  I had a lot of respect for her, along with Nacha, who represented the archetypal figure of the mentor.  These Latin women were loving and fierce, who played key roles in giving Tita hope.
         The best part about this novel was the constant flow of emotions!  After all, the title does imply the boiling of water for Tita's famousa hot chocolate.  Between the shadow, missing Nacha, missing Gertrudis, tension with Rosaura, her confused feelings for John, and her lust for her true love Pedro, Tita's emotions were siempre (always) on the verge of boiling over, like agua!  The constant rush of passion, lust, anger, and sadness was intensely engaging!  I loved that Pedro symbolized the chocolate that belongs with Tita's boiling water.  Chocolate has been known as an aphrodisiac for quite some time now, and I like how Pedro's passion was a symbol for this!  I want to especially commend Esquivel for her use of magical realism to intrigue my soul's passion with phrases like (243-4):
          "If a strong emotion suddenly lights the candles we carry inside ourselves, it creates
           a brightness that shines far beyond our normal vision and then a splendid tunnel
           appears that shows us the way that we forgot when we were born and calls us to
           recover our lost divine origin."
         Although it was a sad ending, the death of Pedro and Tita gave them the opportunity to leave "together for the lost Eden.  Never again would they be apart."  Si, so it was similar to the fate of the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet!  I wasn't as sad for Tita and Pedro because Esquivel briefly showed the reader the "luminous tunnel" that they entered and the Eden they now shared forever!  How sweet and oddly satisfying!  My only hope was that there passion continues in the heavens!  The love that lives between those two characters was inspiring and powerful to behold.  I believe this was the first novel that successfully, and unexpectedly, awakened my senses.  I would love for Esquivel to write more novels that are as enticing as this one was!  Por favor and gracias, Laura Esquivel! 

Buenos Noches Amigos! Ashley Duvelius Meets El Zorro!

          Good evening, my fellow bloggers!  I'd like to start out by confessing something:  I am currently taking a Spanish course.  Si.  Now here's the ironic part:  last quarter in la clase de espanol, I researched and presented information about the Latin American country Chile.  It was then that I discovered who la famousa Isabel Allende was. From the beginning of this assignment, I almost felt a small connection to Zorro because of my knowledge of it's author.  Plus, I am a huge Batman fan.  I was excited to read of el Zorro in a graphic novel.  Alright, I will confess also that I know of Antonio Banderas in the movie Zorro from 1998.  Anyways...              
          Now that the cat's out of the bag and everyone knows I'm a Batman fan, I feel more comfortable to discuss the brave Zorro.  I believe that superheroes, or protagonists in general, are important figures to have in one's life.  A positive figure who is inspired and driven to provide justice can never be a bad thing to have!  I am always intrigued and fascinated by graphic novels for many reasons.  Their sequential action images and clever words keep me reading straight through, from beginning to end.  Allende's Zorro was no different!  Francovilla's artwork combined with the story of Allende and Wagner meshed into this beautifully intense story board!  I really liked how Wagner juxtaposed past and present in the first half of the novel.  To me, I felt a closer connection with the protagonist from knowing of his dark and unfortunate past.   
          Most importantly, Allende's text agrees with my views of right and wrong.  I felt so sorry for the Mestizos and the native people, who were treated so poorly and unfairly.  There was no justice.  Not until Zorro was created.  Allende really gave the story a richly cultural, Latin American revival.  I thoroughly enjoyed the natural, yet entertainingly appropriate, inserts of Spanish words.  Words such as capitan, amigos, si, and hombre added zest to the dialogue, and thus, the story.
          I must say, Francovilla's artwork really took my breath away.  It had the perfect balance of having a comic book hero feel and a serious tone that gave rich imagery to support the rich text.  I loved it!  Alright, I have another confession to make:  Francovilla's Zorro character was a handsome man, in my opinion.  He was a believable average citizen as well as an intriguing, mysterious hero.  The antagonists were quite impressionable, too.  They were all in militant garb,with bad language, bad attitudes, and ugly expressions.  Just so.  I will definitely pick up the next Francovilla graphic novel I hear about!
         The intensity of the serious tone in Francovilla's artwork had a major impact on me.  Don't get me wrong, I loved that the images made the story more powerful to me as a reader, however, they sometimes had a disturbing affect.  The choices Francovilla made, like only showing the leg's of Bernado's mother hanging over the bed and the men's legs, gave me a chill down my spine.  The lack of a full image of the rape scene (a.k.a minimalist images) left the details to be filled in by my imagination.  It was horrifying.  The crime of rape is a frightening and enraging act to me.  By using close up details only, Francovilla haunted my imagination because they implied the worst situation possible.  However upsetting that scene was to me, it was still a necessary point to include in the story.  That is definitely the scariest part of the graphic novel for me, but the rest of Francovilla's artwork is brilliant, thrilling, and intensely imaginative!  So cool!
          I feel that Zorro was a breath of fresh air in the realm of magical realism.  My interest was sparked from page one to el fin!  Oh, Zorro!  How he amazes me!  I really liked this Zorro's background and motivations for fighting for justice.  Francovilla's scene of when he first dresses as Zorro helped his image as well!  Perhaps I should keep reading these graphic novels.  Yes, just so...

