DOROTHY C. JUDD'S REVIEWS

The Tortilla Curtain (1995)(T. Coraghessan Boyle  1948-)

Orrin's Review:

It's not that this book is awful, at worst it's mediocre.  What's really disappointing is how derivative and hackneyed it all is.  Boyle takes equal parts Grapes of Wrath, Bonfire of the Vanities, Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Grand Canyon, mixes them together and pours out a batch of completely predictable, politically correct pabulum.

Delaney Mossbacher is contemptible yuppie scum.  He lives in a gated development, Arroyo Blanco Estates, in Southern California's Topanga Canyon with his equally vile wife and her rotten son.  Delaney is a nature writer in the mode of Annie Dilliard (see Orrin's review).  He considers himself to hold all the "proper" (i.e., "liberal humanist") views on social issues, but these views are put to the test when he strikes an illegal alien with his Acura.

The immigrant, Candido Rincon, is hiding out in the canyon, teetering on the verge of starvation, with his pregnant young wife, America.  He is pretty badly injured in the accident, but terrified of Immigration authorities, he accepts twenty dollars in cash and stumbles off into the canyon.  At first Delaney is horrified by what has happened, but eventually he convinces himself that the victim was running some kind of scam and that he, Delaney, is the true victim because of the damage to his car.  This begins a slide--featuring stolen cars, house pets eaten by coyotes, vandalism, wildfires, and so on--which eventually turns Delaney into a leaden parody of a gun toting right wing extremist.  Meanwhile, the Rincons have visited upon them a series of near Biblical plagues--rape, fire, blindness, near slavery, flood, slaughter of the first born, and so on; at one point Boyle even compares them to Job, just in case we've missed the point.

Boiled down to its essentials, the novel portrays the fabulous comfort of the Mossbachers and their neighbors, while poking fun at their anxieties.  They are contrasted with the achingly noble Rincons and the myriad degradations they suffer while searching for a better life in America.  The ultimate irony, of course, is that the lifestyle enjoyed by the Mossbachers and their ilk is made possible by the labor of folks like the Rincons.  Here again, Boyle, apparently believing that his point may be too subtle for us, uses the final scene of the novel to hammer it home.

There are two problems with Boyle's approach, one structural, the other ideological.  Structurally, satire with it's dependence on exaggeration and caricature requires one of two things; either that the author be sympathetic to all of his characters or to none.  If the author feels at least some affection for all of his targets then his essentially unfair portrayal of them comes with a wink and a nod, letting us know that the satire is merely a means to and end.  If he genuinely loathes them all and attacks them with equal ferocity, there is at least some kind of cosmic justice at work.  The one thing that the author can not do, but which Boyle does do here, is to establish a dichotomy where some characters are satirized viciously, while others are nearly canonized.  This imbalance leads to what must surely be an unintended consequence, since the "bad" people can't really be that bad and the "good" people can't really be that good, the reader ends up feeling empathy for the wrong characters.  In this case, Boyle is so harsh towards the Mossbachers and so enamored of the Rincons that the Mossbachers seem like the victims of the piece, victims of the author that is.

The ideological problem with the book lies in Boyle's one sided depiction of the immigration argument.  Personally, I don't have much problem with the basic point that immigrants, legal and otherwise, serve a vital role in our society.  I believe that anyone who wants to come to America should be welcomed and offered the full protection of our labor laws.  The only requirement should be that they work and that they be ineligible for any government benefits until they become citizens.

However, I do understand the view point of those who oppose immigration.  It is undeniably difficult to assimilate these new populations into the broader society and it can cause disruption to existing communities.  Moreover, the presence in the economy of people who are willing to do practically any job must inevitably have the eventual effect of holding down wages generally.  Finally, though Boyle is especially dismissive of this argument, it is troubling that America has lost control of its own borders.  The inability to stem the flow of illegals across the Mexican border is nearly as alarming as our abject failure to stop the traffic of illegal drugs into the country.  Although I believe that the benefits of immigration outweigh them, I'd concede that each of these points is valid.  Boyle simply dismisses them out of hand.

Just as bad as his ham-handed presentation of this complex issue is his complete misunderstanding of the immigrant experience.  It is of course true that immigrants have a hard time in their new countries.  This has always been the case.  Four hundred years ago, white settlers were frequently slaughtered by Indians.  No matter how hard they have it, today's immigrants don't run much risk of being scalped, do they?  But the fundamental truth of the immigrant experience is not how hard their new lives are; it is that they fled lives that were worse and that their children have lives that are better.  In addition, immigrants should face a difficult challenge; this guarantees that we will be able to skim off the best of each society, those who are undaunted by such challenges.  Were it easy, we would be inundated with the dross too.

