Category Archives: Responses

and a body to remember with

First of all, I’m quite excited about the prospect of having Carmen Rodriguez into the class to speak to us about her writing. The opportunity to listen to an author talk about their work is one that I always enjoy and is beneficial to my understanding of the piece. 

I read the introduction to the book before the first story, and I must say, it gave me a bit of a negative impression. Did anyone else read the intro first as well? While her discussion of the process was engaging, Rodrigeuz came off a little self-congratulating, I felt. While writing a book, especially one as great as ‘and a body to remember with’ is a wonderful achievement, if she felt humility, it didn’t come across in the introduction. She writes about how she orginally hired professional translators, then decided to do it herself, as she (and others) felt she could do a better job. There is a strong emphasis on the amount of work required to translate the stories back and forth, until she “felt that both the tips of my tongue and my two sets of ears were satisfied with the final product.” 
Personally, I guess I like to imagine that brilliant books just flow out of the pens of brilliant authors. Although I know that this untrue, I think that usually pride stops authors from detailing the vicissitudes and work involved in the creation of their pieces. I think of literature like ballet: the beauty comes from a difficult and skillful art appearing effortless.  Is Rodriguez attempting to impress her readers with her description of endless translations and intensive effort?
Given the humility and self-deference she communicates throughout the rest of her stories, I doubt that the introduction was intended to be the  ego-stroke it struck me as. An entirely different interpretation is possible: is Carmen Rodriguez, by detailing the writing process, humanizing herself into a figure the reader can relate to? Perhaps this is a way of showing her audience that she struggles just like they do, and thus her stories are relatable. Thoughts?

and a Body to Remember With

I must say, I really enjoyed this book. Rarely do I sit down and read a book cover to cover, but for some reason, that was the experience I had with this novel. When I first started it, I was a little unsure of how I felt about her general writing style, but within a few chapters I began to get into it and found it a very easy, insightful, and emotion-filled read. What I liked most about the book was the relatablitiy I felt to the settings in which it took place. Having lived that last three years in Canada, and specifically Vancouver, it was very interesting to read about the local places that she described; the Britannia center on Commercial drive, Kits, Stanley park, etc. Being new to Canada, it was interesting to read an account off someone with fresh eyes adjusting to the differences that are for me, subtle, but for her, far more substantial. I was also able to understand many of the situations that she discussed in Chile because a few years ago, I spent a summer in Chile living with a family that was very politically involved in the resistance of the dictatorship and military coup of 1973. Reading these accounts conjured potent memories of my time in Chile, and though I did not myself experience the hardships that the country has faced, I learned a great deal about them from people who did.

Like many of the other books we have read in this class, the story is non-linear nor straight-forward in its telling of events and emotions. Rather, it is like a mosaic of snippets of many peoples experiences and understanding of political upheaval, loss, desire, uprooting, and assimilation. I think that this is a conscious choice of many of the authors that we have read, as these experiences and emotions are not concrete or easily explained, but rather dynamic and complex. Just as Julia Alvarez mirrors the fuzziness and fluidity of memory in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, layering this book in such a way seems to be a more accurate depiction of the complexity and collective voice and collective struggle that Chilean exiles have faced.

What made the book feel very human to me was the fact that that though the stories were heavily laced with political commentary and the experience of cultural assimilation, she did not exclude other human sentiments of her telling of events. She included stories of romantic love and loss, of the common struggles that families face, and lighter stories including the one about missing the Astor Piazolla concert twice. Also, I would say that this book would fall into the category of a feminist novel based on the way that we have defined it in this class. Many of the stories are written from the perspective of women, and women are portrayed as strong and important agents in both a revolutionary sense and also in facing challenges of assimilation.

