The Tortilla Curtain
by T. Coraghessan Boyle
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Book Reviews of The Tortilla Curtain
Book Review: disappointingly derivative
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
(spoiler)
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-
Book Review: California Dreaming
Summary: 5 Stars
Q: So what is this book about?A: Hmm, that's a pretty good question. There are issues of race involved, and racism, but you probably guessed that from the title. Honesty and values are questioned and examined. And national pride is also a going issue. And comparative wealth. But these aren't really what the book is about. It's more about... well, you'll just have to read it.
Q: That sounds like a cop-out. Didn't you read the book yourself?
A: Of course I did. I just finished reading it last night, around suppertime.
Q: Then why can't you give me a rundown of what the book's about?
A: Because it's a complex and sophisticated book. Author T. Coraghessan Boyle creates characters who represent both literal and supra-literal themes, contrasting the extremes of the economic spectrum in Southern California. His use of symbolic language and imagery is on a par with Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. He consciously makes us think of modern issues in terms that were defined in other eras by writers like Voltaire, Aristotle, Keats, Jefferson, and Rousseau. This is an important and meaningful work. You really ought to read it.
Q: Sounds like the boring "literature" I had to read in high school that didn't even pretend to communicate with me. Is this going to be as dull as those books were?
A: Not hardly. I found it gripping reading. I put off preparing dinner to have time to read this book. I was late to class behind the time I spent reading this book. I missed my bedtime because I didn't want to stop reading this book. There are a lot of painfully dull books out there that we read because we're told we ought to, but not this one. You'll want to spend time reading this book, even as it challenges your assumptions.
Q: But that's not what this book is really about. Can you give me a thumbnail plot summary?
A: Sure. Delaney Mossbacher is a red-haired writer in his forties with liberal leanings and a tendency to become passionate about issues, living in California, though born on the East Coast-notably, this is a description that also applies to Boyle. Cándido Rincón is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, camped with his wife in a grassy creek valley in the middle of L.A.
Each is afflicted with his own worries, and each invests the same weight in his respective worries, though their respective circumstances mean they have very different worries. Delaney frets about the environment, racial parity, crime, and making payments on his house and car. Cándido worries about getting work to buy food, and whether his wife will be able to give birth in a hospital. Both are afflicted by a common seeming curse: everything either one tries to accomplish ultimately fails.
One day Delaney accidentally hits Cándido on the road, leaving the poor immigrant wounded and unable to find work. If Cándido goes to a hospital, the INS will deport him, so he accepts $20 from Delaney and slinks off to heal. All this happens right on page one and the next few pages-Boyle isn't interested in wasting the reader's time with slow set-up, and heads straight for the meat of his story.
From that one accident, the lives of the two men and their families move in tight orbits around each other, though they never discover it. They can't communicate, because they don't share a common language, and they're doomed forever to misunderstand one another. Each thinks the other to be something he isn't, and as they wade through a morass of non-comprehension, leading to a cataclysmic confrontation, both watch everything they thought they knew about themselves and the world around them crumble under the weight of suspicion, ignorance, and doubt.
You really ought to read the book.
Q: But you make it sound like there's even more going on than just the plot. What all is this book trying to tell us?
A: It's about California. The two characters are emblematic of the spirit and nature of the state. Bear in mind, the California of the Beach Boys hasn't existed since about 1974. California is a divided state. Wealthy white people like Delaney get ahead by working and living with a go-go-go drive that leaves them too occupied to enjoy anything they've accomplished. These people are dependent on the working poor like Cándido for cheap, plentiful labor, but they despise these aliens for the very reason they need them-they work tirelessly, cheaply, plentifully, without paying taxes or being regulated.
Q: Is California really like that?
