|
|
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Extraordinarily mystical --very unusual story., March 23, 2002
Hispanic writing today seems to fall within three distinct categories, i.e., contemporary fiction (mostly urban in context), historical fiction and mystical fiction. This novel is most emphatically a work of mystical fiction.Set in Chicana country the story is both down-to-earth and full of unearthly happenings. Its matter-of-fact delivery serves to make the magical believable. When one character is dying of AIDS, a Doctor Tolentino and his wife come to help her. His ministrations involve prayers and cotton wool soaked in holy oil. But then he reaches into La Loca's stomach `maintaining his left "material" hand in the opening, while the right "spirit" hand sought out the maladies' and `pulled out some cystic fibroids and finally a tumour...' The lines between the surgical and the miraculous are blurred and anything seems possible. Castillo uses a direct colloquial style with little regard for punctuation, almost as if the writer is confiding her thoughts directly to the reader. Each chapter is prefaced with a description of what is going to happen next but phrased in such a way as to make the book impossible to put down. For instance: `Of the Hideous Crime of Francisco el Penitente, and his Pathetic Calls Heard Throughout the Countryside as His Body Dangled from a Pinnion like a Crow-Picked Pear; and of the End of Caridad and Her Beloved Emerald Which We Nevertheless Will Refrain from Calling Tragic.' So Far from God is a tale both tragic and funny; a hymn to women's endurance and to the harshness of their lives. It is a heavily allegorical tale. The novel has Sofia, the embodiment of "wisdom," at its core, a mother who survives the death of her four daughters: Esperanza, Fe, Caridad, and La Loca. The names of the first three daughters denote the three major Christian ideals. However, in the cruelest of ironies, the destiny of each of these characters is the antithesis of the ideal the name represents. Esperanza, the most liberated of the sisters, devotes the energy of her college years to the Chicano Movement. She lives her life as a glowing example of La Raza Politics, working to better the lives of her people. But her death as a television reporter covering the Gulf Crisis is utterly meaningless. The reader is left without any hope or, better yet, "Esperanza," of finding redemption in this character's demise.
Fe, the sister who most subscribes to the traditions of her culture, desires nothing more than to participate fully in society's patriarchal mandate for women to marry and serve their husbands. She does, finally, find a man who will fulfill her dream of marrying: her cousin Casimiro. He is completely devoted to her, and together they plan a blissful future. In order to secure this, however, Fe leaves her safe position at the bank for a higher paying job at an arms manufacturing company. She tackles her work with her usual diligence and earns a promotion. Thus, her faith in the American Way of Life is rewarded. This "promotion," however, proves fatal as the company exposes her to a hazardous chemical that causes her death from cancer. In the end, the faith that Fe places in the basic tenets of society and its culture completely fails her. Thus, faith also becomes meaningless. Caridad, after being abandoned by her husband, became known for "loving anyone she met at the bars who vaguely resembled Memo" (27). Because of her promiscuous life, she is brutally raped and disfigured by a mysterious and misogynist spirit identity known as the "malogra." In this manner, Caridad's charity towards men is severely punished. However, she heals miraculously and from that moment on, she no longer has an interest in men. Caridad becomes an apprentice curandera, and during a religious pilgrimage with her mentor, she spots a woman with whom she instantly falls in love. Caridad never reconciles herself with her homosexual feelings until she suddenly and dramatically leaps off of a cliff while holding hands with Esmeralda, the object of her affection, as they are being pursued by Francisco el Penitente, Caridad's obsessed stalker. Those who witness the jump search for the bodies, but they are never found. La Loca is without question the most intriguing of the sisters. Dead at age three, she resurrects and is immediately believed to possess miraculous powers. The residents of Tome accept the young girl's return from the dead as being of a divine nature and they dub her "La Loca Santa." Following her return, however, she shuns human contact and only lets her mother touch her. She also rarely speaks, but her resurrection has spoken volumes for her. La Loca is the embodiment of a miracle; she cannot be preoccupied with the mundane task of finding a job, like her sisters. She remains at home, content in her solitude. Her household chores are to tend her animals, keep the house clean, and cook. She does, though, assist in the healing of Fe and Caridad, and she performs abortions for the latter because La Loca instinctively "knew all about a woman's pregnancy cycle". Toward the novel's end, she becomes ill and is diagnosed with the HIV virus, even though she had never participated in any activity commonly associated with its acquisition. Ultimately, La Loca's destiny, like those of her sisters, is to die at an early age. On a surreal death pilgrimage to an Albuquerque hospital, the people canonize her and eventually declare her the patron saint of kitchens, new brides, and progressive grooms. La Loca's life, then, is characterized by her first death, resurrection, contraction of AIDS without human contact, and her canonization. After the deaths of hope, faith, and charity, the three theological ideals of the Church, and the death of what can arguably be construed as the female personification of Jesus Christ in the personage of La Loca, all that remains is Sofia's wisdom. Sofia has a feckless husband - who suddenly appears after an absence of twenty years - and four daughters who suffer all the indignities known to woman. But she decides to become the Mayor of Tome and goes on to found a workers' co-operative and MOMAS (`Mothers of Martyrs and Saints'). Sofia endures, no, she triumphs - while at the same time retaining her sense of humour. So Far from God is wacky and powerful. Its humor belies a strong political message - that in a world which deals them many harsh blows, women are still survivors, after death as well as during life.
|
by Helena María Viramontes
by Alicia Gaspar de Alba
by Sandra Cisneros
by José Antonio Villarreal
