Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is definitely a quirky book. It was a bit difficult at first to try and sift through all of the food being woven into the story and what it represented. I also found it a bit hard to follow at times. I cannot say that it has been my favorite story and I tried to just let the story go as told but I found myself over analyzing and trying to wonder what things meant too often to maybe fully enjoy it. I found some of the descriptions very vivid, such as in August when a baby being attached to the placenta is described and if pulled out by the umbilical cord, the whole uterus would come out along with it!    My favorite use of food being used for emotions is on page 67 in April. Tita continues to grind flour while staring at Pedro, as if she is making a statement about what she wants to do with him while cooking. It is quite erotic but not explicit.

While reading this book I often wondered if any of the recipes would be any good. On the first page of September cocoa beans are mentioned and it reminded me of visiting Hershey Park and how wonderful chocolate sounded! To be honest I found the food a bit distracting. The sex throughout the book was not something that bothered me and I was expecting it to be more graphic when I started the novel. I think it will be interesting to compare the movie and the novel, not just for how the sex is portrayed, but for how the novel as a whole will play out on film. This was definitely an interesting book. Not something that I would pick up to read for every day but I am glad that I read it. I had never heard of it before and would not have chosen to read it on my own so I am glad that I got the experience.

Zorro

Zorro is an interesting comic book story. I am not entirely familiar with previous written versions of this story but this particular version is by Matt Wagner and Isabel Allende and Francesco Francavilla. All of these authors had a role in this version, which makes it entertaining to read. I cannot say that comics are my favorite type of book but it was nice to expand myself and read through it and see how it compared to the movie version that I am most familiar with.

                The artwork is very depictive of what Zorro could be imagined as. There are darker and lighter areas, showing when the enemy is speaking and has the action. My favorite out of the whole book is toward the end of the book. It is a full two pages and shows Zorro riding his horse, leaving a trail of dust behind him. I think it perfectly depicts a romantic notion that some people might have about a hero like Zorro.  The gutters in the book allow it to flow nicely, and makes it seem like the story is moving, as much as a book’s illustrations can move. Francavilla did a very nice job on this.

                The language in this book is used creatively. Wagner uses words like “krack” and “spsshh” and “kaboom,” which are all words that the reader can hear in their head. The Spanish language is used for both the enemy and the hero, but in different ways. The harsher Spanish words are used by the enemy, which kind of reminds me of the movie The Hurt Locker from last quarter, when all of the Arab people spoke in Arabic and there were no English subtitles, which made them appear to be more sinister.

                I do not feel that there is any way that Zorro could relate to my life. If I had a fantasy to be a hero like Zorro, it could, but otherwise it does not. Society has embraced Zorro, like other heroic characters, because I think everyone has some aspiration to be heroic. It might not be at their current age but when they were a child, imagining themselves as an adult. I think that most people, as they age, enjoy this type of story for its entertainment factor and not some longed for wish that they could be a hero. Overall, I would recommend Zorro to anyone who enjoys the comic book genre and to those who just like heroes! It is an enormously popular theme for movies and books like Zorro, and has proved to be successful many times over.