- Audio Cassette
- Publisher: Harper; Unabridged edition (Sep 19 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060515910
- ISBN-13: 978-0060515911
- Product Dimensions: 16 x 10.4 x 6.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros's first novel since her celebrated The House on Mango Street, weaves a large yet intricate pattern, much like the decorative fringe on a rebozo, the traditional Mexican shawl. Through the eyes of young Celaya, or Lala, the Reyes family saga twists and turns over three generations of truths, half-truths, and outright lies. And, like Celaya's grandmother's prized caramelo (striped) rebozo, so is "the universe a cloth, and all humanity interwoven.... Pull one string and the whole thing comes undone." The Reyes clan, from Awful Grandmother Soledad and her favorite son Inocencio to Celaya, follow their destinies from Mexico City to the U.S. armed forces, jobs upholstering furniture, and to Chicago and San Antonio. Celaya gathers and retells, in over 80 chapters, the stories that reinforce her family's, and subsequently her own, identity as they travel between the U.S.-Mexican border and within the United States. Rich with sensory descriptions and animated conversations and peppered with Mexican cultural and historical details, this novel can hardly contain itself. Also an acclaimed poet, Cisneros writes fiercely and thoroughly, and her characters enter and exit the page with uncommon humanity. Although the book is long--over 400 pages plus a relevant U.S.-Mexico chronology--in many ways it's not long enough. The world of the 20th-century Mexican family, and of the Reyeses in particular, is as complicated, timeless, and satisfying as our own family stories. --Emily Russin
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
With the ability to make listeners laugh out loud with her humor, get lumps in their throats with her poignancy and leave them thinking about her characters long after they've hit the stop button, Cisneros is a master storyteller and performer. Her sweeping tale of the Reyes family, with the charmingly innocent Lala Reyes at its center, moves from 1920s Mexico City and Acapulco to 1950s Chicago, all the while grounding the family's whimsical events with "notes" to help readers understand the greater significance of, say, a nightclub singer who snagged Lala's grandfather's heart or the Mexican government's initiative to build a network of highways throughout the country. Cisneros (The House on Mango Street) reads her flowing text in an often ebullient voice, recounting the sights and sounds of Mexico City's boisterous streets or performing one of the many grand-scale arguments Lala's parents have. Her voices are marvelous. She perfectly portrays the Awful Grandmother's bitterness (the old lady loved to remind her son, "Wives come and go, but mothers, you have only one!") and sweetly croons the birthday songs Lala and her brothers sing to their father. This is a treat of an audio, combining a fantastic narrative with an equally excellent reading.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, occasionally syrupy narrative,
By stackofbooks "stackofbooks" (Walpole, MA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Caramelo (Hardcover)
Caramelo is a multi-generational tale of the Keyes family as related by Lala or Celaya, the "favorite child of a favorite child". Lala weaves together stories about her family's past, and tries in the process, to find a place for herself in the picture. There is Awful Grandmother, who we know, really was a sweet, tortured Soledad as a child. Then there is Uncle Fat-Face, Aunty Light-Skin amongst others, all of whom have wonderful stories to tell. Caramelo starts off with a family vacation the Reyes family is taking to Mexico. Long ago, the Reyes brothers moved to Chicago from Mexico to try their fortunes in the upholstery business. This "vacation" is more of a religious duty than anything else. Lala complains, "All year the apartment looks like a store. A year's worth of collecting merchandise for the trip South." The trip this time, ends with a hint at a family secret which is revealed only much later in the book.Cisneros traces Lela's family's past systematically through most of its members and ultimately arrives upon Lala's own search for an identity in a new "home". Cisneros's language is beautiful and earthy, and there is a fair amount of Spanish thrown in. Like most "emigrants caught between here and there", Lala is an expert spectator when she visits Mexico: "Toc, says the light switch in this country, at home it says click. Honk, say the cars at home, here they say tan-tan-tan." I find that Lala wears rosy glasses when she views Mexico. Of course, this is only to be expected, as Lala explains, "Every year I cross the border, it's the same-my mind forgets. But my body always remembers." The slight detraction that emerges though is that very often Lala tends to overly romanticize the past. Her characters are loud, earthy, wonderful, caring, human beings but sometimes that can be too much of a good thing. In a footnote (one of many) in the book, Cisneros argues that a Mexican soap opera or telenovela is not really bad storytelling-"it is a story that has tried to emulate Mexican life." The telenovela, Cisneros explains, is storytelling at its best, since "it has the power of a true Scheherazade-it keeps you coming back for more." I would then apply the same definiton to Caramelo. The narrative might be a bit syrupy, but you will come back for more. The Caramelo in the novel's title refers to the intricate caramel-colored, striped rebozo (silk shawl) that Lala has claimed for her own from her grandmother. This particular rebozo, like most others, has intricate knotted fringes, but there is a part that is left unfinished. As we read the novel, we realize how very much like the Caramelo rebozo, the Reyes family is-a family with lives strongly interconnected, yet with a bit of unfinished fringe at the end.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read,
By
This review is from: Caramelo (Hardcover)
I have to admit when I first started reading this book I thought the dialogue and narrating was, as another reviewer described, syrupy and, personally, mediocre. The problem is Cisneros translates many Spanish sayings literally- making them sound sappy and just plain strange. For instance her 'Aunty Light Skin' would be 'Tia Guerja', which to someone who is familiar with Mexican Spanish, would sound just fine. The translations took a while to get used to.... Uncle Fat Face, 'my life', 'my heaven', etc.. All familiar in Spanish but just don't translate well literally into English. However, the story is wonderful and will have you coming back for more! A very rich story of the Northern Mexican & Southern Mexican(the other side) experience, culture, and sometimes culture-clash. A very vivid depiction of a family 'caught between here and there'. The story extending back generations, revealing personal struggles, and a families' quest for upward mobility in a post-colonial world of 'dirty indians' and rich Spainards, and later in the complicated society of the U.S. I was surprised how quickly I read this one actually. You'll be sad the story has come to an end.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Like the candy -- to be savored a chapter at a time,
By lukrezya (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Caramelo (Paperback)
I walked into CARAMELO simply because of the title. Indeed, the prose is sweet, chewy, and sticky all at once -- yet sometimes hard to swallow in large bites. If you are looking for a plot-driven, third-person, Mex-Am narrative (note the multiple hyphens), then please put the book down. This is a semi-fictional reminiscence of a family history, complete with memory lapses and revisionist remembrances, not to mention the stream of consciousness chapter structures. All this being said, many of the chapters are lovely bites of a family that is struggling to straddle their past and present, and overcome the barriers they themselves have put up. If you do not have a familiarity with the Spanish language, it may be difficult for you to savor the full flavor of the connection to each story. A casual reader should read one or two chapters at a time, in order to fully enjoy the stories, background details, and essence of this young woman's (and her family's) history. Otherwise, you may find yourself sorely disappointed when you reach the end. Enjoy it for what it is -- a series of short stories that are interconnected but do not culminate in a resolution or tidy ending.
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