- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton; New edition edition (Jun 14 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393326934
- ISBN-13: 978-0393326932
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14 x 1.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 23 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#469,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #58 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Castillo's ( Sapogonia ) inventive but not entirely cohesive novel about the fortunes of a contemporary Chicana family in the village of Tome, N.M., reveals its main concerns at once. Sofi's three-year-old daughter dies in a horrifying epileptic fit but is resurrected (and even levitates) at her own funeral, reporting firsthand acquaintance with hell, purgatory and heaven. Magic and divine intervention in varying ways touch each of Sofi's three other daughters: the eldest, mainstreamed yuppie Esperanza; Caridad, whose path leads toward folk mysticism; and the more mundane Fe, who--seized with a screaming convulsion when her fiance jilts her--is brought to silence only months later through the intercession of the resurrected youngest sister, "Loca." Castillo takes a page from the magical realist school of Latin American fiction, but one senses the North American component of this Chicana voice: in her work, occult phenomena are literal, not symbolic; life is traumatic and brutal--as are men--but death is merely tentative. She sounds a secondary note as a proponent of feminism and social justice, but her hand falters when she attempts to blend the formation of an artisans' cooperative or an industrial toxins scandal into a universe of magical healings and manifestations. Castillo is also a critic, a translator and a poet.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This masterfully written novel by the author of The Mixquiahuala Letters (Anchor: Doubleday, 1992) tells the story of Sofia and her four daughters. The Hispanic family lives in Tome, New Mexico, a small, quiet town whose inhabitants nonetheless directly deal with such current social issues as AIDS, industrial pollution, the volatile political situation in the Middle East, poor people's struggle for self - sufficiency, and the current interest in alternate spirituality and natural medicine. Although filled with tragic events, the narrative also offers hope in its portrayal of successful journeys toward wholeness by each of the five women. Each chapter stands on its own as a complete story, but readers won't be satisfied until they've finished the entire skillfully constructed book. Highly recommended for collections with demand for Hispanic, women's, or spiritual literature.
- Sherri Cutler, Children's Memorial Hosp. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Sherri Cutler, Children's Memorial Hosp. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Poetry of Life and the World Beyond.....,
By
This review is from: So Far From God (Mass Market Paperback)
Ana Castillo truly takes us for an unforgettable trip as we take a glimpse into the lives of Sofi, a Chicana woman, and her four daughters, Esperanza (Hope), Caridad (Charity), Fe (Faith), and La Loca (The Crazy One). The story reads like an epic parable about life, death, sexuality and the bridge between the world of the living and the afterlife. It also raises very important questions about the division between heaven and hell and whether is really such a bad place after all in comparison with the life that we come to accept. Each woman in this story is touched by fate in unexpected, and (sometimes) supernatural ways. While Esperanza, the successful, upwardly mobile sister acts on her name and is relocated to Iraq as part of her journalism work, her sister Caridad becomes a faith healer, Fe loses her voice after a fit of desperate screaming, and La Loca cheats death as a young toddler only to become the subject of social scrutiny in their community as an isolated loner with a sixth sense only understandable to her mother, Sofi. This book is truly enjoyed when you suspend disbelief and just go with the supernatural and magical elements. SO FAR FROM GOD is true poetry, and also very important in cultural studies. It was assigned to me in a comparative literature class through the department of American Ethnic Studies with the following books: The Grass Dancer, A Lesson Before Dying, Ruby Ridge, and Homebase. (Books also worth checking out!)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome Book,
By
This review is from: So Far From God (Mass Market Paperback)
This book chronicles the struggles of a family of five women as they must decide how they are to interact with the larger white American culture.Each women chooses her own path as to how they are to interact with the larger culture. The book chronicles the difficulties of being forced to live with dual identities in modern American culture. This book also is an interesting study of how cultures change and merge as they interact with each other. This is especially true of popular religion. One can almost see this book as an analysis of the official religion and how that is different from the role religion plays in the houses of people in their everyday lives.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book Abouth Faith,
By A Customer
This review is from: So Far From God (Mass Market Paperback)
It is hard to believe that So Far From God first came out like a wild bull into the ring more than ten years ago. Every time I read it (and I do each semester for my classes in Religious Studies) I laugh and I cry along with "Sofia" at the unraveling of hundreds of years of culture in the Southwest. And the "magical" way Castillo has of winding it all back together for our heroine. As a professor in Religious Studies, this is not magical realism. This is a book about faith. Faith in the earth, Our Mother. Taken from my home as child in Arizona to be raised by "good Christian Whites", this book brought me back home in a way that only a masterpiece could.
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