Customer Reviews

Swift As Desire

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

 

 

As a fan of both "Like Water for Chocolate" and "The Law of Love" I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into Laura Esquivel's latest work "As Swift As Desire." To me, she's a writer who carries her readers through a magical, mystical journey through Mexico's culture and history through food, sexuality and love. But with this novel, I found little of what I enjoy most about reading Esquivel. This time, my teeth bit into the book hitting nothing but hard cardboard. The story felt like a repetitive draft of a novel she's sent to her publisher to edit or guide. The first chapter leads you to believe you'd be guided by the Mayan calendar and spirit of a people to another perfect love story. But, that theme is quickly forgotten as the story unfolds. I think that Esquivel attempted to create what Isabel Allende did with her book "Paula" (The true story of the relationship Allende had with her beloved daughter who lies comatose throughout the entire book.). "Paula" is heart-wrenching and powerful as we learn about the Allende family history with each chapter of the book. Esquivel tries a similar approach in this story of her dying father, but for me it fell short of the passionate enlightening prose I've become accostumed to with her previous work. The transitions from past to present weren't always clear enough for me. Esquivel's usual magic and passion was completely absent in this story. True Esquivel fans most likely will read it for themselves -- as I did. But if you are just "curious," I recommend waiting for the paperback.

This review refers to the Unabridged audio cassette edition of "Swift As Desire" by Laura Esquivel...

So... after reading "Like Water For Chocolate", also by Ms. Esquivel, and reading some of the other reviews here, I didn't figure that this was going to be anywhere near as great as LWFC had been. But the truth is, I loved this charming,sentimental,sometimes witty, sometimes sad, emotional story. I could not wait to get to it every day. If my phone or doorbell rang, I paused it right where it was, so as not to miss a second of the wonderful reading given by Ellizabeth Pena.I wanted more when it ended and left me with a lump in my throat

Jubilo, was a special human being. He had a way with words. He worked as an all important telegraph operator, long before E-mail was available. He kept people, loved ones, and businesses abreast of all situations. He seemed to have a magical way of being in tuned with the earth's messages even apart from the telegraph. He was a lover of life. Of the gifts nature provided, and the gifts he was able to give back to his wife, his family and the world.It is his story from boyhood to his dieing day, that Ms. Esquivel delights us with. How this very special man, now blind, made communication an art,hearing things as imperceptible as the movement of a grain of sand,how he loved so deeply, and how he played the hand life dealt him, whether it be great triumphs, or huge losses.

Ms Esquivel gives us magical moments with real characters, and a good taste of Mexican and Mayan traditons and heritage.The story of family,the feeling of "Not knowing what you really have, until it is gone", will take you by surprise, and linger deliciously. Elizabeth Pena's("Lone Star") reading is not only delightfully enthusiastic, but lends a great deal of authenticity to the read. She manages to find the distinguishable traits in each, to bring them to life. To feel their joys and pain.

This edition is an unabridged reading. It has some very descriptive scenes of love making, so it is probably not one you will want to play on your stereo with children about. There are 4 two-sided cassettes, with a total running time of about 6 hours.A tray with a slot for each tape, keeps them in order(may be helpful to vision impaired readers). The sound quality is very good. Sometimes, the reviews for all editions of a book are lumped together, so if it is this audio edition that you are interested in the ISBN is 0375419780. Below the picture of the couple kissing on the cover art, there is a green band that says..Read By Elizabeth Pena - Unabridged.

It is a story dedicated to the Author's own father, and after the read, you may feel the need to call your's or at least leave you with thoughts of the special gifts he gave to you.
Enjoy....Laurie

more romance audio books:
Notorious [Audiobook] by Janet Dailey [Unabridged]
The Shipping News
Echoes (Danielle Steel)

I enjoyed the opening chapters with the Mayan calendar theme and the period details, but then things fall apart as Esquivel either recycles older material or whips off the remainder of the book in 10 minutes time. It's a quick read so it's not like you'll spend more than an hour reading it and the plot was interesting and touching, but it just doesn't hold together. In short, it's not very magical or interesting past the opening chapters. Her father sounds like an amazing man -- there are some great scenes, but a bunch of great scenes don't make a great novel unless they are more seamlessly intergrated. I couldn't get over the feeling that this was an old composition dressed up quickly for publication. Fans should read it anyway for the plot, but don't expect anything on a par with Like Water for Chocolate. This translation felt stilted in places.

