The Tortilla Curtain
by T. Coraghessan Boyle
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Book Reviews of The Tortilla Curtain
Book Review: The Tortilla Curtain - Superficial Or Differentiated?
Summary: 4 Stars
The Tortilla Curtain tells the story about the life of two little families in southern California. One family, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher and their son Jordan live in welthy conditions. Having a job as a real estate trader Kyra is the boss of the family, the unsuccesful author Delaney is the houseman in their home in a private community near L.A.. Candidò and his unoficial and pregnant wife Amèrica are illegal immigrants from Mexico, struggling for a good life in the USA. Everytime the ways of that characters cross, they cause conflicts consiting of fear, hate, prejudice and aggression.
Here I want to judge how T.C.Boyle makes it to write an entertaining novel about that complex topic of immigration.
In my opinion he does it well.
Allways trying to consider the conflict between the Mossbachers and the couple of illegal immigrants from as much perspectives as possible, the book consists of stories about the Mexicans and the Americans told from the limited third-person point of view. Also the lots of flashbacks of nearly every main character make the reader understand the behaviour of them, even when the Mossbachers always make the impression of being narrow-mindet and a little bit ridiculous, for example their sexuall life, witch is just used as a therapy, or the Delaney's irrelevant magazine -articles about his hikings. The characters are credible.
Another point is, that Boyle doesn't serve clichès of heartless Americans and likable Mexicans. For every nationality there is at least one positive and one negative example. Though Candidò and Amèrica have to suffer under the daily unfairness of the Americans, in one flahback it becomes clear that an American farmer saved Candido's life once. Also there are some Mexicans who you can't feel any sympathy for. Hosè Navidad and his nameless friend rape Amèrica and threaten Kyra. Working with so many different characters ensures not prejudging a nation for whole.
And telling so much different stories cares for a very important argument for that book. The tension.
Though there are some boring passages included in the novel, like the descriptions of Kyra's working days, it owns a recognizable plot. The car accident, the fire in the canyon or the robbery of Candido give the story interesting twists. You want to know the end, wich is also surprising.
So I come to the conclusion, that the book is worth it's price. Buy it, borrow it, or whatever,
you will not be disappointed.
Johannes Hub
Book Review: Powerful blend of comic Voltaire and tragic Steinbeck
Summary: 4 Stars
T. C. Boyle's "The Tortilla Curtain" is a well-told and impressively written story that approaches some of the most difficult and pressing questions facing Americans today, questions involving who we are and want to be, and how open we are and want to be. Because it succeeds to a large degree in its provocations and plot, "The Tortilla Curtain" is a great read, and I recommend it.The key words here are migration and assimilation, in this case of Mexican itinerant laborer Cándido and his young, pregnant wife, América. Boyle cleverly and effectively frames their story and the story of the Southern Californians, Delaney and Kyra, within assimilations of older migration stories: Voltaire's "Candide" and Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath." The alternately ironic and literal invocation of these two older works allows Boyle to infuse "The Tortilla Curtain" with both the black-comic tendencies of Voltaire's novella and the portrayal and condemnation of social injustices so central to Steinbeck's masterpiece.
Nicely paced and well-written, Boyle permits the chapters to alternate between the Americans and the newly-arrived Mexicans until, in a powerful narrative moment towards the end, once it has become apparent that the two worlds are inextricably intertwined, the chapters begin to deal with both halves of the novel's world at once. Not only does the plot start to move even more quickly at this point, but the tensions are doubled, and the sense of too many people and not enough room that dogs the thinking of many of the American characters in "The Tortilla Curtain" makes itself starkly felt.
Strangely, it's at precisely this point that things start to feel less tight. The carefully plotted earlier sections of the novel make it all the more apparent that Boyle seems to be throwing things in during the last few chapters (where did Delaney's gun suddenly come from, for example?) in a sort of hasty authorial clean-up. Likewise, the nuance and complexity begin to devolve into a preachiness that is hammered home in the novel's final line; Boyle seems to have tired of the legitimate difficulty of the situation, and instead finally delivers us a hero.
Still, this novel is well worth the time. It is an often funny, often heartbreaking read. Even some of the less likable characters are rendered in a friendly manner, and this makes the whole world of "The Tortilla Curtain" feel very real. But even more real than the novelistic world of Boyle's creation are the painful political and social problems to which he rightfully draws our attention.
