Reader Response: Like Water For Chocolate

Esquivel's story was like nothing I could have expected. I am glad that I read this story in a class room setting or else I never would have understood the true message within this literature. Magical food and all, I truly enjoyed the emotion, the humor, and the plot.

I know that, had I not understood the book fully, I would have hated Tita. To me she seemed flighty, fickle, and at times even stupid. All her views seemed skewed and dramatic, or so they would have. Knowing that Esquivel wanted to show not only the terrible effects of a tyrannical system and to mock American prudishness, Tita suddenly makes sense. Her powerful swings in emotion are a result of her environment. Mama Elena singling her out time and time again, setting Tita on edge. It is a wonder that Tita did not go postal. Then of course her rejection of Dr. Brown. On the surface it seemed nothing short of idiotic. Dig a little deeper and the reader understands why. Dr. Brown was a total push over. When Tita told him she had cheated on him, he forgave her like it was no big deal and supported her decision. Who would want to marry that?

To conclude, I think the biggest indicator that this is an excellent read is the emotions that the story invokes in the reader. I laughed, I got angry, I was disappointed, and I got angrier. This kind of rollercoaster is hard to keep up without just driving the reader away.

Zorro

The graphic novel of Zorro reminded me of my childhood when I used to read comics. Mostly I read Calvin and Hobbes, but later I graduated to Manga. The similarities in style brought me back. I become so engaged in graphic novels that I find myself reacting to the story as it happens. So it was in Zorro. I would lean left and right as though swinging a blade, cringe as the violence escalated, and smile unexpectedly when Zorro was met with success. I would have to resist the urge to touch my lip when the sword master twirled his mustache. The visuals the story gives you are not only engaging, they produce the illusion of involvement. Perhaps the most striking scene is the dramatic view of the soldier who bears Zorro's mark upon his hand. It sets the tone for the entire story: Zorro is in charge.

 Creating a powerful scene can cause an equally powerful response.

 A manga I am currently reading called Higurashi is especially engaging. I appreciate the intense scenes the illustrator produces. The series is Borgesian in that there are multiple story arcs that occur simultaneously.  Each arc often parodies the manga genre with outlandish antics that bond the characters in each story arc. All of these antics put disgustingly sweet emphasis on friendship. However all of these antics are extinguished shortly in each story arc as everyone is either brutally murdered or is in the process of brutally murdering everyone else.

 One scene actually startled me enough to drop the book. In the arc, Keiichi, the main character is noticing that his friends are acting strangely. He does some snooping around and his suspicions grow ever darker. One of his friends, Rena, stops him on the road home and asks him point blank if he's been spying. At this point I needed to turn the page. As I did so on this occasion I turned my head to drink a pop I had on the side. As I put the can down and turned my attention back to the book, the image on the pages gave me a start and I dropped the book. I picked up, my chest feeling light from the shock I had received, and looked at the page once more. It was a close up of Rena's face, a look of hellish fury upon it, that took up both pages. Her once human eyes, now cat-like and in enormous letters encased in a violently spiky word bubble was the sentence "DON'T LIE!". Laughing at myself, I finished the arc, and watched everyone get brutally murdered with a baseball bat.

Borges

Jorge Borges' stories often put the characters in critical situations so intense they affect even the reader. In "Garden of Forking Paths", Yu Tsun is trying to act as a spy for Germany during WWI and send a coded message to let the Germans know where to bomb. Tsun grows desperate. He is on the run from an Irish special agent and is running out of options. He decides to kill one Stephen Albert, whose last name is also the name of the village to be bombed. The unsuspecting Albert has a secret connection with his soon-to-be killer; Albert solved the mystery of an unfinished book of Tsun's Ancestors, Ts'ui Pên. Ts'ui Pên began a book and constructed a maze that all men would get lost in. Albert realized that the maze and the book were the same and represented multiple realities in time. Albert's discovery escalates the action of the story. Here is a spy out to kill a man who has solved the greatest intellectual achievement of the spy's family tree., all the while the pursuits of the Irishman never let up. The reader knowing all of this, and learning all the possibilities before Tsun assassinates Albert is enough to put even an experienced reader on edge 