Ashley Duvelius' Take on the Intriguing Borges

          Good evening my fellow bloggers and literary critics!  I have just finished reading a few short stories from the often misunderstood Borges.  I can honestly say I don't favor Borges over Cortazar or Marquez, but his stories still fascinated me.  My mind has been broadened by Borges' three short stories:  "The Garden of Forking Paths," "The Gospel According to Mark," and "Emma Zunz."  Out of these three, I developed an understanding and a connection with "The Gospel According to Mark" and "Emma Zunz" the most.  Before I could comprehend his literature, I had to learn his style.  Opposed to Cortazar and Marquez's plot twists, Borges goes a step further by assuming his audience knows certain levels of information.  From this base level of knowledge, Borges plays with his reader's imagination by manipulating the nature of time.  Borges enjoys writing plots involving a struggle between intellect and ignorance, as well as plots which create new realities for the main character.
          The first Borges story I read absolutely puzzled me.  After learning the reason behind my puzzlement, I felt a little embarrassed that I wasn't using my pre-existing knowledge.  It was so simple and in-my-face!  To reassert myself, Borges is a writer who assumes that his audience knows certain pieces of information.  I remembered this upon reading "The Gospel According to Mark" so that I was able to understand Borges' underlying critique.  The main character Espinosa is 33 years old in the story, which was the same age of Jesus when he was crucified (hence the story of the Gospel According to Saint Mark).  Espinosa's first name is Baltasar, who was also one of the wise men.  Also, Espinosa was the name of a scientist who had scientifically proved Jesus to be real.  Borges' assumptions gave clarity throughout reading the story.  The Gutres represented ignorance, for they found Espinosa fascinating with his stories from the Bible.  I found it disturbing that they decided to crucify Espinosa because they thought his sacrifice would bring an end to the rain that burdened their life.  Borges tried to show the ongoing question of which to live by: the dichotomy of science versus faith.  Personally, I would never do what the Gutres did to Espinosa.  Faith or no faith, to kill another human being is morally wrong and they should have at least gotten that from Espinosa's readings from the Bible.  However, in terms of magical realism, the Gutres' ignorance created their reality.  Espinosa's life had led him to them for reasons unknown.  Perhaps it was fate.  Whatever the reason, his fate was unfortunate and could have been prevented if the Gutres had any intellect like he had. That is also how I connected with this story, the strength of intellect.  I find myself to be more fact-based, for I will believe things that have proof and evidence to support them.  It was challenging for me to understand how the Gutres could commit such an act, but they were acting solely on faith rather than proof or facts.  In the end, ignorance beat intellect.  Though, one could say Espinosa was ignorant in the way he went on blindly living with the Gutres and fueling their faith.  Espinosa would have been more intelligent if he would have realized the path he was spiraling downward on and left the Gutres before it was too late for himself.      
        As appalling as the actions of the Gutres were, I gave Borges' last short story a chance.  "Emma Zunz" was a surprisingly forward tale with events that could actually happen in our reality.  I felt a real connection with Emma Zunz, who was a young woman like myself.  I have a very strong relationship with my father, and I assumed she had one with her father as well because of her later actions in the story.  My heart ached for the poor girl when she came home to find a letter telling her that her father had committed suicide.  However, she reacted differently than I would.  I would probably be in crying hysterics, while Emma just slid the letter into a drawer and immediately began plotting revenge.  This would have been my next step though.  If I knew someone was the direct cause to my father's untimely suicide, I would want to avenge him immediately.  I don't think I would go to such lengths, such as having myself declared a virgin by a doctor and then staging a rape.  My revenge would be more intelligence-based, like altering documents and planting evidence in places not involving my physical person.  Unlike "The Gospel According to Mark," I found Emma's revenge to be somewhat justified.  I still feel that killing a person is morally wrong, but a murder in self defense could be reasonable.  Loewenthal had destroyed her life by framing her father, putting him in prison, and now by causing his suicide.  My hate for Loewenthal would be overwhelming and I would probably be pushed to my edge with the death of my father.  I actually felt satisfaction for Emma Zunz as Borges ended his story with the lines "True was Emma Zunz' tone, true was her shame, true was her hate.  True also was the outrage she had suffered:  only the circumstances were false, the time, and one or two proper names."  My connection to Emma was through her actions and reactions.  If my father had died in that way and from those circumstances, I would have sought vengeance in intelligent plots similar to that of Emma's.