Lastly, the final scene of the book (read no farther if you don't want to know what happens), wherein Candido loses his own child but saves the life of Delaney is a metaphorical lie.  The obvious implications are that immigrants lives are destroyed even as the Anglos lives depend upon them.  This is simply untrue.  Immigrants come here, and they do continue to come, because their lives will be materially better, no matter how difficult the adjustment period may be.  And, though as I've said, immigration clearly benefits us all, the image of the immigrant saving the native from drowning overstates the case so badly as to undermine it.  In reality, it is the natives who are saving the immigrants by allowing them the opportunity for a better life.

In the end there is only one message of this book that I can wholeheartedly endorse: regardless of whether you are rich or poor, Southern California is simply a godawful place to live.

GRADE: C-

Dorothy C. Judd's Review:

Twenty-four years ago, in between revolutions, I spent a week in ElSalvador. Riding around in a bus, albeit not air-conditioned, with other "ugly Americans,"   I saw women cooking over clumps of charcoal in the gutter of the city, children running naked, homes made of cardboard boxes, and women washing clothes in a river.  Later in the day, we would be back at our "luxury" hotel, relaxing with drinks by the pool, jewels on our fingers and in our ears,  ready to change into one of many outfits, and enjoy a sumptuous dinner.  I kept guilt at bay by rationalizing that I had seen equally horrible conditions in my neighboring city of Newark, and I did, after all, make generous contributions to the homeless there.  In short, I kept myself behind the wall, like the walls that surrounded the homes in San Salvador.

In The Tortilla Curtain, Boyle alternates chapters of the "haves" and the "have-nots": yuppie  Californians and illegal Mexicans. Beginning with a freak auto accident, the lives of Delaney Mossbacher and Candido Rincon are intertwined by twists of fate, heightening the contrast of their lives, and ending on a note which would provide a discussion group with fodder for several sessions!

There are any number of points that could provoke discussion in this book: immigration laws and practices, the impact of humans on wildlife and vice versa, the effects of introduced species,  hypocrisy, basic human values. For me, the biggest issue was human values.  If you have lost material possessions, have you truly "lost everything?" And were the illegals  struggling for these same "possessions" or at some point would anyone realize the value of love, integrity, compassion, etc?
 Boyle is a master at descriptive detail; the reader has no problem placing himself in the geographic area he describes. He is also adept at characterization and makes Mossbacher, his wife, Candido, and America Rincon come alive on the page. There are scenes in this book that are truly wrenching.  Be prepared to be disturbed!

GRADE: A-

WEBSITES:
    -T. Coraghessan Boyle Home Page
    -FEATURED AUTHOR: (NY Times)
    -T.C. Boyle: About the Author and His Works
    -ESSAY: What is this Bee?  Reading Lessons (T. Coraghessan Boyle, LA Weekly)
    -EXCERPT: Chapter One of RIVEN ROCK  By T. Coraghessan Boyle
    -REVIEW: of MASON & DIXON By Thomas Pynchon (T. Coraghessan Boyle, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of PICTURING WILL By Ann Beattie (T. Coraghessan Boyle, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: QUINN'S BOOK By William Kennedy (T. Coraghessan Boyle, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of A WOMAN NAMED DROWN By Padgett Powell (T. Coraghessan Boyle, NY Times Book Review)
    -INTERVIEW: (Laura Reynolds Adler, Book Page)
    -INTERVIEW: AT BREAKFAST WITH: T. Coraghessan Boyle; Biting the Hand That Once Fed Battle Creek (Molly O'Neill, NY Times)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: (Michael Feldman, Whaddaya Know?, NPR)
    -PROFILE: Rolling Boyle (Tad Friend, NY Times Magazine)
    -BIO: (Matthew Henry)
    -T. Coraghessan Boyle Resource Page
    -ESSAY: Haste in the Short Stories of T.C. Boyle (Matt Giuliano)
    -STUDY GUIDE: The Tortilla Curtain  by T. Coraghessen Boyle
    -REVIEW: of THE TORTILLA CURTAIN By T. Coraghessan Boyle (Scott Spencer, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Tortilla Curtain  SNOBS AND WETBACKS Sneering at the Class Divide (TIME)
    -REVIEW: of Tortilla Curtain (Carol Tucker, USC Chronicle)
    -REVIEW: of Tortilla Curtain ( Alan Cogan, Mexico Connect)
    -REVIEW: of The Tortilla Curtain (Andrés T. Tapia, Regeneration magazine)
    -REVIEW: of Tortilla Curtain (Maureen McClarnon)
    -ESSAY: BYE-BYE AMERICAN PIE (Nick Gillespie, Reason)
    -REVIEW: of THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE By T. Coraghessan Boyle (Jane Smiley, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: Robert Towers: Enigma Variations, NY Review of Books
        The Music of Chance by Paul Auster
        East Is East by T. Coraghessan Boyle
        Traffic and Laughter by Ted Mooney
    -REVIEW: of Riven Rock (Peter Kurth, Salon)
    -REVIEW: of Riven Rock (Alan Gottlieb, Denver Post)
    -REVIEW: of Without a Hero (David Edelman, Baltimore City Paper)

