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Book Review on Like Water for Chocolate
Ji-Hye, Seo. 10305
¡°Like Water for Chocolate¡±. This is quite an unusual title for a novel. And the somewhat magical mood of the title never disappointed me. From the wearisome everyday life, this book brought me into the romance of the magical and mystical Mexico in 18C. Fully enthralled by the story of twelve dishes in the novel, I cried, laughed, and became restless with Tita all the time reading it.
Actually, the basic plot of the novel is fairly banal. It is about the ¡°Prohibited Love¡±. Tita and Pedro are deeply in love with each other but can¡¯t reach the love due to Tita¡¯s obligation to her mother, Mama Elena. Pedro decides to marry with Rosaura, Tita¡¯s older sister, to be near with Tita and from that the story gets on the fire. Yes, this story is really familiar. It¡¯s almost like an everyday soap opera. However, I found something special in this novel, which elevates the value of it dramatically.
The most brilliant were Tita¡¯s Mexican cuisines, which dominated almost every aspect of the novel. Yes, the foods are all. Not only they become the major theme of the each chapter, but they also are an effectual device expressing the feelings of characters and evoking magical senses in the scenes. The uniqueness of the twelve dishes in the novel contributes to turn the plot of the story captivating. In April, Tita made the quail dish with extreme happiness with the roses from Pedro, and the dish showed Tita¡¯s naked feeling by making everybody restless for love. The quail dish with roses was the most useful device. The unexpected effects of the food evoked mystical mood, Herturudis to elope, expressed Tita¡¯s emotion vicariously, revealed the jealousy of Rosaura, and eventually showed the continuous link between Tita and Pedro. By generating one of the most important events in the novel once, the food brought extreme tension and suspense which make readers cannot refuse to read it. Likewise, the other eleven foods also served their role greatly and that made the novel genuinely special. I was really impressed to face the application and elevation of foods in this novel.
What constantly amused me while reading this novel was so-called ¡°Magical Mysticism¡±. Intentionally telling unreasonable lies, the author provokes the surreal elements out of this novel and eventually grasps the reader¡¯s mind at her hand. It is hard to find ¡®Magical Mysticism¡¯ in English literature; it is a unique trait of South American literature. I think that is the reason why this fresh, exotic lies grasped my attention. Most of all, the surreal happening in the novel is actually really entertaining. It made me smile all the time. It is said that people have to clean out a great deal of salt made of Tita¡¯s tears at birth. Everybody who ate Tita¡¯s wedding cake cried like a child so that the wedding was completely ruined. Nobody believes this to be happens in the real life, but everybody laughs loudly at this nonsense happening. As mentioned before, the author virtually dominated the reader¡¯s mind by these events. Actually, there were a few inconsistencies throughout the story and scenes in the novel. However, the chance of readers to raise an objection was already eliminated when the readers conceded the nonsense lies before. Yes, I confess that I too was completely drawn into the novel and never thought to disagree with the author.
I loved the other elements in this novel too, vehemently. As an aggressive feminist, it was exhilarating to face the ¡°women-oriented¡± literature. Food and kitchen, these so feminine subjects are virtually leading all scenes forward. Different from other ordinary literatures, this novel, delineating the interests and sensitive emotions of women, is completely for them. It will be also amazing to feel exotic mood and culture. The author sensitively depicts Mexican food, culture, and history over the novel. These absolutely are the things hard to experience. In addition to the dominating Mexican mood, it was beneficial for me to practically see the development of the Mexican Revolution. The way the author portrayed the evolving Mexico was really impressive.
Some people say that the novel ¡°Like Water for Chocolate¡± is too light and feminine. But, don¡¯t you think that it is too cruel to degrade this brilliant novel by those superficial evaluations? Reading this novel, I strongly felt that the book shined really brightly. As a masterpiece of Latin American literature, the novel ¡°Like Water for Chocolate¡± brightly provides us different, fresh, special, fascinating story.
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