Marquez

When I read Marquez, I cannot help but compare him to Jhonen Vasquez. While Mr. Vasquez's work is centered more around his cartoons, the brutal intent in the delivery of the message is the same. Marquez in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" shows how people are so easily duped by their own devices. When the ancient decrepit angel failed to act awe inspiring and holy, people turned away and saw what they wanted to see. They wanted something fantastic and magical, such as the giant tarantula girl, whose tale of woe satisfied the villagers preconceived notions of the super natural. The villagers are made out as little better than sheep looking for greener grass. Jhonen Vasquez accomplished a similar goal using similar methods in his cartoon Invader Zim. In Invader Zim, an alien has inserted himself into human middle school and his disguise is rather poor. His green skin is obvious, his strange attire, even his unfamiliarity with water should be duly noted by the human children at school as suspicious. However the only one who sees through Zim's disguise is Dib. At show and tell Dib does a presentation on the overwhelming evidence surrounding Zim. At the end of his presentation, a hulking alien bursts in through the class room ceiling and kidnaps Zim. Following that event, Dib beseeches his fellow classmates to see that Zim is an alien. However, at that very moment, bird poop falls through the exposed ceiling onto Dibs shoulders and the whole class room bursts out into hysteric laughter. Marquez and Vasquez seem sharply aware of man's dangerous habit of only seeing what man wants to see and either discredit or all together ignore any evidence to the contrary of their idealistic impressions of reality.

Reader Response: Cortazar

         Cortazar's magical realism often reads like a philosophical plunge into existentialism. Whether it be the realities books create, the realities people recreate, or the reality of one's plights found behind a glass wall.
          In the short story "The Continuity of Parks", Cortazar explores the idea that stories, fiction or otherwise, create reality. The narrator is reading a story about a pair of lovers. One intends to murder someone. As the story progresses tension is seamlessly built with each sentence. Most interesting is the scene before the twist. As the murderer gets closer and closer to his target, the verbs disappear. Each sentence reads like a screen shot. Each scene is seen, but no action taken. Then it is revealed that the narrator is a part of the story he is reading. This revelation absolutely destroys the previously created reality and the reader is irrevocably forced to face a reality that they had been a part of from the start.
           In "Our Demeanor at Wakes", Cortazar shows how people make new realities. "Our Demeanor at Wakes" shows people's incredible ability to simply believe themselves into any situation, even a funeral. A family shows up at a wake and begins to put on a show. One of the women kicks off the display by bawling uncontrollably before the casket. So much so that she had to be pulled away. Then, the men give beautiful eulogies as the women hold back the real family members. At the end of fiasco, the neighbors have to finish up the funeral because the family has lost all sense of direction at their own funeral.

            "Axolotl" is, if possible, more convoluted than either "Our Demeanor at Wakes" or "The Continuity of Parks". In "Axolotl", the narrator visits an aquarium and discovers a salamander tank. The narrator cannot help but sympathize and humanize these little creatures in their cramped tank. He relates so much to these axolotl, that he begins to use "we" to refer to himself and the axolotl. By the end of the story, the narrator is looking out the axolotl tank at someone who he hopes will write a story about the axolotl and their plight.

            Cortezar has a mastery of grammar and engaging story telling that can do better than just keep the reader guessing. The reader does not even realize that there is any need to guess until Cortezar throws everything he's written right back in their face.

Reader Response to Popol Vu

Popol Vu was intersting to read and even more interesting to analyze. This creation myth covered the usual things such as creation of the earth animals and humans, the plans and designs of the gods, and so on. What was interesting was the emphasis on communication and it's medias. The humans were made to praise the gods and to remember them. To remember them is was the duty of people to record on written word their stories. This emphasis on knowing history and recording it, even from the beginning of time is a very forward thinking viewpoint. In the Biblical creation story, there is emphasis on obedience. Mankind obeys God, Animals obey man. When this hierarchy is disrupted (Eve obeys the serpent and disobeys God) then punishment is delivered. Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden, and the serpent is forced to slither on it's belly. In the Mayan story, this idea of obeying the will of the gods is found as well. When the wooden men forget their creators, the entire world attacks them. The pets, the pottery, the utensils, the trees, and even the houses. The similarities are as striking as their differences