A: By and large. When I was younger I thought the Beach Boys' California must still exist, especially since I didn't notice the kind of life Boyle describes when I was attending high school in San Diego. However, that was over ten years ago. Having gone back as an adult, I have seen that California is a fragmented state, carved up into characterless subdivisions, ruled by glossy high-tech corporations, and consuming more of the natural world than it returns. The success-oriented California culture leaves no room for slacking off, and eats the few remaining pleasure-seekers and beach-bunnies for lunch. And it's fueled by the bulk labor of the inexhaustible supply of illegal immigrants that cross the border every day. It's all there to be read, you really ought to read the book.
Q: But what is the book ABOUT?
A: Everything I've said and more. It's sophisticated literature and it's lunchtime reading. It's brutally honest and it's humane. It sympathizes with the characters even as it's damning them. There's only one thing I can say about it: you really ought to read the book.
Book Review: Why Me?
Summary: 1 Stars
07 March 2006
Why Me?
This is a book review for the novel The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle. Just to get things straight, I would like to start by saying this, I was not impressed. The title on the cover of the book is not even capitalized, maybe that will show you that the author doesn't know how to write, or that he at least knows that you should only capitalize important thing, which this book is not. As you can probably tell by this first paragraph this is not a book report by a fan of the novel. The picture of the author on the back of the novel is not very flattering either, every time I turn the book over and look at it, it makes my stomach turn with fright and disgust, it looks like a picture that belongs on America's Most Wanted, and the first thing it makes me want to do, is to scream out hide your women and children. If this first paragraph has not turned you away from reading this novel yet, than continue reading the next paragraphs. If you are unfortunate to read this book like I was, than you will often shake your head in despair and ask yourself why me?
I suppose I should summarize the torture I was forced by my school to read. If you can stay awake from reading a summary about this book, than that makes one of us. Here it goes nonetheless, the opening pages start to sound interesting enough when a man named Delaney hits a man named Candido with his car, as he was driving down the highway. But that is about as interesting as it gets, it is all down hill from that point. It doesn't even describe who was in the wrong, Delaney claims he didn't see Candido and that he just jumped up out of no where, and Candido, the second main character (who is an illegal Mexican immigrant), claims he was just walking on the side of the road and Delaney purposely ran him over. To me that is a sad excuse as a plot starter. The setting of the book is in Los Angeles California. Delaney, his wife Kyra, and his son Jordan live in a gated community. Candido and his wife America (yes I know, really creative naming someone after the continent they live on) live in a park forest, in a small hut that they made themselves. Living in a park forest is of course illegal, and non-surprisingly enough causes them trouble in the near future. The narration changes every chapter between Candido and Delaney.
The rest of the book is basically a conflict between Candido finding a job to support his pregnant wife, and Delaney trying to keep Mexicans out of his community. I already know there are prejudice rich people, and there are very pore people. So I don't know what boundaries Boyle thought he was breaking when he wrote this book. But he has broken some, probably not the ones he was looking for, I give him the award of the worst book I had to read in English class.
The biggest problem that I have with the book, besides from it being so boring, is that everything in it is sad. I cannot remember one happy moment in the book. The only time I can remember smiling during that novel was when it was over and I could close the book never to reopen it again. The smile of course soon faded because of all my time lost reading the book, and the scary picture of the author on the back, looking up at me, as previously mentioned. I know I am going to have nightmares about that face sooner or later. But in all truthfulness it was depressing. The poor Mexican's first wife has an affair with him, and he loses the fight he gets into to protect his honor: he gets hit by a car, he can't find a real job throughout the entire novel, he starts to steel, his wife gets raped, he gets cheated from pay from a landscaper, he burns down the forest by accident, he lives in small dirty hut, his daughter is born blind, he gets blamed for things he doesn't do, a man (Delaney) pulls a gun on him, he loses his house, the few belongings he had in a flood, and his new born daughter drowns to death in the flood. I get depressed just remembering it. Just to help prove my point, here is a sentence from the book, about how Candido feels; "It was beyond irony, beyond questions of sin and culpability, beyond superstition: he couldn't live in his own country and he couldn't live in this one either. He was a failure, a fool [...]" (322). Delaney's life isn't all fun and games either, yes he is rich, but his car gets damaged a number of times: his wife's dream house gets burned down, his community keeps getting broken in to and vandalized, he marriage life sounds dull, as does his kid, he gets in a fight, someone threatens his life, he becomes paranoid and stays up all night looking at a wall trying to catch vandals, and a person he hates (Candido) saves his life.
