Customer Reviews

Watercolor Women / Opaque Men: A Novel in Verse

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The narrator is a poverty-stricken Hispanic woman named Ella who early in the tale becomes pregnant while having sex "on a lumpy sack of garlic heads." Although her fortunes do not improve much from such a fateful, inauspicious moment, she manages to struggle along. Her tale in the form of a long poem broken into chapters describes her varied situations and relationship. The voice is by turns regretful, optimistic, determined, wary, amused, political, introspective. As expected in a poem even though meant as something of a story, description, dialog, and setting of scenes is weak. And characterization too is faint except for the central character of Ella giving the narration. But this is enough for lively snapshots of a Hispanic woman surviving at the margins.

I inhaled WATERCOLOR WOMEN OPAQUE MEN all in one night; it was gorgeous and forceful. I loved the two journeys that bracketed Ella's adult life: the run to Chicago with Tia Renata and the astonishing first-class flight out of the frame of the book at the end. I loved too the braid of hair that reappeared toward the end, the line, "You will always be your most reliable resource." And Ella's secret paintings! Brava to Castillo. I've been her fan since I read THE MIXQUIAHUALA LETTERS in college, and while I still long for a novel that envelops me as much as SO FAR FROM GOD did, it was a pleasure to read this new one.

I am not a Chicana but I appreciate Ana Castillo's new novel as an accurate reflection of the way of thinking of Latina women caught in dead-end blue-collar jobs and unequal personal relationships, whether with men or other women. "Ella" reminds me of many of my ESL students who clean homes and offices and diaper babies for a living. Ella's observations can be painful to hear, especially for anyone coming from a more privileged position. Others, including many righteous Latinas, might object to the less than traditional morality of this character. They would prefer her to be 100% virtuous and beyond reproach, but Ana Castillo is a bigger writer than that. The fact that none of the characters in this poem/novel is heroic is the best indicator that they are not stereotypes. Instead, we are invited for too brief a time into the mindset of one woman whose personality emerges through a series of vignettes, like a watercolor painting. And, if we are honest, we may find a little of ourselves in some of these vignettes too. Gracias, Ana.

In a transnational authentic Chicana voice, Ana Castillo portrays the different trajectories of the life of a 'watercolor woman'. The various colors that make up the portrait of this woman move smoothly between her agony of her uninhabited heart, the potentiality of her motherhood, and the freedom of a loving spirit. In this sense, Castillo goes beyond the dilemma of women of color invisibility in the U.S to address other women's oppression and aspirations in different parts of the world. It is a masterpiece work of art that compels one to investigate one's life within and without.

Readers who have been waiting for Castillo's new book will be sadly disappointed. This book is poorly written and without a point. This is an endless barrage of stereotypes. I'm a Chicana and I don't know why I'm supposed to believe any of this. It reads like a bad telenovela. Castillo made absolutely no effort to make the characters sympathetic: the reader has no reason to admire or love any character in this book. After reading so much about the lives and experiences of these characters (especially the supposedly Latina Everywoman, Ella), I still finished the book not caring one bit about whether any of them continued to live or die, succeed or fail. This is hardly a recommendation and couching the book as a "novel in verse" does little to mask its flaws.