…y un cuerpo para recordar

The title of this book is an interesting choice; it got me thinking about the body, and its role in the stories. Why would Rodriguez title her book as such without some significance? Remembering with the body implies some comparison with mental memory. So far, in the stories, memory has played an important role. The first story, “Black Hole”, explores extensively the concept of memory. Estela’s memory of places in Santiago becomes intertwined, confused with images of Vancouver. Her daughters’ memory of Spanish is becoming lost. These are mental memories, but there are also cases of bodily memories; the confusion between the smell of Chilean asados and Burger King, the physical memory of and yearning for being in her mother’s arms. So it is not only the mind that remembers…the body remembers as well, and body memories are much, much stronger. In “The Mirror”, the “perfume” and “image” of the fugitive linger, inside the perfume and image of the narrator herself. The memory of the woman she cared for takes root in her own sense of sight and smell, and this way her body remembers. In “I Sing, Therefore I Am” the woman’s memory of her torture is a sort of out-of-body experience…she sees herself, legless, being raped, an external vision. The extreme pain her body is suffering disables her body’s memory and her memory becomes purely mental. The birth of her son, however, is in her body’s memory; she recalls pushing with her “skin, teeth, fingernails”.
I find this distinction between body and mind interesting and profound, because it is not a separation. The violence of Pinochet’s regime caused not only physical suffering, but also psychological pain from the pervading fear. Imprisonment and torture are not purely physical experiences either; they are mentally destructive (e.g. trying to make a woman betray her friends and her political and moral standing). And so surviving these violations is also not only physical, but also mental. When the prisoner is released on her crutches, without a leg, she is not only recovering her body, but also her family and therefore her heart.
Rodriguez seems to be emphasizing that memories are not only mental and emotional but also physical, and that military dictatorship is destructive not only of lives, but of people’s hearts and therefore society as a whole.

La Avenida Burrard

For some reason and a body to remember with doesn’t draw me in or provoke me as much as the novels by Cisneros and Alvarez. I can’t quite pin-point why. However, the novel does bring up some interesting questions pertaining to nationality and national identity, the choices people make when choosing where to put their roots down, dislocation and generation gaps. Like Cisneros, who often let the reader “overhear” conversations between characters on the phone or read texts written by the characters like the little notes of prayer, Rodriguez shows communication between mother and daughter in a one-sided phone conversation and through letters. This seems to emphasize the distance between the characters because their communication is not a single body composed of two voices, but two voices in isolation, separated by a gap that is at the same time technological, geographical and emotional.

Rodriguez’s stories don’t come off as fragmented as those by Cisneros, but they are still quite varied in tone and content. Some present the current lives of the characters (ex. “black hole”), others relate isolated memories of nostalgic or traumatic episodes (ex. “adios piazzolla” “i sing, therefore i am”) and still others tell stories that reveal the Canada or Chile experienced by the characters (ex. “saudades”). The violence of “i sing, therefore i am” was unexpected and brutal, but it reminds you why this immigration, this fork in people’s lives, this book took place, due to the Pinochet dictatorship and the horror it caused for countless individuals and families. Though these people try to overcome the past so that it does not poison and cripple their current lives, it never fades completely, for as the title suggests it is not only the mind that remembers but the body.

The place imagery in the book is especially vivid for me because I’ve been to many of the Chilean locations as well as the Vancouver ones. I enjoyed the dream scene where “Stanley Park would show up by the ocean in Vina del Mar, or the Alameda would replace Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver.” I liked how this fusion of places reminds us how the city is experienced so differently by its inhabitants, especially by immigrants, they imbue it with new meanings and make associations that others would never think of. It was interesting to hear Canada described from an immigrant’s perspective, from a person that imagines Canada as a Switzerland that doesn’t quite make the final cut in National Geographic, from a person who describes one of Canada’s greatest shames, the residential schools and their legacy, with the sad and resigned observation that terrible treatment of Indigenous peoples is common across the Americas.

Incidentally, I just thought of another fact that, whether by chance or design, draws the course material together. Both the first and the last books we read in this course are written by women with a Spanish mother tongue who explicitly expressed their fears about writing in English – if it would be possible, legitimate, and well received. Maria Ruiz de Burton was worried that her English text would be picked apart for faults if readers knew that English was not her mother tongue and Carmen Rodriguez had to be encouraged by fellow writers to write in English, although she does not give her reasons. Despite these barriers, both felt the need to communicate with an English-speaking audience. I guess that relates to overarching questions in this course which could be who is Latino literature in the US/Canada written for, why is it written, who are considered legitimate authors and what does their language choices have to do with this?

and a body to remember with

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be Canadian. I think that this book really explores the meaning of a Canadian identity.