I have seen and heard of enough sadness in my life. I don't need to read about it in some stupid book. If I wanted to see more sadness I could just look out my car window, turn on the news, or look at kid's faces in the hallway. In conclusion, I hope I have caught you in time, to stop you from making a big mistake and reading a horrible book. I can honestly say that I wish I had not read this book, and that my life would have been better if I hadn't.
Work Cited
Boyle, T.C. The Tortilla Curtain. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Book Review: Tortilla Curtain = differentiated view on immigration?
Summary: 4 Stars
In the book "The Tortilla Curtain", T.C. Boyle evaluates a over the years still relevant and often discussed topic - illegal immigration in the USA - and can be seen as a representative of the modern realism movement, describing this " historical situation from a new social and political standpoint" (Malcom Bradbury "Modern realist Fiction" 1988).
The epigram at the beginning of the book, an excerpt from the novel "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, puts Boyle's work in a certain tradition.
In the past years, many artists, writers, producers etc. tried to focus on this topic more closely.
Boyle's intention writing this book, is the attempt to presentate the topic in a very differentiated way, including as many different opinions and points of view as possible.
The story is set in Topanga Canyon (Los Angeles) - a wealthy region near the dividing line between America and Mexico, between rich and poor - the tortilla curtain.
Many descriptive details are making is easy to place in the geographic area.
The story is based on the life of four main characters, coming from different social and cultural backgrounds.
On the one hand you get to know the well organized and wealthy Californian couple Delaney and Kyra Mosbacher but on the other hand you get also aware of the delicate and dangerous life of a illegal immigrated couple, called América and Cándido Rincón.
Delaney, a journalist for a natural magazine, and Kyra his wife, a successful real estate agent, live in a exclusive and secure community, overlooking the Topanga Canyon.
The 17 years old pregnant América camps with her 13 years older husband Cándido within the canyon, enduring hunger, crime, pain and abuse.
The story starts with a car accident, where the two "worlds" meet the first time.
A chain of events follows, leading to a dramatic confrontation at the end of this borderline grotesque.
From now on life is determined by one setback after another.
Boyle chose the third - person narration, switching from one nationality to the other at the beginning of each chapter.
One of the main strengths of the book are the lively descriptions of the main characters.
Delaney's attitude towards foreigners develops, referring to the change of his point of view concerning Hispanics, throughout the book.
At the beginning he calls himself a liberal humanist and becomes, forced by circumstances and several events, a racist.
Also Cándido, his Mexican counterpart, is three dimensional.
Flashbacks are giving the opportunity to get to know him more closely, his way of thinking, his attitude towards life and the reasons for his acting and we can also gain knowledge about the immigration system in the USA, concerning for example the flashbacks where he remembers a deportation or how he crossed the border.
At first glance, taking the symbolic meaning of the names of some characters into account, ( for example América - a young wife, full of faith and dreams for/ of a better future in the USA) the topic seems to be presented in a very superficial way - only in black and white.
Besides, the Americans are presented in a sometimes a bit exaggerated and harsh seeming way, that one can have the impression of getting persuaded, feeling pity for the Mexican protagonists.
But still their are also some interesting flat characters, making the view more differentiated.
There is for example José Navidad, a violent, inhuman "bad-Mexican", who rapes América; or Mary an alcoholic, American hippy and Tod Sweet the " good- American", who represents the convinced and active humanist.
At the beginning one will share an alternating sympathy for both nationalities, seeing them endure separate fates in a form of cultural or environmental predestination, but the use of irony and sarcasm changes this attitude throughout the novel.
Delaney and Kyra for example, content interiors of the American Dream, live just a few miles away from the starvation, pain and loss of Cándido and his wife.