Ashley Duvelius' Opinion of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

          Good evening, my fellow bloggers!  This week my literature class has been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short stories.  Marquez's two stories, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" and "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," are very different yet uniquely similar in their metaphorical meaning.  Both are of the genre of Magical Realism fiction.  Marquez's idea of Magical Realism was to create tiny myths to confuse the reader, to communicate the intensity of simply being alive, that art helps one feel less alone in the world, and also, that art is all about catharsis.  All of which he interestingly conveys in his short stories.
          Marquez's first story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," was about a fallen angel.  This fallen angel was not what one would normally preconceive an angel to look like because he was old and filthy.  The Church didn't believe he was an angel and even said that he could not possibly be an angel because he did not speak in the sacred tongue of Latin. That is exactly the criticism that Marquez was trying to make here:  the Church is blinded by preconceived notions and this made the divine uncomprehendable, unimaginable.  Marquez's story criticized the Church as an institution, not as a religion.  He was poking fun at the Church's hierarchy and their judgment when he wrote of their delayed and lofty response to the parish priest. The bigger picture for Marquez is that the human faith is limited by our blinding ideals.  The Church had such a strong affect on the villagers in the story that they, too, did not believe the old man was an angel.  I felt very sorry for the old man as the people paid to see him like at a carnival, and they threw garbage at him.  I believed that it was definitely possible for him to be divine.  I even thought that those villagers were making bad karma for themselves by treating him so poorly.  Then the last line of this story meant that the divine is so unimaginable and uncomprehendable that it is best to keep it out of ones lives.  I suppose it would be best to keep the divine out of ones lives if it truly is that spectacular.  The idea of the divine is also the focus in Marquez's other short story, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World."         