I really enjoyed learning about the different immigration and cultural experiences of the three different women in “breaking the ice”. That these women came together and shared stories in a hockey arena (how very “Canadian”) at 6am was very nice. They really did create a true friendship and it seems that they are able to see how many people from all different places have similar immigration experiences.

I love that a lot of this book is based in Vancouver a lot in East Vancouver…Fraser and 49th, Britannia Community Centre, Commercial Drive etc.

I’m sure that if I’d ever been to Santiago or any other part of Chile I would feel even more connected to it. It’s funny that when you read something written about somewhere you don’t know, the names of streets and landmarks are just names, but if you’ve been there or lived there every place name and description of a familiar aspect of that landscape brings with it memories and personal experiences at that particular place. I often feel this way when reading Margaret Atwood books that are based in Toronto, everything she writes is exactly how I remember it growing up.

I’ll admit that I have never taken much time to learn a lot about Chile, but this book has definitely sparked my interest and given me a lot to think about. It always seems that Chile and Argentina are two South American countries that seem to be really proud of their history. I was really intrigued by Rodriguez’ descriptions of Chile during the dictatorship, how turned upside down it had become and that “these things only happened in the so-called ‘banana republics’, not in Chile.” (p.74)

And a body to remember with

I read this book over the period of this past week-end, and to my surprise after judging the book by it’s cover, I consistently enjoyed the colourful stories written by Carmen Rodriguez. This book brings life to the stories, feelings and harships of immigrants forced into political exile and how it can affect so many people on so many levels all over the world. I feel Carmen Rodriguez truly pours her heart, no, more, everything she feels into the narratives which so greatly describe the different events encountered by the protagonists. You can sense and feel the deep passion that she has for the subject matter through reading these powerful and profound stories. I’m going to make the assumption that she is somehow related to all of the stories, knowing a descent amount about her backround. Clearly they are not all about her, but I think she has some sort of link to all of the characters in her real life.

This may sound silly, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one who may feel this way. Having grown up in Vancouver all my life, and obviously, like many of us, could recognize many places she describes in the stories. I almost felt like mental illustrations were provided for so many of the events. For example, I could picture one of the protagonists in a skyscraper downtown, or walking in Chinatown, or on Burrard St. I think the fact that I could do this captivated me that much more, as I added familiar sights and sounds from my own life experiences to the experience of reading her stories. This made for a much more detailed version of the book in a way, it also kept me motivated to read more as I was thinking “how will I be able to relate to this story?”. Not that I’m in any way a political exile.

I really look forward to having Carmen Rodriguez come into class and speak to us about the book. There are so many symbols and themes which I have questions about! The book was riddled with suggestive symbols, and some were very evident. I think the title has important significance, as does the cover. (Funny how I judged it by its cover in the beginning) Anyway, overall I thought it was a very pleasant book to read, and it gives great insight into the awful things that happened during the regimes of the 1970’s.

A true story

This book is undoubtedly an autobiography of sorts. Through each of her stories in “and a body to remember with”, Rodriguez, in one shape or form, infuses her own, non-fictional experiences into her fictional characters.

I’ve read this book twice. Once before Max and I interviewed Carmen Rodriguez for our Wikipedia project, and now, two months later. The deeper I delve into this book of short stories, the more I find flickers of Rodriguez’s own life, her own experiences, some an exact parallel to her life but with the altering of names.

I actually realized that I could rebuild Rodriguez’s biography just from phrases in “and a body to remember with”. Here goes…(I don’t know if I can include it all though!)

“I am from Chile…I came twenty years ago with my Chilean husband and my five-year-old daughter” (111). Later, Rodriguez writes that she arrived in Buenos Aires on December 13,1973 (157). She also mentions she lived outside of Chile “until we got the permit to come to Canada as refugees” (157). ——————Rodriguez left Chile with her husband at the time and their five and six year old daughters. She left Chile on December 15th, 1973, only days after her fictional character did.

