People of Paper by Salvador
Begin: 04/09/07
End: 04/13/07
Quality: Nine Out of Ten.
Reason:. Book Club
Genre: Magical Realism. Metafiction. Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 2006.
Fog Index: N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A
Number: Never.
Synopsis: I am not quite sure how I would be able to explain this story, to somehow create a nice and little synopsis of this rather complicated and interconnected work. The main protagonist in this story seems to be centered on Fernando de la Fe and his daughter, Merced. They move from Mexico to California. Once ensconced in El Monte, de la Fe gathers the local carnation picker gang to wage war on Saturn. That is the main story but it is a lot more complicated than that. A score of characters gets involved as well as the author himself becoming a main participant in the drama.
Thoughts: Hot Damn! This was a great fucking book. It was a little slow in the beginning but it picked up and got me so totally engrossed in it. The richness of the prose, the implicit sadness weaving it’s way throughout the story, the characters who become so real, who become like old friends. This was a great fucking book.
I just want to touch on a few things.
The style of the novel was so powerful. It was amazing to me that Plascencia was able to successfully blending magical realism with metafiction and still have such a odd features to the text of the story itself and still make it work.
I also love the way that sadness weaved its way in and out of the story. You could almost taste the texture of the sadness. It was unbelievably rich.
Anyway. I’m tired. I want to talk more about this work, but I’m just beat so here are a few quotes. I also copied some definitions of the genres of magical realism and metafiction down at the bottom.
“Confirming the theory that equilibrium is always upset by wax and first love.” (44)
Merced de Papel never came to believe in the permanence of love. To her the idea of a romance enduring even a season was a baffling absurdity. “It’s something that burns and disappears into ash.” This is what she said as she swept the floor, pushing the flakes of newsprint into the dustpan.
Any combustion, regardless of its intensity, must ultimately extinguish. Some fires last only for the strike of the flint, while others burn for millions of years before the day of their supernova arrives, leaving only embers and cold debris. And so love need not burn forever, just long enough for paper to smolder. (168)
Ten years later, Charles sold her to a railcar zoo but kept her litter. While sleeping and dreaming of jungle theme parks and safari hats, the three cubs mauled his feet and arms. He survived, and it was he who told me that it is not elephants that never forget, but those we betray. Those we hurt. Species that pass down their memories through generations, transferring their bitterness and resentment to their kin, never able to forgive, their arms always cocked with lettuce in hand. Unable to excuse a change of address or wardrobe. Telling their children and grandchildren that I am their sellout whore. (214)
Magical Realism. : Magic realism (or magical realism) is an artistic genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting.
Metafiction: It is the term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality
Begin: 04/09/07
End: 04/13/07
Quality: Nine Out of Ten.
Reason:. Book Club
Genre: Magical Realism. Metafiction. Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 2006.
Fog Index: N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A
Number: Never.
Synopsis: I am not quite sure how I would be able to explain this story, to somehow create a nice and little synopsis of this rather complicated and interconnected work. The main protagonist in this story seems to be centered on Fernando de la Fe and his daughter, Merced. They move from Mexico to California. Once ensconced in El Monte, de la Fe gathers the local carnation picker gang to wage war on Saturn. That is the main story but it is a lot more complicated than that. A score of characters gets involved as well as the author himself becoming a main participant in the drama.
Thoughts: Hot Damn! This was a great fucking book. It was a little slow in the beginning but it picked up and got me so totally engrossed in it. The richness of the prose, the implicit sadness weaving it’s way throughout the story, the characters who become so real, who become like old friends. This was a great fucking book.
I just want to touch on a few things.
The style of the novel was so powerful. It was amazing to me that Plascencia was able to successfully blending magical realism with metafiction and still have such a odd features to the text of the story itself and still make it work.
I also love the way that sadness weaved its way in and out of the story. You could almost taste the texture of the sadness. It was unbelievably rich.
Anyway. I’m tired. I want to talk more about this work, but I’m just beat so here are a few quotes. I also copied some definitions of the genres of magical realism and metafiction down at the bottom.
“Confirming the theory that equilibrium is always upset by wax and first love.” (44)
Merced de Papel never came to believe in the permanence of love. To her the idea of a romance enduring even a season was a baffling absurdity. “It’s something that burns and disappears into ash.” This is what she said as she swept the floor, pushing the flakes of newsprint into the dustpan.
Any combustion, regardless of its intensity, must ultimately extinguish. Some fires last only for the strike of the flint, while others burn for millions of years before the day of their supernova arrives, leaving only embers and cold debris. And so love need not burn forever, just long enough for paper to smolder. (168)
Ten years later, Charles sold her to a railcar zoo but kept her litter. While sleeping and dreaming of jungle theme parks and safari hats, the three cubs mauled his feet and arms. He survived, and it was he who told me that it is not elephants that never forget, but those we betray. Those we hurt. Species that pass down their memories through generations, transferring their bitterness and resentment to their kin, never able to forgive, their arms always cocked with lettuce in hand. Unable to excuse a change of address or wardrobe. Telling their children and grandchildren that I am their sellout whore. (214)
Magical Realism. : Magic realism (or magical realism) is an artistic genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting.
Metafiction: It is the term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality
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