The Tortilla Curtain
by T. Coraghessan Boyle
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Book Reviews of The Tortilla Curtain
Book Review: Ambiguity Need Not Apply
Summary: 2 Stars
Certainly well worded(Boyle is undoubtedly a strong practitioner colorful descriptions and witty metaphors), and occasionally funny, this novel falls short of success on many levels (in my estimation, a book's success is predicated on certain tangible factors such as character, breadth of ideas, manner of execution of said ideas, prose aptitude... the intangible factors include such things as how the book feels or the manner in which the work excites me, tickles my imagination, gives me a rise). I'll spare the plot summation and get right down to it. The themes, all worthy include, the psychosis of white enclaves and the psychosis of the American dream, entitlement and despair, contradictions of self and societal contradictions... there are more, but this is the gist. Taking these strong themes into account, Boyle's delivery is rather flaccid. First, he takes a clear dogmatic approach by rendering the immigrant family with full depth and pity whilst constructing our white, wealthy suburbanites with a distinct air of flatness, two dimensionality, obvious archetypes. This relieves the novel of its potential for moral ambiguity(the reader, or certainly I, don't want my moral hand held throughout a novel). Instead, we're presented with a work that's clearly a treatise on the dark and often hypocritical nature of wealthy, comfortable, deluded liberals, the white upper-middle class, our white collared cultural elite. With this being clear, a reader really can only agree or disagree with the novel... my estimation is that those offended by Boyle's stance would likely dismiss the work as leftist tripe, while those in accordance with its views would feel validated in their mutual concern with immigration issues and the ignorance of privilege. Where's the literary excitement in that? Worse, this polarizing novel achieves its ends through the means of blatant, nearly trite symbolism such as the coyote and its representation of the American idea of illegal aliens. I don't wholeheartedly disdain the book, for it was written well and structured creatively, revealing much direct mirroring and negative mirroring between the immigrant family and our bountiful American family. But, to be frank, Tortilla Curtain is ultimately an insult to the intelligence of its readers, not allowing us to grasp the density of its themes and moral implications on our own. Boyle does that all for us. For lovers of disengaging narratives, this is your book. Otherwise, save your time.Book Review: "His whole life was a headache"
Summary: 4 Stars
Somewhere between the rocky foothills and deep canyons outside Los Angeles, California exist two separate worlds: one inhibited by American citizens and the other by illegal aliens from south of the border. T.C. Boyle's TORTILLA CURTAIN examines the colliding edges of these two very different worlds through the portrayal of four main characters. Delaney Mossbacher is a strong advocate of the preservation of the environment and species. He resides in a gated community on the top of a canyon away from the uncertainties of the city. Delaney lives with his wife, a power real-estate agent and her 6-year-old son from a previous marriage. Meanwhile down in the canyon below Candido and America Rincon are barely making ends meet while constantly dodging the police and INS. While Candido searches high and low every day for work that pays meager wages and no benefits, pregnant America remains in the canyon impatiently waiting for the comfortable apartment, new clothes, and ample food promised to her by Candido before they married and left their Mexican village. Although both couples live in near proximity to each other they live completely different standards of living (hence the use of the title, The Tortilla Curtain.) Throughout the course of this novel there are several chance encounters between the two couples. During these chance encounters each person relies exclusively on stereotypical assumptions of the other. They are frequently reminded of the presence of the other, which only results in deepening anger and misunderstanding levels. As time progresses both Delaney and Mossbacher change their assessment of each other, but in a negative fashion. Delaney modifies his liberal assessments of Mexican immigrants when his own personal world and belief system is disturbed. Meanwhile, Candido feels more entitlement to his illegal presence and acts once he withstands multitude negative actions made against him by gringos. Both wish the other would simply disappear.
There is no doubt that there are enough sociopolitical issues abound in THE TORTILLA CURTAIN to make anyone feel uneasy with current political policies. Though I think Boyle succeeds in highlighting both sides of this dire issue, there are instances where I felt he went over the top to achieve his goal (i.e. Candido's constant failure). While I felt that the plot was a little contrived, Boyle's prose is certainly admirable. This book certainly stays with you long after it is put down.
Book Review: Not an accurate depiction of Topanga
Summary: 1 Stars
Many people have already mentioned the lack of characterization in this book and the way Boyle uses the people in this story as symbols rather than actual well rounded human beings, as well as his tendency to overwrite, describing a single event with two or more contradictory similes.
