Having interviewed and written my Wikipedia article on Carmen Rodriguez, I found this book to be an extremely honest narrative of her life. I almost feel as if she wrote this book as a way to cope with her hardships while in Chile, her exile, and her new life in Canada. It seems to have been a way for her to project her life and give her a way to analyze it. Although the names of the characters differ, the narrative remains a true to life account of what Rodriguez has been through.
To me, this book seemed almost peaceful. Although much of Rodriguez’s life (especially before she finally settled in Canada) has been spent in turmoil, this book makes me feel as though she remains unflappable. All the while, she is able to convey emotion and allow the reader a glimpse of how she must have been feeling during her exile, the death of her friends, her mother, her divorces, and during happier times, like raising her daughters and her romantic encounters.
At times though, I found the narrative a bit unclear, and I feel rereading the book would provide better connections. I’m looking forward to having Rodriguez speak in class, as we didn’t get much of a change to talk to her about this work specifically.
I found the ending of the book brilliant, and I liked the connection to the title. The fact that she writes so much about not forgetting, and remembering towards the end further exemplifies that this is a way for her to remember and deal with the events in her life.

One of my favourites so far this term.

I learnt about the Chilean coup and following dictatorship in a latin-american studies class last year. The stories Rodriguez tells of her rebel experiences during this time and exile to Canada are much more personal and honest than the textbook i was reading. 

i take it all back. i read further, rodriguez is brilliant. wow.

El periquillo es un hombre extramadamente desinteresado. En ocaciones parece que ni si quiera su bienestar y comodidad tiene importancia para el. Cuando trabajaba como barbero, maltrata a los clientes de su maestro, cuando trabaja como boticario envenena a un paciente, como medico, le miente al Dr. Purgante, su comportamiento pone en riesgo su puesto en cada casa pero eso no parece mortificarlo. Es como si lo unico que le interesara es sobrevivir el instante, el no piensa en el futuro. Tambien me parece que el Periquillo es un poco mal intencionado. Aunque por la forma en que la novella es narrada no se conocen los pensamientos del periquillo y por tanto como lectores no sabemos si el quiere hacerle dano a las otras personas siempre termina haciendolo. Creo que la gente descuidada y egoista usualmente le hace dano a otras personas porque ellos tienden a desconocer las necesdades del otro, sin embargo, el Periquillo tiene un toque de maldad, como si disfrutara al ver sufrir a otros. Algunos ejemplos de esto, es la pelea entre la concubina del boticario y la cocinera, la sangrienta razurada del indigena, los robos que el periquillo hizo a la caja del boticario y a la alcancia del medico y algunos de sus comentarios como “aunque yo quisiera lisonjear a Manuelita, la vieja condenada la cuidaba mas que si fuera de oro” y “prometi vengarme de el” (465). Los ejemplos anteriores, aunque importantes no se comparan con la decision de Sarmiento de usurpar la identidad de medico y practicar la medicina sin ningun entrenamiento, de enganar a todo el pueblo. Una duda que me quedo de este texto es porque el Periquillo sabio latin, sus referencias biblicas y su uso del latin parecen contradictorias con el resto de su personalidad.

I think that each author has an interesting description for their ambiguous hybrid position. Alvarez embeds the motion of a yoyo in one of Yolanda’s names and Rodriguez describes the “moving back and forth” as “teeter-totter” in her foreword. As I read Black Hole, I noticed that the conversations were one sided. Estela’s letter to her mother has no response and only one voice can be heard in the phone conversations. The voice of the other person is embedded with what the other one decides to repeat.
My eyes widened when she used the identifiably Canadian pragmatic marker “eh”, spelled “color” with a “u” and mentions Vancouver landmarks such as Stanley Park, City Hall, the seawall at Burrard, etc. I was enjoying reading about the landscape I live in. And I found myself relating to Estela’s dreams. She dreamt of Vancouver landmarks within the Chilean geography. I would often dream of being inside our Manila house here in Vancouver. It was almost as if there was no clear dividing line between the two countries and I would wake up confused, wondering where I was for the first few minutes. I guess my position too is ambiguous even though I am not an immigrant, being sent to Vancouver to study.
The way Rodriguez wrote is more direct and less descriptive than Alvarez’s style. I find it to be effective in the first person narrative. I am finding it difficult to put the book down!