In the first story, Rodriguez talks about moving to Canada, and mentions she has two (young) daughters, Natalia and Panchi——————–in real life, they are Carmen and Alejandra.

In a balanced diet, Rodriguez describes the execution of those close to her———this also occurred in her life.

She and her husband, in this story, then separated (112). —————————This occurred in Rodriguez’s life.

“When Carmen Rodriguez was told that she could go back to Chile, she was invaded by a mixture of excitement and terror, anxiety and nostalgia” (32). She also mentions, later, “Santiago has become a clean city. As clean as oblivion” (153). ——————-In her interview, Rodriguez told us that she returned many many years later, also mentioning that Chileans, when she came back, were “suffering from Collective Amnesia”, and that the country had changed.

Carmen Rodriguez “was one of those members of the Chilean Resistance to the Pinochet regime” (48). ——————–She spent time doing “underground work of a disclosed type” in Bolivia and Chile, such as seen in “I sing, therefore I am”.

Rodriguez mentions the “hills of Valparaiso” (61), “Macul in the fall, Valdivia river” (129), “her childhood in Valdivia and her life as a university student in Santiago” (121), and in the story “breaking the ice”, mentions the train ride “between Antilhue and Valdivia” (109), and in “bodily yearnings” mentions some of the phantoms of places she grew up “Valdivia river” “Valdivia river boulevard” “Plaza de Armas” (132), “Valparaiso” (152), “Madness of Santiago” (151).—————— Valdivia and Valparaiso were two places where Carmen spent a majority of her early life. She attended school at the University of Chile in Santiago.

“…the five hundred year anniversary of the foundation of Valdivia, the resistance of the Mapuche”(144)———Rodriguez actually told the story about the Mapuche and Valdivia to Max and me during the interview.

“My mom, arriving at the Vancouver airport with a huge package in her hands…all the way from Quillota, Chile”(142), “…tell the children about Chile” (144). “Twenty years without her children and grandchildren”(143), “…since I am the only daughter” (145).—————–This describes Rodriguez’s mother, who visited her family in Canada though she could not speak English. Rodriguez is the only daughter.

“Tony, my Canadian companion” (145)——————-Rodriguez herself had a “Canadian Companion” by the name of Bob, whom she married and then divorced”.
In “trespass” she alludes that she traveled Canada to spread ( and sing ) her revolutionary thoughts, which she did.

Carmen Rodriguez “concluded that a computer would have been useful to cut and paste, edit, change spaces, times” (54).—————–This is what she did years later, when she wrote this book.

I think that’s enough! I can’t get through it all.

She says ‘toque’…she’s Canadian in my books!

A body to remember with, eh? This title made me think of the scar just below my knee where a piece of blue glass lodged itself, and the basketball that crippled my pinky finger because I didn’t realize that tendons and ligaments tend to repair themselves in a mangled way. But as I read the book, its political background shifted my thinking: the struggle, the triumph, and the journey is written upon the bodies of these characters (presumably upon Carmen herself). It’s what they can experience with their senses and what they can remember with their minds that makes them unable to forget their past.

Another recipe: To create and a body to remember with, take the frame and poetic phrasing of Woman Hollering Creek and stir in as much political disturbance as you can from How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Add a tablespoon of immigration and a pinch of identity loss. Bake for 166 pages and cover with a toque to keep warm.

As you can see from the recipe, I found many similarities between and a body to remember with and some of the other books we have previously read in class. Although the characters and experiences are different, there are reoccuring themes of identity, immigration, political unrest, and remembrance. On a side note, I’ve always felt that language structure influences culture. For example, latinos have a language where they must remember what gender they are using so as to have agreement throughout the noun, the adjective, the article, etc…, this translates to these people having an amazing memory of their history. However, whether it’s due to their language or not, it appears that they are not a culture that forgets.

