Like Water For Chocolate: A novel by Laura Esquivel

Despite this novel being written by a woman for the audience of a woman, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  The unique style in which Esquivel makes her point that food is the equivalent of love, and can also reflect other emotions we may feel when making this food.  The incorporation of recipes throughout the novel was the main thing I found so unique about this novel.  Personally, I love to cook and always have.  Being the oldest of two, my mother, a fantastic cook, has always used me as a helping hand in the kitchen.  I think that this ia large part of the reason that I enjoyed this novel so much.  Now, put this book in my brother's hands who may be compared to Gertrudis in the kitchen, and I doubt he would enjoy it as much as myself. The reason that I say that someone who may not be as in tune with their culinary skills as many wish to be would not enjoy this book as much as someone who is highly skilled in the culinary arts is simple.  People who cook understand that love is as big and as necessary an ingredient as any other you may use in a particular recipe.  Through Esquivel's various forms of magical realism her point is relayed to the reader in a sometimes humorous manner than I found to be highly entertaining.  One of my favorite scenes in the book is when Tita has been sent to the insane asylum by Mama Elena and she is grabbing her quilt that she knits every night due to her insomnia.  When she goes to grab the quilt it is so unbelievably large that it simply cannot fit inside of the carriage that is taking the Doctor and Tita to the Doctor's house.  The quilt, in an unrealistic fashion, drags behind the carriage for all to see Tita's many many colors.  I think that Tita's quilt of never ending colors serves as a metaphor for her life in some ways.  Because of the unpredictability of available yarn Tita encountered while making this quilt, Tita's quilt is a random mess of colors (at least that is the sense I got from reading about it), which when made into one gigantic quilt looks unique and amazing.  This ceaseless quilt also represents the length of someones life.  Every night when Tita should have been sleeping, she knitted her quilt in an obsessive manner.  She knitted so much that when she died, the quilt covered 3 hectares if my memory serves correct and was sent into a ball of flames.  Tita never knew what color she would work with next in her quilt, much as she never knew what insane obstacle would help to shape the person she became before she died.  But in the end, no matter what color Tita knitted into her beautiful gigantic quilt, or whatever soul grinding task Mama Elena put Tita through, what became of everything was beautiful and interesting.  The quilt, or the life of this lovely woman.  Both are beautiful no matter how they are shaped.  It is just important that they are shaped in some way.  Character's in life such as Rosaura are boring and self-centered.  Rosaura was so boring and obnoxious because she was not shaped at all.  She was more like a lifeless blob of a character, which seemed to be Esquivel's intention.  I think it is important that Esquivel hints that boring people are the people that follow rules(Rosaura).  Instead, be more like Gertrudis and make your own rules.  Although being a little shallow for her lack of cooking expertise, she is an interesting and unrepressed woman for the unique path she paved in her life.  Because she forged her own way, I see Gertrudis as a fascinating character although not a lot of the story revolves around her.  Not only did she ride away from her families ranch while making love on the back of a horse, she came back a refined woman and a general in the revolutionary army.  Although she worked in a brothel for an entire year after leaving the ranch, she turned out fine.  This is another important point that Esquivel brings up.  Here, I think she is telling us that if we enjoy ourselves and do what some others may perceive as crude, this can actually work out well for us in shaping who we become.  I can certainly relate to this in the very recent past.  I recently had a baby that was out of wedlock, which a lot of people in this country and many other countries around the world would consider an appalling thing.  But, since having Aslynne (my daughter) in my life, my life has done a one hundred and eighty degree turn.I seem to have found a new purpose to my everyday existence.  Although many people around the world, and even in our country would condemn me for having a child out of wedlock, I can honestly say that after only 16 weeks of being a parent it has started to shape me into the man that I hope to be for the rest of my life.  One that would do anything in his power to help his daughter.  In conclusion, not only did I enjoy this fascinating novel immensely, I also found the underlying themes that Esquivel brings to our attention to hold very true in my eyes.  The symbolism that Laura Esquivel uses with her intriguing style of writing makes her points a lot more apparent than she could have given another means of communication.  Esquivel uses magical realism to her advantage for the comprehension of the meaning of her novel.

Zorro in the magnificent form of a graphic novel

To begin, my experience with Zorro consisted of the silly version that Antonio Banderas played Zorro in.  This, as I have come to find, it quite a travesty.  The version that I, and most people in class seemed to be familiar with, was a horrible distortion of the original Zorro, there was little to no similarities in the actual character.  I for one am very glad that we got to read this graphic novel which paints, both literally and figuratively, Zorro in quite a different light than the Zorro that Americans from my generation are mostly familiar with.  Not only was this my first experience with ever reading anything about Zorro, this was also my first experience with reading a graphic novel.  I must say that I enjoyed reading a graphic novel a whole lot.  I found it to be a very unique reading experience.  In fact, I enjoyed this graphic novel so much, that I have ordered the second one already.  The main difference I found in reading a graphic novel as opposed to a standard novel, was that rather than having a lot of the reading be descriptions of things, mostly all of the reading you do in graphic novels is dialogue and basic plot lines.  There really is not a whole lot of descriptions if any at all.  The descriptions of the way people look, or the way a scene is portrayed is certainly a large part of the story just like a traditional novel.  However, it is simply shown in a different fashion.  These descriptions as in the illustrations which are an essential part of how the reader reacts to the story.  It was very interesting how each page was completely different than the previous.  The way in which the story was told required different sized illustrations to show different actions.  For example, my favorite scene in the entire graphic novel is near the very end of the story.  At the end of the fight between Gonzalez and Zorro, when Zorro claims his victory of the battle not by killing Gonzalez, because that is what a weak individual would do, but by carving a Z into his face.  For me this page in particular was one that not only stood out, but was also not as likely to be analyzed by the rest of the class.  The way in which this page is illustrated gives us an excellent close up shot of Gonzalez getting the finishing touches on his gigantic "Z" we see being carved into his face.  This close up gives and excellent expression in which we can see the pain in Gonzalez face, which almost seems like a win for the reader.  This man that has caused so much pain for so many is finally being punished properly for his sins.  Zorro does not do him the privilege of ending his life, as a cowardly man may.  He carves a "Z" into his face, for everyone who ever looks at him again will see.  This is a very strong image for Francesco Francavilla to portray in this fantastic display of emotion we see at the end of this epic battle.  The two images that come directly below the close up carving are of equal importance in my eyes.  While Gonzalez is essentially weeping with his hands covering his face we see Zorro cock back a chair, and in the next illustration directly below he follows through Gonzalez and see a huge "KRASSH."  In my eyes, this represents the justice that Zorro stands for.  When at the end of his epic battle not only does he forever scar the man that represents evil in the most visible part of his body, Zorro also gets his redemption shot in directly after.  The important thing about Zorro is that he does not kill Gonzalez, as he will stand for a representation or Zorro existing.  If people realize that Zorro actually exists, they are in theory less likely to commit any wrongdoings which may warrant Zorro's presence.  Overall, I loved this story.  It really seemed a little silly to me that in college we would be analyzing a graphic novel.  After reading this one though, not only am I already buying number two, I also feel silly for ever questioning the validity of another means of communication.  I look forward to reading many more graphic novels in the future thanks to Zorro opening my eyes.