A creative, evocative mix of stories.
A debut collection of short fiction, mostly in Spanish, addressing aspects of the Mexican and Mexican-American experiences.
Author De La Cruz shares more than two dozen short, Spanish-language narratives, some just a paragraph long and others spanning several pages. The book opens with “Conitos de nieve,” a disturbing account of two hunting aficionados showing off their trophies. Explorations of the dark side of human behavior follow, including a vivid depiction of a disliked old woman. But the author’s outlook isn’t entirely bleak; there’s a touch of playfulness in “Guiño,” in which deities from around the world socialize together, and “El rosario” presents a thoughtful portrait of two policemen attending a funeral. The stories return to the theme of chameleons introduced in the title, using the animals as a metaphor for finding homes in different cultures and different places. The book’s shortest pieces evoke Eduardo Galeano’s microfiction, with the same attention to language and confidence in the reader’s ability to interpret metaphorical statements such as “Mi último sueño fue curioso: había hielo y un cameleón se volvió transparente queriéndose perder” (“My last dream was curious: there was ice and a chameleon turned itself transparent trying to blend in”). One item in the collection is presented in English: “Maricopa,” a prose poem that asks, “Why wasn’t he blessed with citizenship? / Why wasn’t he born up north? / Why not golden hair?” The characters in these stories are quiet, but each plays a role in conveying the book’s symbolism and its themes of alienation and adaptation. In these tales of false identities, transgressive behavior, determination, and moments of grace, De La Cruz has produced an incisive depiction of the transnational and transcultural experience of border life in engaging, highly readable language.
A creative, evocative mix of stories.Pub Date: May 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9890623-4-3
Page Count: 74
Publisher: Revista Arenas Blancas
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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