Ashley Duvelius on Cortazar's Work

 Julio Cortazar's literature gives new meaning to the term Magical Realism.  I would always try not to be tricked by his short stories, but Cortazar's imagination would always win in the end.  The first short story we read of Cortazar's was "The Continuity of Parks."  I was entranced by this story.  In the story's beginning, I wondered what importance the business man had.  Then I realized, this could be me any day of any week.  I love to get lost in the world of literature.  I like to have a break from reality, and let my mind wonder into another world, it doesn't matter if it's fiction or non-fiction.  Although, I have always preferred fiction.  "The Continuity of Parks" confused me at first, especially when the lines between the novel and reality began to blur.  The twilight zone affect that the story had was pretty fascinating.  I have never read Magical Realism as a genre of literature.  I've seen it in movies though!  I believe that the story channeled perfectly how I become lost in reading a book.  I enjoyed the reading and was fearful for the man reading innocently in the chair as the stalker approached him with a knife.  I wondered if the story was trying to convey how life can change in seconds and harm can come at any time.  I wonder what became of the man reading in the chair.  Did he escape the clutches of the stalker?  Or was the stalker also merely a figment of his roaming imagination?  These are questions I'd love to ask Cortazar.  As for Cortazar's short story "Our Demeanor at Wakes," I was more confused as to what was going on.  I finally understood when I got to class!  I found it interesting to read about a family that finds joy in crashing mourning family's funerals.  I enjoyed reading the story and found it funny at times because of the exaggerated actions the crashers made.  I actually felt guilty for laughing at their funeral crashing because I find funerals to be extremely serious and personal affairs.  I actually find their crashing to be a violation of the family's privacy and emotions.  I am appalled that people would actually find amusement in doing such a thing.  I found it even more appalling that the crashers took the funeral into their own hands and even spoke at the eulogy.  I considered this to be very disrespectful.  A funeral should definitely be limited to the loved ones of the deceased, anyone who intrudes on this matter is kind of wrong in the head.  The moral of the story though was that a reality can be created anytime and anywhere.  The funeral crashers made their assumed identities a reality as they overthrew the mourning family and took the funeral into their own hands.  Like I said, although I found their ridiculous wailing and smug speeches funny, it doesn't make it morally right.  I was partially offended by this story and my only hope was that this would never happen at my funeral or at any of my loved one's funerals.  On a lighter note, I really enjoyed Cortazar's "Axolotl."  The story begins by saying the narrator is "an axolotl" (Cortazar 1801).  Then it almost takes a step back in time and tells us how the narrator came to have a fascination with axolotls.  I believe this story was all about a human's ability to escape reality through art and imagination.  If one is suffering, one can imagine something better and make themselves happier.  The narrator's fascination with axolotl's was similar to my fascination of canines.  What I wouldn't give to have the simple life of a dog!  I believe Cortazar was trying to highlight the relief of suffering through art, through literature.  It was almost as if the narrator's consciousness was transferred into the axolotl.  He could understand their suffering in their cramped living conditions and identified it with the loneliness he felt in his life.  I would love to write about canines or something I found beautiful, something that can't speak for itself where I'd be needed to express their unspoken emotions.  I could definitely relate to this story because I understand that there are many beings in this world that are helpless and speechless.  Those souls need to be expressed somehow.  I'm glad that Cortazar, or whoever the narrator was, wrote a story about the under appreciated axolotls, giving them a voice in the world.  I admire the fact that Cortazar wanted to give light to those that are easily forgotten.  Once again, I really enjoyed "Axolotl" because it made me realize that words don't always have to be composed of human thought.  It was a beautiful tale and I would love to continue reading Julio Cortazar's Magical Realism literature!

Ashley Duvelius: Popol Vuh Reader Response

Popol Vuh:  Dawn of Life


Hi everybody!  Sorry this is coming to you so late, I had a busy day with school and going straight to work! :( Popol Vuh was a very interesting Latin American read.  It was an account of how the world started, all in one night.  The Maya legends say that the gods (the Creator, the Maker, Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Forefathers) first filled the Earth with water and woodland, then the small wild animals came to be.  The gods were not satisfied that the animals could not speak and could not adore them or invoke them.  So that is when the gods created the first men, made of earth and flesh of mud.  The mud people were soft, did not move, melted away, and their sight was blurred.  This, too, was unacceptable for the gods.  They destroyed the mud creatures and set forth creating once again.  The gods next tried to make men out of wood.  These woodmen were a next-step-up, since they indeed "existed and multiplied".  However, they had no souls and soon forgot their creators.  Not to mention, they awkwardly walked on all fours.  Even I couldn't imagine men made of wood, splinters would be terrible.  The gods decided it was best to destroy the woodmen with a flood.  Those who survived were later viciously annihilated by the pots, pans, and animals they had treated so badly.  The last tale of the Maya was that of Vucub- Caquix.  Vucub-Caquix was a god who became so vain and greedy that he thought of himself as the Sun and the Moon.  To be vain and greedy was a major sin for the Maya, and so the gods put him back in his place.  Or rather, put in his grave, along with his vain sons.  I really enjoyed this story.  It is was rich in belief and I loved how these people believed in their gods with their entire being.  I believe that was the moral of the story, in fact, to love your creator with your entire being.  I would like to read more enchanting tales of myth and legend!  Keep them coming Latin America! 

Thank you for listening,
Ashley Duvelius