Customer Reviews

Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Santos eloquently and humbly unfolds his story, his family's story, our story. Like the millions of Mexican-American families who repeatedly cross the border in order to sustain their lives and history, Santos crosses back and forth with tender testimonials, giving life to the varied and vigorous communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. It is a splendid memoir filled with universal themes of strong family bonds and appreciation for remembering the past. The author is subtle but powerful in his writing.

As a Environmental Professional whose hobby is Homemaking, this book is ruining my week. Until I finish reading it, I am not joining the working world. Why is it that someone in another city and family network can stir one's own similar memories. Is this what we mean by culture, our history of the mexican american peoples of the U.S? If my job, house and family can afford it, I will read again. This time I plan to mark up the pages for the vibrant vocabulary not yet part of mine. Not since I was a philosophy major have I read a book which contained such rich prose.

An amazingly eloquent book. The book reads like poetry, and has a language rarely seen in today's writing. Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation is truly one of the most beautifully written books of 1999. It is not your typical book written for a limited reader. The prose are prolific and wrought with amazing imagery. It is so refreshing to read a book written by someone with such a gift for language. Places Left Unfinished paints a very interesting and accurate story of a culture in transition, through the story of a family in touch with its past and exploring its future. This is truly a book lover's book!

So often the essence of Hispanic culture, especially when addressing Mexico, Central and South America, is referred to as "Magical Realism". Whether referring to the literature of Marquez, Allende, Arenas, the paintings of Kahlo, Rivera, Bravo, Marquez, Borges, or the music of Ginestera, et al - the unifying element usually refers to this genre. Few authors have been successful in describing the origins or even the meaning of the term...that is, until John Phillip Santos elegantly warm memoir PLACES LEFT UNFINISHED AT THE TIME OF CREATION. Santos revisits his history through the immediacy of immigrant (yet unaltered) Old Ladies, creating from their tales a lush, incendiary canvas of passion, faith, commitment, hardship, and resilience. He adroitly mixes the two languages (Spanish and English) with finesse, at times translating for the non-Spanish reader, and at times allowing the beauty of his Spanish phrases to sing for themselves. This book is a paean to the sanctity of the souls of the immigrants who have endured the agony of expatriation, who have entered El Norte to find, if not their fortunes, then their integrity as human beings. This beautifully written book should be on the shelves of the libraries of schools throughout the USA...but it should also be in the library of everyone who wonders about the beauty of the Hispanic heritage - which for lack of a better name we call Magical Realism.

Santos' writing style is as enthralling as it is articulate, a language so alive that it immediately befriends the reader. At times this autobiography is more of a prose poem than a narrative: "On those chilly nights he slept in the open country, having heard stories of Texas ranchers shooting Mexicans they found on their property. To him, it all looked like high Coahuila desert land. There weren't many fences then, so you could walk long flat stretches of the parched land with only bird shadows for shade...it looked like home, only, he pointed out, there were more stones on the Texas side" (50).

Such lines are not surprising since Santos is also a poet, and we see this style reiterated throughout as he delves deeply into the family histories of his father and mother. Some of us may think we know old Southwestern cities like San Antonio, but Santos' takes us into a hinterland of Texas, and Coahuila, Mexico, that we have never seen, one where the strength of memory endures amid a pervading and eloquent tone of pastoral loneliness. At times Santos is hauntingly prescient, as when he speaks of viewing New York City's Twin Towers as dolmens -- upright tombs from prehistoric times.

JP Santos is a master of the human language. In this day and age of bestseller who-cares-who-done-its it's refreshing to see a masterpiece of literature emerge to the forefront. This is a must read for anyone serious about literary excellence.

Mr. Santos' lyrical and thoughtful storytelling provides welcome insight into the history and culture of south Texas. The book provided a window into parts of San Antonio about which I have been both ignorant and curious. This is a smart selection as the first read for the 1 Book 1 San Antonio program.

The tapestry of the Mexican family and the migration of many of its components north to the United States is wonderfully woven into this charming autobiography. The richness of these families is a treasure for sure.

Before leaving on a flight, I looked around the house for a book I still had not read and saw this one. I don't recall buying this book; I have no idea why or where I picked it up; I had no idea what it was all about. It turns out to be a wonderful book (also, a National Book Award Finalist) -- the Hispanic-American author reminisces about growing up with the old ladies (grandmothers, great aunts, aunts, etc) in San Antonio. But it's not really about San Antonio at all -- well, maybe it is. At first I thought it just happened to be the setting but the more I read, the more I realized the author's love affair with this wonderful city.

The early history of Texas is the history of the convergence of three cultures: the Amerind (the American Indian, the Native American), the Hispanic, and the European. Within each of these groups, the history can be further broken down into the predominant sub-group, specifically, the Comanches, the Mestizos, and the Scotch-Irish.

One entry:

"Indian mothers gave birth to the new race of Mestizos. Mestizos, literally meaning, "the mixed ones," combined the blood of the Old World and the New. Indian and Spanish, Indian and African, Indian and Asian. With the emergence of the Mestizo world, Mexico became obsessed with the mixing of the world races, finding exotic names for each racial combination. The child of a union of a white and an albino Indian was called a Saltatras, or a "lead backward." The child of the union of an Asian and an Indian was a Tente en el Aire, or "blowing in the wind." The child of the unon of an Indian and a Mestizo was a Coyote. There were more than fifty such names, a taxonomy of miscegenation."

The writing is pure poetry; even if the subject does not interest you, once you start reading, you will continue to read just to enjoy the experience. Truly a reader's book.

[Incidentally, a companion book to read would be T R Fehrenbach's history of Texas, "Lone Star."]

This book has been selected for the 2006 "One Book - One San Antonio" event, during which every reader in San Antonio will be encouraged to read and discuss this novel.