Books and Cooks Ithaca -- February 2000
The Mixquiahuala Letters
Our rating: 2.95 cups of tea!
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Discussion date: February 20, 2000
Discussion place: Vicky W.'s Place
Menu: Rice, beans, mexican soup, jalapeno cheese, . .
There are three different ways to read this book and they have been parceled out, so far, as follows:
Cynic: Susannah, Lyn
Quixotic: Stephanie, Vera
Conformist: Jen, Steve, Amanda
From 500
Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith
The table of contents gives three options as to the order in which
the forty letters in this epistolary novel may be read: one for the
conformist, one for the cynic, and one for the quixotic. With each option
a different and powerful story emerges; a book group could have a
fascinating discussion about this book if each person chooses her own
option. The letters are written by an Indian/Mexican woman from Chicago to
her Anglo friend. The two meet in Mexico when they are twenty years old
and over the next ten years correspond, visit, and travel together.
Through these letters, the stories of their lives emerge: with and without
jobs, with and without husbands or boyfriends. These are stories of
opposites: one is an artist who is always sketching and can't stand
alcohol or cigarettes, the other a poet who likes to smoke and drink with
the company at hand. One is distant and stand-offish, her world coming
alive when she dances, the other a believer in spirits and intangible
forces. Each letter can be a story in itself; each letter delivers to the
reader the power of a woman's words of relationship and life: "We
needled, stabbed, manipulated, cut, and through it all we loved, driven to
see the other improved in her own reflection."
The Books and Cooks Mixquiahuala Letters Informal Reading Guide
(member-generated questions in no particular order)
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What was the significance of the "haunted house" of the engineers?
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Why do you think the author divided the novel into 3 ways to read the book?
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If you don't read the other letters, what is the point of having the versions? (I.e., would it tell you more about the book to go back and read the other letters?)
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Were you bothered by skipping certain letters and not reading them? Did you read those later (or skip them entirely so as not to bias your reading 'type'?)
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Do you think the book lacks anything essential in that we don't hear from Alicia?
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Did you get a good sense of who the two women were, particularly in comparison to each other?
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For the quixotics: Why is letter #1 put at the end and not the beginning of the book?
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Does this book promote or discourage stereotypes of Hispanic culture?
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Why did Castillo choose to write only the letters from Theresa? How different would the story have been if we also had Alicia's responses?
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What sort of relationship did Teresa want?
This Page Last Revised: November 21, 2000.