Sunday, November 14, 2010

Capítulo 6: June/junio

This chapter was very fun to read.  Very sweet.  Tita is recooperating at Dr. Brown's house in the village, and he is the best caretaker Tita could have asked for.  He gives her her space and allows her to be her own person as well.  Since her breakdown episode, Tita has taken an oath of silence.  She had many things to sort out in her mind about her life: about Mama Elena, Pedro, her sisters, and now Dr. Brown.  This chapter is fun, because you start to see a change in Tita.  She's feeling grateful to finally be away from her mother, and to start becoming her own person again.  She still is holding on to her vow of silence, but she has a independent breakthrough at the end of the chapter.  All this while, Dr. Brown has been talking and teaching Tita about his love for medicine, and how he uses a mixture of science and ancient techniques to try and discover cures for illnesses.  Dr. Brown gives Tita a rag soaked in phosphorous, and tells her that if she writes her thoughts on the wall with the phosphorous, no one would be able to see it, because it is an invisible ink.  Tita thinks that this is a way to express her feelings in a way where she is getting them off her chest, but still technically keeping them to herself, because the ink is invisible.  What Dr. Brown fails to tell her is that the ink becomes visible in the dark.  So he asks Tita, "why won't you talk?" and he gives her the night to ponder over her answer.  Late that night, after Tita had gone to bed, Dr. Brown goes to see what she had written, and she had written simply, "Because I don't want to". 
I really like that she said that, she is acting according to her own will and ability now.  She is excercising her own control by not speaking.  She has been controlled for so many years in her life, and now she is has control over something.  It's probably a verly liberating feeling for her.  Let's see what the next chapter has in store for Tita.

Capítulo 5: May/mayo

This chapter is all around depressing... be forwarned.  First of all, Pedro, Rosaura and Roberto have moved away to San Antonio... thanks to Mama Elena.  Then, some soldiers from the malitia come to raid Mama Elena's home and they are dumbfounded at how stubborn and bull-headed Mama Elena is, and they leave their home only doing very minimal amount of dammage.  Now that everyone Tita has loved have been taken away from her, she is forced to 'whole-heartedly' serve her mother in her every whim.  One of Tita's duties is very thoroughly described in this chapter.  The ritual of bathing Mama Elena.  That's right... BATHING her mother.  Even though her mother is fully capable of bathing herself, she delegates this task to Tita, her 'until she dies' care-giver.  I won't go into full detail about this process, but it is a very long, drawn out and over the top process.  This just goes to show how much control Mama Elena has over Tita.  Tita has no life of her own, because she is forced to answer to everything Mama Elena wishes, and is not given the chance to live her own life. 
News comes to the family of Roberto's death in San Antonio.  Because Tita was the only one able to feed him, he was not getting the nutrition he needed away from her...so he died.  This sent Tita into a emotional frenzy; and rightly so.  She stands up to Mama Elena and blames her for the death of her grandson.  Mama Elena, being the loving woman she is, hits Tita hard enough to break her nose.  Tita runs out of the house and seeks solace in their pigeon coup above the barn. 
I forgot to mention the introduction of a new character.  And this is a good character.  His name is Dr. John Brown, and he was the doctor that came to the house to care for Rosaura after Roberto was born.  Well, he took a liking to Tita.  And when he was called to the house to retrieve Tita from the pigeon coup and send her to an 'insane asylum', he was excited to be of service.  When he went up into the coup, he saw Tita at her worst state... she had literally lost it and was in no way fit to care for herself.  Instead of locking her away in an institute, like Mama Elena wanted, Dr. Brown brought her to his own home to care for her.  This is where the story starts to pick up a little for Tita.
I was so excited after I read this chapter.  After all that has happened to Tita, she finally gets to get away from Mama Elena!  Sure it took a beating from her own mother, the death of her nephew, a broken nose and a mental melt down in a pigeon coup to bring this all together, but it happened!  I'm excited to read on and discover what the future holds for Tita... and this handsome Dr. Brown.

Capítulo 4: April/abril

This chapter is actually pretty happy, for once (for the most part).  Rosaura and Pedro are expecting their first child, and for months during the pregnancy, Tita has harbored feelings of resentment to Pedro and believes he had lied in the first place when he told her he loved her.  The time comes for Rosaura to deliver the baby, but everyone in the family has left for town to get preparations for the baby.  This leaves Tita alone with Rosaura as she goes into labor... to make a long story short, Tita is forced to deliver the baby, Roberto, alone.  Due to complications from the labor, Rosaura is left unable to feed Roberto, she is produce any breast milk.  One day, while trying to comfort Robert while he was hungry and crying, Tita discovers that she has begun to produce breast milk and she is able to feed Roberto herself.  This becomes an unexplained secret between her and Pedro, no one knows how Roberto is being fed, all they know is he is being fed and Tita is the one somehow feeding him. 
This chapter also centers around preparations for Roberto's baptismal ceremony.  Tita is working to make a meal of Turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds.  Tita's mole that she made, gave all the guests who ate it a sense of euphoria and hope...all except for Mama Elena.  Mama Elena was so focused on revealing the secret 'love language' between Tita and Pedro, that she did not eat any of the mole, and she was concocting a plan to separate the two of them. 
Nothing seems to be going right for Tita.  She loves Pedro, but is unable to express her love for him, nor can he for her.  She is under the constant control and suspicious gaze of Mama Elena. 
I was actually able to make the recipe for this chapter!  I made a couple modifications to it, however.  I used chicken instead of turke :)  It was delicious and was very easy to make!  I will post a picture of it on the blog with this post. 