However, no has as yet discussed the fact that the depiction of Topanga Canyon in the book is a complete fabrication, leaving me to wonder if the author has ever actually been to Topanga Canyon at all. I have spent a lot of time there over the years and would like to say that there are no gated or ungated subdivisions in the actual Topanga Canyon. The Canyon community consists of individual houses, precariously built into a wild forested valley along Topanga Canyon Boulevard which winds its way for miles and miles through the Topanga mountains, alongside Topanga State Park. It would be impossible to build a housing development in this area because there is not enough flat land to do so. It is sort of like a little hippie village in the mountains. You would never know you are twenty minutes from LA there as everyone goes around in super casual comfortable clothes, unlike the characters in the novel, and rainboots because it is often muddy in all seasons except summer. The people I met in Topanga are by and large later day hippy freethinkers, older surfers, proffesors, musicians, actors, part-time pot growers and the complete opposite of the brand name and status obsessed people of the story. There are people with money there, but you would never think it by the way people act or dress and some of the cars you see around. Topanga is actually probably one of the safest and most tolerant communities in America. I didn't see any mention of Topanga Days, the Topanga Festival or the Topanga parade in the book, which is kind of like a small, better organized Woodstock, all of which are very big deals for a true Topangite or the problems of frequent rocks slides, roads washed out by mud or rain in the winter and the threat of brush fires in summer.
I realize that Boyle's aim in creating the book was to show the wide gap between the standards of living of illegal Mexican immigrants and the wealthy whites in Southern California, however his false depiction of Topanga Canyon detracts from the realism of his book and unfairly tars a wonderful community with a very nasty brush.
Book Review: Too stereotypical
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a novel set in Southern California in the 1990s. A nature writer married to a real estate agent hits an illegal Mexican migrant with his car; the migrant is pushed onto the road by a Latino thug who wants to have sex with his wife. The lives of the nature writer and the real estate agent, the migrant and his pregnant 17-year-old wife, and the Latino thug and his buddy intersect in many ugly ways. Having been robbed when they crossed the border, the migrants cannot rent an apartment, so they camp out in a canyon near the housing development where the nature writer and the real estate agent live. The husband is robbed by criminals and cheated by dishonest labor contractors; the wife is raped by the Latino thug. After somebody gives the husband a gift of frozen Thanksgiving turkey, he builds a fire and starts a brushfire in the canyon, which destroys many houses, including the real estate agent's prime property. The nature writer incorrectly tells the police that the Latino thug and his friend started the fire; the police arrests them and they spit in his face. The nature writer comes to hate the Mexicans, and is about to force the migrants out of their camp when a mudslide carries them all into the river, the migrants' newborn daughter drowns, but the migrant saves the nature writer's life.
The literary merits of this book are slight; the rape scene in John Irving's The World according to Garp made me (briefly) disgusted with sex and ashamed of being a male; the rape scene in this book didn't. The plot of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities also centers on a rich white man hitting a poor nonwhite (child in Wolfe's case) with his car, but Wolfe is equally critical of the rich and the poor, while Boyle is so hard on the rich couple and so admiring of the poor couple that I started to feel sorry for the former. Judging by the over 200 reviews on Amazon, this book is popular in high school and college English classes; many reviewers are Latino immigrants themselves, and they say that this book's portrayal of the misfortunes of the migrant couple is grossly exaggerated. By law hospitals in California are forced to treat indigent patients, including illegal immigrants; thus the migrant girl didn't have to give birth in a barn.
Book Review: A promising but ultimately disappointing novel
Summary: 3 Stars
In this novel, Boyle has tackled an important contemporary social issue in entertaining fashion. The book is a definite page-turner, drawing the reader in with exciting, non-stop action and inventive, image-evoking prose. However, I ultimately was disturbed by Boyle's commercialized, superficial treatment of the issues he confronts in this novel. Especially when a book is entertainingly written, it is easy for readers to forget that the novelist has nearly limitless power to manipulate his readers through story line, tone, and character development. Consequently, fictional accounts of "significant issues" can easily be mistaken for "documentary treatments," with unfortunate results. Here, Boyle seduces the reader with superficially realistic portrayals of the illegal alien protagonists and their Topanga Canyon liberal-yuppie counterparts. Actually, however, his characters are merely cardboard cut-out stereotypes who dance like marionettes in accordance with Boyle's ideological predilections--which turns out to be tiresomely predictable in way that he pillories "hypocritical yuppies" and romanticizes poor, "martyred" Mexicans immigrants. Boyle had an opportunity here to create a work in which the real tragedy of contemporary California is demonstrated, i.e., that well-meaning people of all backgrounds and situations are cast into a difficult situation over which they ultimately have little or no control. Boyle does follow this pathway for much of the book, but as the ending nears, he succumbs to the temptation to manipulate his readers by revealing, bit by bit, the truly vile nature of supposed "liberals." Yawn. This sanctimonious stance has become all too predictable among the artistic/academic set, whose principal intent ultimately seems to be to seek and hold the moral high ground against their unenlightened professional-managerial class rivals. This book ultimately disappoints. The issue of illegal immigration, its impacts and social repercussions, is far too important to be reduced to the soap-opera themes and characterizations to which Boyle ultimately succumbs.