Rodriguez definitely captured my attention, but I think I’d need to read the book again to fully understand all of the connections and relations between the different characters and their life stories. So I would say that I enjoyed reading this book, but at times I found myself lost in trying to figure out the timeline, and who was doing the narrating, or who was the daughter, mother, grandmother, brother, uncle, aunt or friend of who…it wasn’t until the last chapter that I noticed details and stories starting to come together. But again, I think if I read the book again it might make more sense; kind of like when I read Woman Hollering Creek again…I loved it the second time around.

Anyways, I loved that a lot of the story took place in Vancouver, and that there were so many references to familiar places like Granville Island, Arbutus and Commercial Drive. She even mentioned a trip to my “homeland” the Okanagan, which was great.

On a different note, something that stood out to me was the amount of emotion and feeling present in this book; particularly the contrast between hope and despair. In the chapter Bodily Yearnings, the heading “happy end” gives the reader a false sense of relief thinking that finally at least someone’s life is going to have a happy ending, as with Yolanda and her having a man who wants to marry her…but this relief, this hope is cut short when we find in fact that Yolanda does not have a happily-ever-after-life when she leaves her husband on a one way ticket back to Chile. This is just one example among many throughout the book where hopes are dashed. And yet, despite these hardships, there are still pockets of hope. For example, though Canada has the difficulties of integrating into a foreign society, it offers life and freedom; things that weren’t available in Chile.

All in all, despite having some confusion with the different narrators and the timeline, I did enjoy this book, and appreciate it a lot more knowing that it is based on the author’s own life. I’m excited to be able to hear more from her when she comes on Friday!

Wow Wow! I’m really enjoying Rodriguez’ book even though  the stories are very painful. Its a very quick read, but with in an hour, Rodriguez takes us through 4 different emotional roller coasters. It’s like having all your body waxed in 5 min. Before you have the time to think how much waxing your right leg hurt, someone else is waxing your bikini or something! It’s like ouch…. ouch… ouch! Each story in this book is precious and amazing, and even though the book is pretty small and quick to read, it reveals soooo much. The stories touch upon, exile, immigration, race, family, gender, class, identity, nationality, geography, torture and gendered torture, public and private sphere… we could spend a class or two talking about each chapter. 

i enjoyed the first part of this book.  i really like reading stories in the form of letters, phone calls; there’s something about it, almost like you’re reading something you aren’t supposed to – like eavesdropping. anyways, just a brief comment of style there.

At the moment, I’m somewhat torn as to my opinion of Carmen Rodriguez. Possibly, because I’m such a huge Alvarez fan that no one really stands a chance in my books…. possibly because I just don’t find the emotions evoked by the work of authors such as Cisneros and Alvarez as prominent in that of Rodriguez. I definitely felt for the mother in “Black Hole” but not in the heart-wrenching, tear-your-guts-out kind of way I felt throughout Woman Hollering Creek. There’s seems to be something missing for me and I am at a loss to figure out what it is. I’m hoping that as I read on my feelings will change. What is interesting, however, is that like Leanna, I read the introduction beforehand and feel as though it may have ruined it for me. I feel like there was a lot of buildup… a lot of talk, and not enough follow through. Rodriguez sounds as though she is a little too pleased with her work, whereas it is fairly typical of authors to feel as though they’ll never quite perfect their work; that there’s always room for improvement. I wasn’t 100% on board with the whole “black whole” metaphor and found the ending unsatisfactory. I definitely wanted to know whether they moved back to Chile or not. I’m going to attempt to keep reading with an open mind. I’m sure my opinion will change! I’m looking forward to meeting Rodriguez in person. On second thought, I hope no one shows her these blogs!