Book Review: Powerful Issues Addressed Realisitically
Summary: 4 Stars
This novel was very interesting because of the political and social issues it addresses. For example the issue of illegal immagrants and societal or class status. I was amazed at the way Boyle was able to get inside the mind of the characters and relate their feelings through the book. He provided each character with a realistic background, so he was able to show their thought processes and therefore the reason they act and react as they do. That made it easier for me to relate to the characters and what they were going through. For example, when Candido was unable to work and America had to get a job, I understood where he was coming from.. Being a man in idealogical, schovanistic world we live in, I was raised on the same ideal Candido held. That ideal is part of the basis of the "american dream," which is a major theme throughout the book. "A house, a yard, maybe a TV and a car too-nothing fancy, no palaces like the gringos built- just four walls and a roof." (pg.29) This is a theme that all Americans can relate to because its a search that most everyone must go through, the search for the American dream (although I admit its different for everyone). I like the way Boyle opened up my eyes to immmigrancy by giving me a glimpse of what an immigrant may go through (or at least his idea of what an immigrant may go through). I have sympathy for immigrants because many of them are searching for the same things I am, but this novel brings up the question, what happens when immigrants begin to infringe on my life, my goals and my opportunity? The second point that grabbed my interest (drawing me deeper into the book) is Boyles stand on class status. Seeing (or reading) the way Delaney and his neighbors lived, contrasted to the way Candido lived was in my opinion pure entertainment (you know, as well as good structured insight in the way people live as a direct result of their environment). The imagery of Dominick Flood's party shows the way Delaney's neighbors live and so in part shows why they feel and act the way they do about people who are not in the same social class as them (Mexican, immigrants, "the gangbangers" alike). "A string quartet was stationed under an awning that shaded the den..a table laden with enough food for siw Thanksgiving feasts, including a whole suckiling pig with a mango in its mouth and fresh-steamed lobsters surrounded by muliticolored platters of sashami and sushi." This book was very powerful in the statements it makes and also very enjoyable.Book Review: This Novel Should Be Entitled: A Series of Implausible Unfortunate Events
Summary: 2 Stars
I was "assigned" this book as a member of my local book club, and less than ten pages in, I knew the scoop: This is NO literary masterpiece - not even a tiny,teeny, little bit close. The book could have been and really should have been about 100 pages shorter, and there are so many more well written and more plausible books about the immigrant experience.
Long story short - Boyle juxtaposes the cushy, privileged life of Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, who live in a walled community called Blanco Arroyo. Yes - we get the symbolism of the white people walling themselves in from those of color - only breaking the barrier down to have their lawns mowed or their houses cleaned, and the unbelievably, and I mean UNBELIEVABLY pitiful, tragic, calamity-prone, impoverished life of Candido and his 17 year old wife America, who are in California illegally. When the novel opens, Delaney hits poor Candido with his fancy car, pays the near-dead Candido twenty dollars for the inconvenience of breaking nearly every bone in his body and runs straight to his slimy lawyer and fellow white, priviliged, bigoted neighbor in the walled development, just to make sure the half-dead, illegal immigrant Mexican can't horn in on any of his hard-earned assets earned by his work-obsessed wife Kyra who spends more time and energy closing deals than she does with her son Jordan. The slimy lawyer has an even slimier son, but you will need to hunker down and get through this book to find out about Jack.
Calamity after horrendous calamity befalls Candido and his pregnant young wife as they live in the woods and try to find work in our land of opportunity. Unless the reader has ice in his veins and is made of stone, one will sympathize with the truly pathetic plight of the illegal immigrant couple, and Boyle sets up a stereotypical situation in which the Mossbachers and neighbors become stock characters. They are the self-obsessed, materialistic, superficial, bigoted, NIMBY people who love Lou Dobbs and always vote Repbulican. The writing is mediocre and after a while, you just want Candido to please, dear God, take poor America home so she can have the baby in peace - maybe in poverty - but in peace.
I was the lone critic amongst the book club members who seemed to think the book brought up interesting issues dealing with illegal immigration. I can think of a hundred different ways I would like to read about that all important and vital issue and not one of them includes this book.
Book Review: Another Great, Troubling T.C. Boyle Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
This story really disturbed me. It disturbed me because it forced me to think and confront my own conflicting views of the illegal immigration issue. I can definitely sympathize with the couple who illegally immigrated to the US from Mexico, as they simply are looking for a better life. I can also sympathize with the yuppie couple and their neighbors, who become frightened and defensive as they deal with the surge of recent immigrants into their part of southern California.
The immigration issue is not going away any time soon in this country. TC Boyle's novel brings up a lot of ugly but true facts, opinions, beliefs, and situations concerning the conflict that can occur when the wealthy are confronted by the desperate have-nots living in their very shadow.
The actual writing is so good, it flows effortlessly and powerfully, with each page as artistic as a poem. While the writing is incredible, the actual characterizations I found to be very two-dimensional, as each of the four protagonists (yuppie man, yuppie woman, immigrant man, immigrant woman) appear to be stereotypical characters, or if I were to be more generous, one could call these four basic "archetypes".
Although I do highly recommend the book, the four main characters are all essentially unlikeable people. The yuppies are smug and self-righteous, the immigrants are a little naive and too trusting that things will be all right.
The story reminded me a little of an updated version of The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, except even the down on their luck Joad family never had the unrelenting bad luck that befall America and Candido. The book also pleasantly reminded me of a powerful film called "El Norte", another story where the American Dream is not so easy to come by if you are poor immigrants.
I suspect that one of the author's goals in writing this book was to humanize an issue that has become very politicized. I know I was supposed to really want the immigrant couple to succeed, but my advice to them, based on what happens to them in the book would have been to return home, where at least the people speak your language and you are not afraid of being arrested every time you appear in public.
I guess the book did give me a chance to reflect on my own fortune in life, with a good job, home, and all that; and give me a chance to think about what have I done lately to help my fellow human. "There but for the grace of God go I".