Customer Reviews

The Mixquiahuala Letters

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I respect Ana Castillo and think that The Guardians, especially, was a fine novel, and so I hate to give The Mixquiahuala Letters a negative review. But it simply didn't work for me. Just not at all.

It's the (sort of) story of two women, one a white American artist, Alicia, and one a Chicana poet, Teresa, who meet in an artists' retreat. They forge a friendship and proceed to experience several adventures in Mexico, falling into dangerous situations at every turn, and they help to support one another in their efforts to build successful creative careers and to build and sustain relationships. The stories are told through letters posted from Teresa to Alicia, and they are collected in a "choose-your-own-adventure" sort of structure, as Castillo lays out and recommends three orders--for the Conformist, the Cynic, and the Quixotic--in which to read the letters.

The novel didn't work for me for several reasons. First, the characters are flat and lifeless. The men, especially, are just horrible caricatures. I don't think that Alicia and Teresa, especially when they're in Mexico, meet a man who doesn't want to rape them. Even Teresa and Alicia, though, are lifeless. Many of the letters read as though they are Teresa's psychological diagnosis of Alicia, and that's how Alicia is in the novel, an object, a psychological specimen or symbol, rather than a human. The characters are lifeless, here to make Castillo's points.

The choose-your-own-adventure pattern of the story is a barrier, too, to me for entering the story. I've always thought that a part of what is special and powerful about the novel is the ability it offers for you to sort of share the consciousness of the character or narrator, to enter into that figure's mind and story. That's why the novel is an important tool for promoting justice for marginalized people such as Chicana women; it allows the reader to empathize. The choose-your-own-adventure structure, though, made this novel too much about me.

Lastly, and most importantly, The Mixquiahuala Letters didn't work just because it was boring. It really was. Besides some brief moments when the characters are in Mexico, nothing happens. I read this with a classroom full of graduate students (all of whom would have been considered sympathetic to Castillo's perspective), and I think that we were pretty united in finding this novel uniquely dull.

It almost shouldn't be called a novel. It's, instead, a thought-piece and would have been more successful as an essay.

Have you ever felt disenfranchised either because you are a person of color, a woman, an outsider? Like you did not fit in but forced you way in anyway? Like the way you choose was a bit dangerous but still you loved it? Castillo captures those feelings and the ones we have when we share those wonderful crazy moments with someone of the same sex. Camaraderie and sisterhood is a theme that is woven into every word she writes. I recommend this book for entertainment and if it is required for a class then just consider yourself lucky.

This is by far the best work that Ana Castillo has published. The letters are moving and passionate. A must for any Chicanas or feminists

This book was highly recommended to me a while back, and I quickly added it to my wish list as it looked exactly like the kind of book I love to read. Honestly, I'd say this book was a disappointment. All the men were losers, manipulative or abusive or cruel. The women seemed to wander from man to man, from loser to loser. And that was the plot of the book. The two main characters in the book write letters to each other, bemoaning the men in their lives and celebrating their strength as powerful women. I didn't see any powerful women in this book. Instead, I saw women who defined themselves over and over in terms of whether or not they had a man. In the book's defense, the copyright date is 1986, so perhaps the characters in that time frame in that culture were revolutionary. I wouldn't recommend this book, not even to women friends who are part of this culture.

Ms. Castillo's novel should have been incredibly interesting to me, since I am a Hispanic Literature buff and have recently become quite interested in Chicano Literature, but I found this novel tedious and poorly constructed. The idea of reading the novel in different orders has been USED, as is obvious to any who has read Hopscotch (Rayuela) by Julio Cortázar, and it was best left alone for future use. Castillo's use of the technique doesn't even match up to the level of a "Choose Your Own Adventure", because the three different reading leave you feeling exactly the same way, BORED. She makes her novel rest completely on the lives of her characters, but then she doesn't really ever develop them enough for you to become interested. I never felt like I got to know them hardly at all. I was a bit disappointed, but I suppose this book could have some attaction to Chicana women who can identify a bit more with the characters. Maybe being a Chicana woman would help a reader to fill in all the blanks and holes that Castillo leaves in her characterizations.

I've read this book about 4 times in the course of 4 years. Every time, I'm even more facinated with it. A combination of emotions and vision all packed up in her letters. AC is the true definition of a literary artist!!

The events in this book can be related to anyone's life in some way or another. This is a great read. I like the format, using personal letters rather than 3rd-person chapters.

This is probably the worst book I was ever forced to read. It is so poorly written, I could hardly bear to pick it up after I threw it to the ground in frustration. I don't know who edited this novel, but he or she should be fired. There were so many problems of grammar and punctuation and vocabulary. Castillo uses the word "prodigy" when she meant "progeny," as in "the school built for the progidy of the very rich." And she does it TWICE!!

I don't have as much of a problem with the style or the story or the characters (though the narrator was terribly self-righteous and both main females are complete idiots who do everything they can to let themselves be victimized). It is just such a sloppy mess.

It seems to me that if you wanted to write a book that is supposed to represent some marginalized group, you would want to work even harder to make sure that your book is well-written. Otherwise, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously?

I am half Chicana, and something of a feminist, and I hope that nobody, Chicano or not, feminist or not, will buy this book, because we all deserve so much more.

P.S. Contrary to the review above, the friend of the narrator, though she comes from a privileged background, is not Anglo, but at least part Spanish and the rest of her ethnic heritage is not discussed. Doesn't anybody want to get things right?

First, I found the construction of the story, fictious letters written by a fictional character to her fictional friend, tedious.
Second, I thought that Alicia, the friend of the central character, Teresa, to be stereo-
typed as a flat-chested, plain white woman. Thus, it is that Tere, as a Chicana,
is of course not so. Third, both woman turn out to be victimized in one way or another by society, or men, but mostly by men. Teresa, as a Chicana, is the major victim. In fact she manages to wrap her
victimization by men as a feature of our society. Victimized by society, ultimately.
Not to be completely down on this work, I kinda liked the Mexico episodes.
I think what I most dislike about this book is that it's a pigeon-holed book - a feminist, Chicana (or should that be - a feminist-Chicana) story. Labeling it so, it pretty much takes
someone like me out of the reading public, since I am neither.
I think Ms. Castillo should have aimed higher. I think she should have written a book with wider
appeal. Neither one of the characters makes me want to like, or admire, them. I guess
the worse I could say about this effort is that, well, it bored me. A boring story about two
women.
Literature describes the human condition. In the process, you come to know the character,
live their life, feel their joy, their pain. Perhaps laugh with them, or even cry. Finally, you're life
is enriched, because you've learned things about another life which is illuminating or uplifting, in
spite of their dispair.
This book missed. It is just a feminist-Chicana book. Too bad.