My first and foremost thought after fishing reading this novel was: “Why in the world does her memoir almost completely focus on her time spent as a child?”. I guess I had understood memoirs as something that captures memorable experiences throughout a persons entire life, and I think in some ways Mama Blanca’s (yes I will be referring to her as such because I somehow feel compelled to do so as the book commented on) childhood was so defining for her, to the extent that she views life through this prism that was crafted by her experiences as a child.

Regardless of whatever the answer to my first question may be, I suspect that it would reveal a lot about the exact kind of character Mama Blanca was. Reading this novel reminded me a lot about the way I saw things through my own eyes when I was a child (Not suggesting that I grew up on a sugar plantation, I quite literally did not). I think there was something very noteworthy in her description of the way she viewed the adults such as her parents; it seemed to be tinged with a sense of mysteriousness and thus mystic authority, or the way she perceived other characters such as Vincente or Cousin Juancho, or Evelyn. It seemed as if their actions around her, or these stories about them that Mama Blanca would tell would always have a sense of distance to her, as if these people around her are much like a part of cosmic nature, where things happen and maybe she doesn’t fully understand them in the way a grown adult would, but the impact of it is still fully felt, in the way a child would feel. In her recount of this childhood of hers, I was brought back to my own too unknowingly, and even started to question myself since when have I stopped perceiving the things around me in that way. To be honest, I haven’t really noticed this change in myself, and I think this perception of things is a marker of the kind of wonder and innocence that Mama Blanca still holds even well into her later years.

Another thing that really stuck with me was this sentence in the foreword questioning “what would life be worth without the grace of forgiveness and tolerance?”. I think the idea encapsulated in this sentence follows in line with Mama Blanca’s  thoughts about having the Beast from Beauty and the Beast change back to a human at the end defeating the story’s purpose. As if “sinning” or “ugly things” (Sorry, Beast) need to exist, because then the “nobleness” of belle, as Mama Blanca puts it herself, or the grace of forgiveness, will be able to shine. Otherwise what is the story’s, and I guess by extension, life’s purpose?

To end this post with a question: Why do you think Mama Blanca included the story of cousin Juancho, or Vincente, or the man that milked the cows specifically?