Jim Crace is English, has won the Whitbred First Novel Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, the Guardian Fiction Award, and the GAP International Prize for Literature.  His book Quarantine (see Orrin's review) was shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize for Fiction. The book I read was Being Dead  (1999), and it is definitely not for everyone.  Almost from the beginning, Crace lets us know that the main couple of the book has been murdered.  They are zoologists, and Crace describes the insect and animal destruction of their corpses , matter-of-factly from that point of view. But the very clinical , to some morbid, descriptions,  are balanced by a philosophy of life: "Live loud. Live wide. Live tall."  It is
the realization that all die and return to nature, but what does one do with the time in between?

I was particularly interested in his description of "quivering", the custom of 100 years or so ago when people died at home and were laid out at home, at time when death was seen as a natural part of the cycle of life, not disguised.  First the women gathered  around the bed where the dead one lay and tapped boots and sticks, rattled bracelets and cuffs in order to drive the devils out. About midnight the men would arrive and all would gather around the bed, shaking it to shake out the wrongdoings so the person would enter heaven unopposed.  Then all would reminisce, going from the present, backward in time, all the way to the person's childhood.  All of this would end at daybreak.  Rather than hold in emotions as we do so often today when someone dies, it was the custom to sob loudly and shout and cry out.  The dead one would hear and take comfort at being mourned.  The couple's daughter is the rebel, the antagonist, rejecting all they have valued.  But in facing their deaths, she comes to some realizations of her own.

p.159: No one transcends.  There is no future or no past.  There is no remedy for death - or birth- except to hug the spaces in between.  Crace has a writing style that makes even the gruesome poetic and leaves the reader with much to ponder.

I would say Jan Karon writes "chick" books, and perhaps you have to be over 50 (?) and have been, during at least one period of your life, a church-goer, to appreciate them, but... I give A New Song  an A.

Is it escapist reading?  You bet, but one look at the headlines today, and a little escape is in order.  Not everything you read needs to be wrenching, a brain strain. As for light reading, unlike Danielle Steele who creates Cinderella characters and plots, Karon writes about people you know or have known, places you might inhabit, everyday situations.  At the end of her books you feel hopeful, you're smiling.

Having read negative reviews about this new book in the "Mitford" series, I was prepared for the worst.  Instead, I found the book just as enchanting as the others.  I don't know why Karon felt she had to change the locale, but I felt she did a fine job of incorporating previous Mitford characters with new ones, and the change of scene allowed for some different story lines. I love Father Tim, Cynthia, and Dooley, and I eagerly await the next book!

GRADE: A

It is difficult to review Jacqueline Marcell's book, Elder Rage, because it actually operates on two levels.  The subtitle is "How to Survive Caring for Aging Parents."  If that is your immediate concern, turn to the appendix, beginning on p. 272, for behavior modification guidelines, followed by practical information on long-term care insurance, warning signs of Alzheimer's, and a physician's guide (Rodman Shankle, MS, MD) to treating aggression in dementia.

The bulk of the book describes more how one person, namely the author, dealt with her aging parents.  It is doubtful that many people would devote the time and energy or be as resourceful in handling the problems as she. Further, Marcell has a unique sense of humor which no doubt allowed her to survive the ordeal. This sense of humor is displayed as she makes references to song lyrics, movie and TV titles, as she calls people by fictional names, makes use of puns.  However, what strikes one as clever at first,  turns distracting and finally somewhat tiresome.