The author of "Like Water For Chocolate" has provided readers with another entertaining story, this one a tribute to her father. By no means is "Swift as Desire" as magical as her first novel, but I found it to be a quick and pleasurable novel to read. The plot is compelling and the reader quickly becomes invested in the outcome of the characters. Comparisions to "Like Water for Chocolate" will occur, as Ms. Esquivel writes within the same genre of literature as her first book. Yet, there is a magical quality about "Swift as Desire": the author is able to effectively tell the story of her father and his life as a telegraph operator. The parallels and dualisms that operate on many different levels due to his occupation as an interpreter will keep the reader's interest.

I enjoyed reading the book. It was a quick read and it covered a lot of grounds: ethnic difference, socio-economic disparities, love, desire, and that mysterious aspect of human emotion, hate. I would recommend it because it's innovative and intelligent. I especially enjoyed it because Ms. Esquivel assumed her readers to be at a certain level of sophistication and did not go into too much unnecessary detail.

No, this book is not like "Like Water for Chocolate", but then why would you expect it to be. This book was wonderful, I could not put it down. This book has it all.....a little mysticism, some humor, and love and passion. Read between the lines and you will not be disappointed. It tells about how Jubilo is born, how much his grandmother loves him, a little about the culture of Mayan and Spanish. Jubilo falls in love with Lucha, the daughter of a wealthy mexican family. Lucha loves Jubilo also. Their passion goes on for years.....from when Lucha is 13 till they marry. Lucha is feeling such passion for Jubilo that she decides to marry him so they can fullfil their desire. But married life isn't what she expected. They go through many trials and tribulations. Their passion never seems to die. Jubilo works as a telegraph operator......he changes the messages of his customers to help them communicate what they hope to. Lucha is upset that her life isn't fullfilled enough like when she was a little girl living with her parents and had everything she wanted. They have children and somewhere along the storyline......things aren't communicated and life is not as it seems. And the passion seems to die.......or does it??? The story goes back and forth from the present to the past.......telling how Jubilo's daughter is trying to help him to communicate again since he has Parkinson's and is blind. With the help of his friends and her daughter...they do this. What did I get out of this book? The fact that many times we marry young and don't realize what we are getting into. That many times we make assumptions of what the other spouse is thinking, when it isn't that way at all. That if we just accepted life as it were......would we all have the problems we do today? I read Like Water for Chocolate and this book is not like that.......but written in the same manner that Esquivel writes. She writes in a manner for you to think about what you are reading. And her characters are so funny, loving, and entertaining. I can't wait to read her next book.

I loved "Like Water for Chocolate" so I was sure I would love "Swift as Desire" just as much. Or almost just as much. And, the opening chapters were quite engrossing and enjoyable. After that, however, the book just seemed to fall apart, or to put it more correctly, it never came together.

"Swift as Desire" is Laura Esquivel's autobiographical tribute to her own father and perhaps this is a part of the problem with the book. Perhaps Esquivel just couldn't distance herself enough from her subject matter to manipulate it from "life" into "literature."

"Swift as Desire" is a romance based on Esquivel's father's work as a telegraph operator in Mexico. Apparently, being a telegraph operator was the perfect job for Jubilo since he was born with the gift of knowing just what others wanted to express. In other words, he could "read" the intention behind their words and, he knew which words to choose to best convey those intentions.

A character such as Jubilo does give Esquivel the opportunity to insert much comedy into her narrative. For me, one of the best examples comes when Jubilo acts as interpreter between his warring Mayan grandmother and Spanish-speaking mother. Jubilo was careful to soften what these ladies said to each other and the effect is often quite amusing.

When Jubilo discovers the telegraph, he knows he has come into his own. The way he saw it, only he would know what people wanted to say to each other so, therefore, he could revise what was being said for maximum impact...and maximum joy, of course. Jubilo, it should be noted, didn't have a malicious bone in his body.