Capitulo 3: March/marzo

This chapter is full of magical passion.  ¡El capítulo del amor!  In a kind gesture to try and cheer Tita up, Pedro brought her a bouquet of pink roses.  This gesture was completely disapproved by Mama Elena, and Tita was ordered to get rid of them.  Tita could not bare to part with the roses from Pedro, so she decided to use them in a recipe.  This brings us to March's recipe, quail in rose petal sauce.  -on a side note, I do not think I could EVER attempt this recipe on my own!  Maybe one of these days I'll find a "easy" version of the recipe online; one that does not involve killing, plucking and gutting a quail :)
Tita incorporates the rose petals into this elaborate dish.  Another strong example of magic realism occurs when the family is eating the quail in rose sauce for dinner that evening.  As soon as Pedro tastes the meal, he feels a strong sensual sensation towards Tita and claims that she has prepared a meal fit for the gods.  For Tita's second sister, Gertrudis, an incredibly strong, sensual feeling came over her.  She began sweating and felt her body yearn for love.  It was as if the meal was a sexual awakening for her; she rushed from the room, to the outside porch to compose herself.  She began to feel very uneasy and was sweating.  Her sweat was pink and smelled strongly of roses from the food.  Her scent was so overwhelming that it traveled miles away and attracted the interest of a general in the army from town.  He travels the distance to Tita's home to discover the source of the scent.  I will not give away everything that happens in this chapter, but Gertrudis and the general are carried away by the love spell from Tita's recipe.  And Tita and Pedro discover they have a new way in which to communicate to one another- through Tita's cooking.  The overwhelming and unexplainable feelings of sensuality that Tita's cooking provoked is a prime example of the magic realism that Laura Esquivel creates throughout this story. 

Capitulo 2: February/febrero

This chapter focuses on the marriage of Pedro and Rosaura.  A wedding should be a happy occasion, but for Tita, it is a very sorrowful event.  Her life's only love marrying her sister.  Too make matters worse, Mama Elena very forcefuly demands that Tita feign happiness for her sister and she was also given the large task of preparing the wedding cake with Nacha as a punishment (for trying to play hookie during the wedding).  The recipe for this chapter is a Chabela wedding cake, and it sounds really good!  ¡Delicioso!  (Hopefully here in a little bit I can muster up the courage to try making this cake on my own!!) 
The wedding comes and goes, but Tita is given a new found hope for her love when Pedro confronts her after the ceremony..."Estoy seguro de que así será, pues logré con esta boda lo que tanto anhelaba: estar cerca de usted, la mujer que verdaderamente amo...".  Pedro confesses that the 'only' reason he is marrying Rosaura is so he can be close to Tita, his true love, since he is not permitted to marry Tita.
Magic Realism plays a strong role throughout the entire novella.  Magic realism is a style/genre of fiction in which magical elements are mixed into a relistic setting in order to access a deeper understanding of that reality.  This chapter has a great example of magic realism; while Tita is beating the eggs for the wedding cake, she has a fit of crying in which her tears are mixed into the cake batter.  After the ceremony, while the cake is being eaten by the guests, a strange thing happens.  An intoxicating feeling of nostalgia and longings for their lost loves...followed by a mass fit of vomitting.  The only one not affected by the strange power of the cake was Tita, of course.  This further complicates things for Tita and the ever present Mama Elena.  We shall see if there are any more plots to keep Tita and Pedro apart throughout the book, due to Mama Elena's suspicions of their love.
Not only has Pedro married another, but on the evening of the wedding, Nacha passed away in her sleep.  We learned a little more about Nacha and her past in this chapter.  I won't give away everything that occurs throughout the novella; leaving some things to be discovered for when you read the book on your own.  But this was a very depressing end to this chapter.  Tita has lost the only mother figure she has ever known, and her only true friend. 

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Capitulo 1- Enero/January

In this first chapter of Como Agua Para Chocolate, we are introduced to the main characters of this novela.  The heroine is Tita.  Mamá Elena is her tyrant mother, but she is not really a mother figure in this story, that role falls to Nacha.  Nacha is very much like an abuela, or grandmother, to Tita.  From the moment Tita was born, she shared a special connection with Nacha and with cooking in the kitchen.  It was up to Tita and Nacha to prepare the family's meals and their main place was in the kitchen.
One very important thing that is introduced in this frist chapter is Tita's other duty in life- to take care of Mamá Elena, until the day she dies.  "Sabes muy bien que por ser la más chica de las mujeres a ti te corresponde cuidarme hasta el día de mi muerte"-dice Mamá Elena.  Tita is the youngest of three daughters.  Her two sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis are free to marry whomever they choose.
Besides food, Tita has one other love in her life, Pedro Muzquiz.  Her spirit is crushed by her mother when she is told that she may never marry him, because she must constantly take care of Mamá Elena until she dies.  To make matters worse, in only a short amount of time, Tita discovers that her sister Rosaura is to marry Pedro!  ¡Que horrible! Tita feels like an empty shell, but at least she still has her cooking with Nacha to lift her spirits. 
Readers, this was a great start to this novella.  Whether you are reading it in English or in Spanish, the use of words and descriptions draw you in and give you a strong connection with Tita.  Tita is a ver strong young woman who is battling against loyalties to her mother and these new emotions that are arrising up in her that she is forced to suppress. 
Not only is this novella very interesting so far, but each chapter has a recipe that Tita focuses on throughout the duration of the chapter.  The first recipe is one for Christmas Rolls.  When I see Christmas Rolls, I think of cinnamony, sugary, doughy and yummy rolls, like Cinnamon Rolls.  But no... these Christmas Rolls consist of sardines, sausage, onions and chiles serranos.  Sardines?!  Really?!  ¡Esto está loco!  I plan on "attempting" some of the recipes that are in this novella... we shall see how that goes for me, considering I am NOT a good or experienced cook.
Bueno... eso es todo para ahora. 
 ¡Muchas Gracias!  Thanks for reading!
Laura