The fact that America defines itself as a nation of immigrants leads to an interesting question: What right do (immigrated) Americans (themselves) have to exclude other people embodying different social and cultural backgrounds such as the Mexicans?
Caused by some exaggerated descriptions of the characters and the plot, one can hardly escape the critic drawn on the American society with its superficial liberal and humanistic ideals.
The book is worth reading, including many different aspect on the topic immigration such as overpopulation, unemployment, crime or a debate on "gated communities" and gives so a good reasonable and general idea about illegal immigration in the USA.
Sara
Book Review: Tortilla Curtain review
Summary: 4 Stars
The Tortilla Curtain Book Review
Having a setting in Los Angeles, The Tortilla Curtain is a novel written by T.C. Boyle that shows in great detail the way two opposing worlds become further distanced by the self-satisfying view of one world and the basic need for survival of the other. The first world is the American way of life portrayed by the liberal couple, Delaney and Kyra. The second is the illegal immigrant life portrayed by the couple, Candido and America. Each couple desires to live the American dream and must endure completely different trials as the two worlds clash together.
Although the experiences Candido and America must endure may not apply to all immigrants, they clearly show how difficult it can be for many when all goes wrong. On the receiving end, they experience the greatest realms of fear, pain, poverty, and hatred. The novel opens as Candido is crossing the street and is hit by Delaney's car. Greatly injured and given only $20 by Delaney, Candido instantly loses any possibility of finding work to support his pregnant wife. Relentlessly, he must rely on America to find work each day to allow their survival. Camped out in a ravine, recovering, Candido waits for America each day to return, hoping she has found work but at the same time despising the thought that he, a man, is unable to support her, let alone himself. He worries about her. He fears the wild men in the world who would take advantage of the beautiful America. In the past, men have attempted to rape her and do succeed at one point in the
novel which leads to further complications in her relationship with Candido and in her pregnancy. Candido eventually does recover enough to work again, however, each time the two progress financially, they are stripped of all they have and forced to start from scratch. The labor exchange is eventually shut down which also shuts down any potential income for all the immigrants. "Candido sat there in the ashes, rocking back and forth and pressing his hands to his temples, thinking how worthless he was, how unworthy of America, whose life he'd ruined too, and of his daughter, his beautiful dark-eyed little daughter, and what she could hope to expect" (322). Living in these conditions force both Candido and America to resort to solutions they never imagined themselves capable of. They eat from the garbage, consume wild and domestic life, and steal from homes and gardens, all in order to survive.
Kyra and Delaney live in Arroyo Blanco, a pleasant community away from the crime of the world where they can feel safe and secure. Kyra is a real estate agent who loves her job and is the main supporter of her family. Delaney is a writer who loves nature, which is the reason for having chosen to live in Arroyo Blanco. Delaney had initially felt that "immigrants [were] the lifeblood of the nation" (101), however, his views begin to change the day he hits Candido with his car. Eventually Delaney blames nearly everything that goes wrong on the illegal immigrants and more specifically, on Candido. Such instances include his car being stolen, Spanish graffiti being found on a home, his discovery of immigrants camping out in the local canyon, and the canyon catching on fire. He blames it all on the illegal immigrants. Kyra has always been annoyed with the increasing Mexican growth in their city because she feels it scares away any potential buyers. This simple annoyance intensifies as the novel progresses as well.
When the idea of a wall around their community is brought up in a town meeting, Kyra is immediately for it. Delaney, however, is not. He does not like the idea of being cut off from nature, but as situations worsen and more things go wrong throughout the course of the novel, his standpoint changes. He begins to feel that the only way to feel safe is to lock out the bad, and keep in the good.
Overall, the novel establishes the different points of view about immigration very clearly and shows how greatly a person can be changed whether it be to survive or maintain a level of convenience and comfort. It allows the reader to better understand the current immigrant issue existing in our nation today and also allows the reader to recognize the importance of understanding all people. The novel is a good read and highly recommended for any reader interested in modern day conflicts that anyone can relate to.