Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

[afterannabel.livejournal.com]

3) Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

I have mixed feelings about this book. My biggest complaint was that I was often frustrated by Alvarez's use of Spanish words and idioms, of which she rarely provided translation. I took Spanish on and off in high school and college, and some words' meanings are intuitive (familia) or obvious from the context, so that was helpful. But it made me stumble many times throughout the book. I really liked the fact that Alvarez dug deeper and explored how young Latina women in America struggle with incorporating both cultures into their lives in meaningful ways, without compromising themselves.

Comments

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

I would probably give up and find something else. I'm sure that you're right and that the confusion is the point...but I don't WANT to read a novel or a non-fiction book and be confused. So I would figure that the book had an invisible sign--"no non-Hispanics need apply"--and go find something that might not be as good but which would, at least, be comprehensible.

I get that it might feel really frustrating. Honestly though, you haven't read Alvarez, or you said so upthread, and she doesn't actually use that much Spanish. The phrases are not all that difficult to look up, either. Of course it's your prerogative to choose other novels to read (it's not like you need anyone's approval for that) but I have to object to this:


It comes across the same way to me, though. "I'm smarter than you. I know a language that you don't. And I don't WANT you to understand me, so I'm going to speak as much as I can in words and phrases that I know you won't comprehend. And I won't translate a thing."

Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers learned French as part of a very prestigious university education. Julia Alvarez learned English in an environment where her mother tongue had no status, where she was constantly bullied for being Latina, where English was enormously difficult and American culture was very hard to understand. The fact that she turns it around in her writing isn't an effort to present herself as smarter than her readers, it's an attempt to represent the way reality works for people who have similar experiences. If we don't (and I don't--I'm bilingual but my cultural background is solidly Western), we have to contend with being confused and either look things up or choose to read something else.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Honestly though, you haven't read Alvarez, or you said so upthread, and she doesn't actually use that much Spanish.

Actually, I didn't say whether I'd read Alvarez. But you're right. I haven't. I'll give her a shot and see what I think.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Ah, my bad, you said "it doesn't seem like," which was what made me assume you hadn't read it and then I didn't double-check to see whether you actually had said so outright. It'd be interesting to see what you think.

[afterannabel.livejournal.com]

I circled phrases and words I didn't know as I read the book and afterwards looked them all up. There were only two or three that I couldn't find easily through Google.