Despite this, one finds oneself drawn into the story, saluting Marcell for her devotion and wondering just what problem will surface next! If the prospect of caring for  aging parents is in your future, this book could be mighty scary, and you might begin praying right now that your parent ages with grace and dignity and does not turn hostile and aggressive.  If you yourself are aging, this book will make you hope that your child will be as devoted as Jacqueline Marcell!

GRADES :  Appendix: A  Narrative: B

WEBSITES :
    -Elder Rage.com
    -PROFILE : Irvine resident hits a mark with 'Elder Rage' (Peggy Goetz, Irvine World News)
 
 

West with the Night by Beryl Markham (or her husband as the case may be) is
an outstanding example of poetic prose. Based on my sketchy knowledge of
Beryl Markham, the cover photo, and the title, I expected a  factual account
of aviation and a transatlantic flight. While the book does, in fact, cover
 these, it is the brilliant descriptions of people, places, and animals that
captivated me.

Being informed that Beryl Markham probably did not herself write the book
lessened my enjoyment of it as it lost the power of a first person account.
However, the masterful descriptions stand on their own.
If you read nothing else, read the chapter entitled "Royal Exile" for an
achingly beautiful trip into the spirit of a horse!

Here are some of my favorite examples of  use of language:

*(in the future it will be discovered) .that all the science of flying  has been captured in the breadth on an instrument board, but not the religion of it.
*human beings drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it.
*Even in Africa, the elephant is as anomalous as the Cro-Magnon Man might be shooting a round of golf at Saint Andrews in Scotland

Grade: B+

WEBSITES:
    -Author and Hero in West With the Night (Robert Viking O'Brien in The Journal of African Travel-Writing)
    -Beryl Markham (short bio)

This book is an easy read which raises some important questions but it is a bit overdone. The book will engage you in a philosophical debate on your view of life: do you think you determine your own life?  Do you think you make choices?  And if so, do you take responsibility for those choices?

Jo, the main character, says, "I wanted to think of certain things Iíd done as being not really who I am." And so she removes herself from those things in a variety of ways, but always as if she were totally absent from herself, hence the title.  Miller was struggling with ideas for a new book the summer that OJ Simpson dominated national news and a Somerville teen who killed his neighbor dominated the Boston news. In each case, the accused staunchly maintained, in the face of all evidence, "I did not do this." Miller kept wondering, "How does someone disassociate oneself so completely from oneís behavior?"  And from this wondering emerged this book with its timely theme, ironic since the master of disassociation was yet be brought to the publicís attention.

Jo is always looking for something more in life, and if what she has doesn't suit her, if she doesn't like what is happening in her life, she walks away and begins again. Many of us may have used the term, "I started a new chapter in my life," but we were also aware the chapters were all one book. Jo, on the other hand, seems to think that life comes equipped with a delete key! Donít like it?  Click; itís gone! Nor does she grow and change much by the end of the book, so she becomes an annoying character, one you would like to shake and advise, "Grow up!" Another character (nameless so as not to spoil the story) outdoes even Jo in denial.  One thing I've never figured out: do people such as this convince themselves of their innocence?  Convince themselves that their life happened in a different way?

Then there's poor old Daniel who is described as "good at what he did because he held on to some part of himself through everything."  Well, good for him, but why didn't he hold on to and use his communicating skills when he most needed them?"

When I was teaching, it was, of course, quite common for a child confronted with wrongdoing to either deny it or say, "So and so made me do it." This would engender the following lecture from me: "Sometimes it seems really scary to take responsibility for what you do.  But you know what?  It really gives you more power.  Because if someone else made you do it, you can't change them.  But if you admit you did it, you can change yourself. And that's powerful!" Jo, are you listening?

Grade: B

WEBSITES:
    -Reading Group Guide (from Knopf)
    -Review (Jay Parini--New York Times)
    -Review (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt--New York Times)
    -Review (Salon Magazine)
    -Interview: Sue Miller: Tidying Up After the Wrinkling of Time (Lit Kit)
    -WRITERS ON WRITING Virtual Reality: The Perils of Seeking a Novelist's Facts in Her Fiction (SUE MILLER for NY Times)
    -Interview (Book Page)
    -The Transformational Rhetoric of Photography in Sue Miller's Family Pictures (Brenda 0. Daly)

Read Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, and you will have an entirely new appreciation for the orchid.  Did you know that the orchid takes seven years from seed to bloom?  That there are over 100,00 named varieties and hybrids? That the plant lives so long fanciers make provisions for it in their wills?
I didn't think I was even interested in any of this, but Ms Orlean writes in such a way that I took in these facts as easily and unknowingly as the pills my mother crushed in applesauce.  But this is not just a book of facts, it is a tale of adventure, peppered with people who will go to any lengths to find or develop a unique plant.