Enter Lucha. Lucha is the proud and beautiful daughter of a wealthy Mexican family. Jubilo and Lucha fall deeply in love and soon marry and, even though Mexican women of that era did not, as a general rule, work outside their home, Lucha takes a job as secretary at the telegraph company where Jubilo works. Jubilo and Lucha find that this job rewards them in two ways. First, they can flirt with each other all day long and, at times, even engage in romantic intimacies, and second, the extra income helps Lucha to live with some of the luxuries she had become accustomed to in the home of her parents.

If all of this seems idyllic, it isn't. Don Pedro, Jubilo's and Lucha's boss is around to spoil things when he begins to desire Lucha for himself.

I have never been a fan of flashbacks, unless they are done extremely well and this is a book told in flashbacks. The narrator is Lluvia (and why should a man as apparently joyful as Jubilo give his daughter such a depressing name?), the daughter of Jubilo and Lucha. By the time Lluvia gets around to telling the story of her parents, Lucha is dead and Jubilo is suffering from both Parkinson's disease and blindness. To ease his sufferings, Lluvia brings him a telegraph, something she hopes will help him communicate with others.

The telegraph is one of the book's strong points as well as one of its weakest. When Jubilo is young, the telegraph is a metaphor for desire and the communication of desire, and, as such, it works well. However, in the later section of the book, Esquivel "explains" so much of what she is attempting to do that it really got tiresome. This is a sweet and rather frothy little tale and it needed a much lighter touch than Esquivel seems willing to give it.

The characters also suffer in this book. In "Like Water for Chocolate," I thought every female character was extremely well-developed and unique. In "Swift as Desire," however, only Jubilo and Lucha are developed and come off as real and believable. Don Pedro is the quintessential villainous caricature and Lluvia is so thinly developed she is almost ghostlike.

Esquivel obviously meant this book to be a tribute to a loving (and loved) father. I feel bad for her that it didn't come out better than it did, for it did have potential. Writing students are warned, time and time again, to be very wary of autobiographical material. Perhaps, it is a warning Esquivel should have taken more to heart.

"Swift as Desire" isn't a bad way to spend an evening, but it certainly doesn't measure up to "Like Water for Chocolate." In fact, it doesn't even come close.

Her use of language is like listening to your favorite music. It's passionate, exalted,electric and emotional. You can feel the power of love in her words. Lots of use of magical realism. I got the enchantment and magic of "everyday life". It's earthy,sensual and sparkles off the page.

Having reread `Like Water for Chocolate' after approximately 10 years, I got curious as to what else Laura Esquivel had written and came up with this. WOW!

This is very different to `Like Water for Chocolate', and although this story is much simpler (essentially a love story about the lives of an ordinary couple) it is just as powerful and touching - if not more so.

Definitely recommended.

Laura Esquivel's novel Swift as Desire is enjoyable but not great. The book has lots of love and wimsy but lacks strong characters and plot. The book is completely focused on the love story between Jubilo and Lucha. The story is told from the eyes of Jubilo's daughter LLuvia. She is by the side of her once great father who is now blind and sick with parkensens. She tells the story from a very idealistic point of view. She rarely critises anything her father did. The character of Lluvia is very one-sided, she doesnt evolve or change at all throughout the book. She tells of her fathers birth, how he came out laughing, and was born with the gift of bringing people together and constantly connecting them. He helps relate his myan grandma and spanish mother by speaking to both effectively. This part is very unbelieveable and uses the overdone idea of the mixing of these two cultures too much. The childhood and teen years of jubilo are very typical but when he faces troubles with the love of his life, Lucha, later in their marriage, his multidemensional personality comes to light. However, after he becomes a drunk, he is instantly reinstated in the family. He and his wife remain living together simply for the sake of their daughter(All of a sudden they are amazing parents).

Esquivel's use of mexican culture and history are sparse and random. She does do a good job of glorifying the culture that she loves and using slight magical realism without making the whole book an alternate reality.

OVerall, the book was a fast and easy read. It showed insight into the author's life but not much else. I enjoyed it as a fun read with interesting and believable characters but it was definitely missing the elements to a great literary piece