… y no se lo trago la tierra is probably the best example I’ve ever come across of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Far from what its ridiculous cover image and large font would imply, the book contains a complexly crafted series of anecdotes and its narrative techniques and weighty themes keep the reader actively thinking.

One thing that interested me about the book so far was the relation between naming something and its existence. In the first half of the book we see things that are unnamed turn out to exist and things that are named actually do not exist. As children grow up they must reconcile between the world as their parents taught them and the the world as they personally experience it. Until he stumbled upon the couple the boy did not know about sex, it had been completely absent from his world except as a vague notion of sin, and soon he will discover the name of what he has witnessed. On the other hand, an entity that was taken for granted in his family, the Devil, turns out to not exist at all. The boy calls out to the Devil and curses him, expecting all hell to break loose, and nothing happens. Nothing exists behind the name.

I like the book’s unique perspective due to being written through the eyes of a child. If we think of Who Would Have Thought It?, for example, its critique of contemporary societal evils is very direct and is accompanied by analysis through the characters’ dialogue. In … y no se lo trago la tierra we get to know the social context through the lens of a child – the racism of white society towards Chicanos comes through in a bully’s remarks, most likely copied from his parents – and the labour conditions suffered by rural Chicanos in Texas comes through in the boy’s grief and rage at his brother’s near death on the fields and his mother’s resignation to a life of endless toil. There is no analysis of the social context here, only brief and powerful anecdotes.