The people in this book "sincerely loved something, trusted in the perfectibility of some living thing, lived for a myth about themselves and the idea of adventure, were convinced that certain things were really worth dying for, believed that they could make their lives whatever they dreamed."(p. 201)  The book actually exists on three levels: as a treatise on orchids; as a description of Laroche, the gnarly yet lovable thief of the title; as an explanation of the human passion for collecting and acquiring:

    The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it.  There are too many ideas and things
    and people, too many directions to go.  I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care
    passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.
    It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility." (p. 109)

GRADE: A
 

WEBSITES:
    -REVIEW: (Ted Conover, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: (BOB RUGGIERO, Bookpage)
    -REVIEW: (Sally Eckhoff , Salon)
    -EXCERPT: Chapter One The Millionaire's Hothouse (Denver Post)
    -Susan Orlean on Martha Stewart Living
    -INTERVIEW: (Whad'ya Know?, NPR)

As I read this book, I imagined myself reading it aloud to a classroom of third or fourth graders.  They loved it - and so did I!  One roots for Harry Potter from the beginning and breathlessly  participates in each of his adventures. The author's command of descriptive language creates terrific characters  and challenging situations. There is just enough grossness to satisfy kids and not enough violence to alarm parents. The owl messengers, the invisible cloak, the sorcererís stone, the Quidditch game, the classes Harry must take: all capture the imagination. And speaking of imagination, if it is true that kids are reading these Potter books, I, for one rejoice. I just hope they get a chance to picture all the marvelous characters, implements, and situations in this book before they are pictured for them in a movie or video!

This is a marvelous book for family reading-aloud: a chapter a night, if you can get away with that little.  Kids love to be read to even after they can read for themselves!

Grade: A
 
 

WEBSITES:
    -Of magic and single motherhood|  (MARGARET WEIR, Salon)
    -SAMPLE CHAPTER (Scholastic, Inc.)
    -DISCUSSION GUIDE (Scholastic, Inc.)
    -REVIEW: This sorcery isn't just for kids (CHARLES TAYLOR, Salon)
    -REVIEW: (Michael Winerip, NY Times)
    -BookPage Children's Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
    -Meet Harry Potter (Scholastic, Inc)
    -'Harry Potter,' the wizard of children's book sales (Kathy Boccella, Philadelphia Inquirer)
     -Book review: 'Harry Potter' is this year's breakout book  (EILEEN HEYES, News Observer)
     -Slate Book Club: discussion of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Slate)

Orrin's review piqued my interest in this book, which I had picked up and put down several times in the past, never getting past the first few pages.

Clearing that first hurdle, I saw what has kept this fable popular for so many years. I liked the  characters and the "lessons." I was especially fond of the tippler and the businessman, and the poignant description of "taming."  And, of course, there is the oft-quoted, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Toward the end I began to feel that I was reading the New Testament but that is perhaps what will keep the fable in my consciousness: that and the marvelous pictures which I still find the best part of the book!

GRADE:   B

WEBSITES:
    -etext: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery  Illustrated by author Translated from the French by Katherine Woods
    -The Little Prince Picture Index (click picture to get text)
    -Asteroid B-612
    -The Little Prince Home Page
    -Le Petit Prince - The Little Prince: The multilingual Little Prince
    -The Fox and the Little Prince
    -International LITTLE PRINCE Online
    -Little Prince Postcards:  Illustrations by Vasili Kandinsky
    -Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery: Pilot, Poet, Man
    -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry at Villa St. Jean
    -Antoine de SAINT-EXUPERY Memorial
    -Simple Complexity: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Michael Waddell)
    -REVIEW: of SAINT-EXUPERY A Biography. By Stacy Schiff. ( Isabelle de Courtivron, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of WARTIME WRITINGS 1939-1944 By Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Translated by Norah Purcell. (Nona Balakian, NYTimes Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Saint-Exupéry: A Biography by Stacy Schiff  Lonely Passion (A. Alvarez, NY Review of Books)
    -Saint Exupery picture