I enjoyed reading these stories because I could relate to the Vancouver setting. I saw Stanley Park, 4th avenue, and UBC campus in my head, exactly as they exist and how Rodriguez experienced them. When she spoke of Chile it felt like a separate book, one which I could vaguely relate to. In the powerful chapter “3-D” on page 95, there are several cassettes of Chilean artists in the room. This struck me as intriguing for reasons that go deeper than simple ‘outside observation’. Perhaps I could see my own room if I were in Santiago, Chile, with CDs of Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, and Alanis Morisette; trying to preserve my Canadian identity in a Chilean world. I felt strangely connected to a woman seeking a refuge from her torturer; a woman who I really have nothing in common with.

This collection of stories shocked me with its vigilante struggle and the emotional turbulance of forced immigration. I had no idea that all this had happened in Chile. I suppose that’s why Rodriguez wrote this book, to show people like myself that there are governments out there that have to the power to wreck people’s lives; and they do it, without a care. I wish I’d read this book before I visited Chile. I believe it would have brought me more insight into the culture. As it was, I could never have imagined such crimes happening there. I’m ignorant, I know that, and I think that a good majority of us Canadians take what we have for granted. And so, in true Canadian form, I say: “Welcome to Canada! Here’s your toque.”

Carmen Rodrigez

This book started off really interesting in my eyes and slowly detiorated into a chore to read. It seems like Rodriguez is trying to be too poetic and fragmented, and the overall effect is not very pleasant to the reader. It felt like I was a part of an inside joke, unable to understand what was going on. I couldn’t tell who was talking when and about what. I guess that’s because I should’ve looked into the background of the events that were talked about, but now it’s too late and I have a bad impression of this book. The first chapter about the family coming to Vancouver was really good however; I was surprised to realize that the story was about Canada and not about the States like many of the books we have been reading. It was nice to hear the Burrard Bridge and Stanley Park mentioned. It pained me to read about the reaction of the grandma to the family moving away and forgetting their roots to a certain extent. The girls were ashamed to be Latin, to speak in Spanish, and to eat Chilean dishes. What the grandma doesn’t understand is that although it can be very painful to forget your roots, it’s worse to be in a country and to not fit in at all. It’s not even like the family chose to move away, they were forced to. This changes things dramatically because they don’t have the option to come back like the Garcia girls. When one is forced out of their home, they have to do anything in their power to make their new home feel comfortable. It’s sad that this multinational identity had to cause so many problems and painful moments, but that is just the life of an immigrant, especially that of an exiled one. I can relate to this because both my mom and dad’s siblings, including us, have moved away from South America. It must be devastating to our grandparents to come visit us only once a year if even that, and see that we have grown without them and no longer see our native tongue as our first. We no longer dream in Portuguese or say “ai” when we get hurt. We are interested in watching Friends and Gilmore Girls and not Novellas. We don’t ask them to bring us that obscure little chocolate we used to love: we are content with what we have here. However, they are very supportive of us looking for a better place to live, unlike the grandma in this story.

and a body to remember with

So far I am really enjoying Carmen Rodriguez’ stories. It is really interesting how she writes about her life in Canada, and more specifically, in Vancouver! Every time she mentioned places in Vancouver it was so easy to picture it in my head, such as Stanley Park or Fraser and 49th (close to where i live.)

My favourite chapter in the first half of the book is “Black Hole”. Estela describes Canada as a black hole, a place without an image. I can relate to this because when I was younger, my parents told me that we would be moving to Canada and I felt that nothing about Canada stood out to me. I couldn’t even imagine how it would look like. When i arrived here I thought that it was so void of spirit and culture, even though Canada is known for its multiculturalism. I feel that because there are so many different cultures here that you can’t really immerse yourself in one, or be accepted by everyone. It was so different from where I came and it seemed so cold. I was used to everybody sharing the same culture, values and giving each other a kiss on the cheek to say hello or goodbye. However, like the daughters of Estela I came to really like Vancouver.

The conversations between mother and daughter were disheartening to read. You could see how torn Estela was between her new life in Canada and her old life in Chile. Her mother was thrilled to find that Estela and her husband were off the blacklist and expected that they would be home soon. As a reader you know that Estela would have to make an important decision- to give up her new life in Canada or break her mother’s heart. I really hoped that this story was longer so we can see more of Estela’s life unravel.