Hi everyone,
Before we start serious discussion of "House on Mango Street," I wanted to get your overall thoughts and impressions. Did you love it/hate it, or fall somewhere in-between? Which was your favorite vignette and why?
That's a general introduction. For a more focused beginning:
“My Name” vignette – “Esperanza” tells us her name means hope in English and sadness in Spanish. “A muddy color.” From the outset of the novella, would you say Esperanza caters more to her English or Spanish definition of her name? Or do you think they're equally balanced?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
I liked it. For as brief as it was, it was still capable of a touching vividness and voice, and the author sometimes had a poignant way with words, such as when Esperanza, imagining the house she always wanted, described it as "clean as paper before the poem." (And the line "cats asleep like little donuts" reminded me of Harvey the Chihuahua ... hehe)
ReplyDeleteI think my favorite vignette was "A Rice Sandwich," the one where she was determined to eat in the school's "canteen," mainly because she liked the name "canteen" and the feelings it evoked. That's a very wonderful, kidlike thing, I think, to be enamored of the romance of a word and all that it conjures. And it's this big ordeal, with her mom and the nun and the note and going to the office, and then the canteen turns out to be "nothing special." Or rather, it's not special in the way she had imagined; it's special, in the end, because it sticks with her as a little life lesson in dreams and humility and growing up.
I also liked "Bums in the Attic" for its social justice. Hehe. And "A Smart Cookie," about how her mom quit school because her clothes weren't "nice enough." Shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down.
As for your question about the name — a good one — I think it's a combination of hope and sadness. She has hope for a better life, or at least for a very different one, with her books and a home of her own (like Virginia Woolf's "room of one's own") where she's not a victim of poverty and brutal sexism, but there's also a melancholy in knowing that the stories she's full of always return her to the feelings and experiences of that raggedy time. The burgeoning writer longs for escape but also knows that her creative energy is rooted in that landscape.
ReplyDeleteI liked it, too. The writer really has a gift for painting a vivid picture in remarkably few words. I could really picture the neighborhood and the houses and the characters -- even if they appeared in only a few paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite story was also "A Rice Sandwich"! It's such a perfect kid experience. I also thought "Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark" was really touching. And the young me could totally relate to "Chanclas."
I like kc's analysis on "Esperanza." I think it relates directly to the ideas in the last stories about having hope for a different future, a bigger world, but maintaining ties to her childhood and where she came from.
Hmm. I liked “Bums in the Attic” not just for its social justice, but for the wonderful ending:
ReplyDeleteRats? They’ll ask.
Bums I’ll say, and I’ll be happy.
I like how when you get to the end of several of the episodes you realize just then that you have read a poem. A few even end in rhyme. Maybe I’d like more poetry if I didn’t know that that was what I was reading and I wasn’t trying to read it as poetry.
These brief vivid stories struck me as very childlike in a way that I think would be hard to write. I’ve read novels where the writer tries to stay in the voice of a child, but the narrative arc of the story betrays the attempt. Children don’t have narrative arcs: we write such explanations back onto our past only after we discover where it is we are getting to.
Did you read the introduction “A House of My Own” before reading the chapters? I did and I’m sure it affected the experience of reading the book. For the better I think. I rather liked the perspective the mature Cisneros gave on the young woman who wrote these stories of childhood. And I think it helped to know more about her relationship with each of her parents.
My mom never told a story like “Chanclas”, but more than once she told about how she had to get those same saddle shoes because they lasted so long and were about the only ones that would fit her narrow feet. When she outgrew them it would just be another pair of the same.
ReplyDeleteMy book didn't have an introduction. Do you have the anniversary edition?
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeleteI have the anniversary edition, too, but I didn't read the whole introduction. I must admit it seemed rather self-important and boring to me. But dw's comments make me think maybe I should give it another chance.
ReplyDeleteThere is always that risk whenever anybody talks about their own work. But perhaps it sounded that way because she was talking about her efforts to overcome her insecurities in general and particularly as a writer. I kept that in mind when considering the accounts of sexism in Esperanza’s community.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of sexism ... what did everyone think about the author's portrayal of men?
ReplyDeleteI know several commentators (Harold Bloom comes to mind) have said readers had trouble with passages like in the "My Name" vignette: "...the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong."
I'll have to look at the "Chanclas" story again.
ReplyDeleteI also loved the story where all the kids piled into the fancy Cadillac and went for a spin — before the unfortunate ending. Hehe
The portrayal of men? I didn't really read it as a portrayal of men per se, so much as a portrayal of men you might find in a desperately poor, uneducated neighborhood with extremely sexist cultural norms. (I don't find anything wrong with noting that Mexican and Chinese cultures have traditionally been highly misogynistic, as have most "white" cultures. It's not saying anything about individuals). And I don't have a problem believing that a significant number of men that you will encounter in a neighborhood like Esperanza's are sexist and damaging to little girls and women (whether it's just the things they say, their attitudes, or being outright sexual predators).
ReplyDeleteShanxi, you haven't told us what your favorite story was.
Interesting ... I wasn't too troubled by the portrayal of men either, because I thought the author included several male figures who were very sympathetic - as you noted earlier, Erin, about "Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark." Like you said, Kim, it's more the individuals versus the cultural stereotype. I just wanted to see whether anyone else had a different view.
ReplyDeleteHmm - favorite story ... that's hard. I did like "A Rice Sandwich" (common theme here!) because it threw me back to similar childhood experiences of crying in public, lol.
I also liked "Darius & The Clouds" because it seemed so random, childlike and yet so full of hope, too - and also "A House of My Own." A full circle from "House on Mango Street" right to the end.
P.S. I loved the imagery in "Four Skinny Trees" - "They ... grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth..."
Also, the book is dedicated "to the women," so she apparently felt her experience as a girl had some "universals" that would speak to other women.
ReplyDeleteShanxi, I liked the clouds story, too, especially the end where he says the cloud is God. "God, he said, and made it simple."
It reminded me of this Edgar Lee Masters poem "Father Malloy."
You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand
From the wastes about the pyramids
And makes them real and Egypt real.A small thing like a cloud or a box of sand can make the abstract very tangible and "simple."
And that line in "Four Skinny Trees" is fantastic. And "whose only reason is to be and be." That's lovely. I had considered her language poetic, but these didn't strike me as poems necessarily. Now, though, I think DW is right on about their being poems.