Customer Reviews

Dreaming in Cuban

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'd heard such wonderful things about this book that I was very eager to read it. When I picked it up, I was expecting to love it, and I tried to love it...but I just couldn't. At least not as much as I thought I would.

I didn't really find either the story or the characters as emotionally engaging as I thought I would (Celia was my favorite) and this was a huge disappointment.

DREAMING IN CUBAN revolves around three generations of women (women, all of whom are a bit mad, play the predominant role in this book, although there are male characters) each attempting to come to terms with the revolution in Cuba in her "own" way.

Celia del Pino has chosen to remain in Cuba, come what may, as has her daughter, Felicia. Celia's other daughter, Lourdes, however, has emigrated with her husband and baby daughter, Pilar, to New York City, leaving even Miami behind. Lourdes is convinced that, in order to leave Cuba behind, the family must also leave any trace of "Cubanness" behind...and this includes palm trees and warm weather.

The third woman who is pivotal to the story in DREAMING IN CUBAN is Lourdes's daughter, Pilar, whom we see at various stages of her growth. I found it very difficult to identify with either Lourdes or Pilar because they were simply "too American." (That may be the very reason you do identify with them, though, so that is certainly not a criticism of the book, just an observation.)

Pilar, an aritst, comes to see herself as the proverbial "dyed-in-the-wool" New Yorker. For her, Cuba exists only in absence. It simply isn't a presence in her life. She doesn't have to take any action to obliterate its memory from her consciousness although she does, at times, dream of returning to Cuba to live with Celia (her grandmother).

Lourdes, Pilar's mother, is a far different story. She wants to feel as American as does Pilar, and she certainly tries, but feeling American is something that, for Pilar, is far easier said than done. Lourdes, though, is the quintessential "survivor" and she's determined to make a life, and a good life, in New York. She opens the Yankee Doodle Bakery and it's so successful that she opens yet a second one.

While Lourdes is determined to assimilate herself into New York and even the cold, grey, winter weather, she still finds, to her dismay, that she hungers for the lush, tropical warmth of the south. This results in an ever-growing appetite for her husband, Rufino and for sticky buns, a hunger that eventually causes Lourdes to gain almost 120 pounds. Although Lourdes consciously wants no part of Cuba, it seems as though Cuba "owns" a very large part of her.

Celia, to me, was the most interesting character in the book and the one with whom I felt the most empathy. Perhaps it's because she chose to remain in Cuba. Perhaps it's the poignant story of her brief but intense love affair with Gustavo, a man she never forgets and a man she writes to on the eleventh day of every month...because that's the day he left her.

Cristina Garcia does write beautiful prose. It's lyrical, it's haunting and it is, at times, quite hallucinatory. And the book has an intense, magical, mystical quality that I really loved. But structurally, DREAMING IN CUBAN is a mess. From the very first page, the book is difficult to follow. It jumps from year to year and character to character and even from decade to decade, seemingly without rhyme or reason, often leaving the reader feeling quite disoriented. There is a family tree in the front of the book and whenever I see a family tree in a work of fiction, I get a bad feeling about the book. Family trees are usually inserted into fiction books because the writing isn't clear enough for us to keep the characters straight.

DREAMING IN CUBAN has some wonderful stuff in it, but the characterization suffers from Garcia's fragmentary writing style as does the story. I think it's a good first effort, and a sophisticated one, but I think a clearer, cleaner narrative would have allowed readers a lot more emotional engagement with the characters and, overall, improved this book greatly. It's a shame the structure is such a mess because the writing is really quite lovely.

I would recommend this book to people who can't get their fill of Latin American literature (though Garcia lives in the US) and I will read more of Garcia's work myself, despite my misgivings about DREAMING IN CUBAN. This author's writing is just too good to dismiss with her debut novel.

DREAMING IN CUBAN is a story about three generations of Cuban women and their extreme differences. Celia, the grandmother, remains in Cuba and is a dedicated Castro supporter. Her daughter Lourdes had moved to the United States and is completely anti-Castro. Pilar, the granddaughter, is an artist with a punk style who thinks that her mothers obsession with the anti-Castro movement is ridiculous. They each have a different perception of what Cuba should be. It's a great story about the Cuban revolution and the effect it has had on families. Was reminded of the humor of Jackson McCrae (`---Katzenjammer---') and the good writing of Irving or Grisham. Really first rate.

Garcia creates interesting characters that all relate to the situations of being Cuban and Cuban American.

I highly recommend this book. It is so good on so many levels. It deals with family, politics, belonging, and so much more. I'm reading it a third time!

This is just in response to the person that wrote "snoring in
Cuba". This is one of the BEST books I have ever read, and believe me I have read thousands. I highly recommend this book not just to someone who expresses an interest in learning more
about the Cuban Revolution but to anyone who enjoys reading
fantastic fiction novels. Unless you're a heartless robot this
book will move you. I couldn't put it down until the last page,
and when it was over I was left longing for more.

GREAT BOOK!

Beautifully written and engrosing story. Definately a must read.

This book tells the story of three women's lives, from each of their perspectives. Although each of the women had different loyalties and made very different decisions regarding the direction of their lives based on those loyalties, you never felt that one character was more "right" than the others. In all it was a great story about a mother and her two daughters and their relationships with each other, the men in their lives, and their countries (Cuba and the United States).

Here is a truly unforgettable book. I was entranced from the very first sentence: "Celia del Pino, equipped with binoculars and wearing her best housedress and drop pearl earrings, sits in her wicker swing guarding the north coast of Cuba."

From that moment on, I was drawn as surely into this book as the tides in the sea that Celia is guarding. "Dreaming in Cuban" tells the story of the Cuban Revolution from the point of view of three generations of women: the above-mentioned Celia, the grandmother; her daughters, Felicia and Lourdes; and Lourdes' own daughter, Pilar. Each of the three older women, and perhaps Pilar, a 20-ish New York artist, is quite totally mad. Thus we see and hear and feel the revolution from the hallucinatory perceptions of Celia, who worships El Lider (Castro) with ferocity; Felicia, who is torn between old Cuba--its superstitions, its voodoo, its passion--and the modern Cuba, where she is sentenced to a work camp; and Lourdes, who has escaped to Brooklyn and proudly owns the Yankee Doodle Bakery.

There is violence, murder, passion, birth and death in this book, but all told in a sort of lyrical mist, so that the reader feels the torpid heat of the Cuban day, the gentle warmth of the sea, and the breezes that stir the palms. All is dreamlike, which makes the reality of modern Cuba almost impossible to grasp. As one of the main characters says toward the end of the book: "Cuba is a peculiar exile...an island-colony. We can reach it by a thirty-minute charter flight from Miami, yet never reach it at all."

And yet, after reading this incredible book, I feel for the first time that I have some understanding of that small island nation. Or maybe it is all a dream.

i really really liked it. it was very cool

While trying to read this excuse for a story, I fought back yawns, and dreary eyes. The author attempts to recreate a story of a Cuban's life, but it is constantly interrupted by smaller, less relevant stories. I do not by any means recommend this novel.