Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

Genre: Fiction, Romance

Rating: ★★★

Pages: 222

Published: 1989/1993

Publisher: Black Swan

I picked up Like Water for Chocolate at a fantastic English-language bookstore in Sofia called the Elephant Bookstore. It was recommended by one of the girls in my group, so I decided to get it in order to counteract all of the Yugoslavia nonfiction I had with me. 

Like Water for Chocolate is about a young woman, Tita, living in revolutionary Mexico. Tita, as the youngest daughter of the De La Garza family, has her fate decided for her: she is forbidden to marry by family tradition, and must instead care for her mother until she dies. When Pedro, Tita's sweetheart, asks for her hand, he is swiftly rebuffed by Tita's mother and redirected towards her sister, Rosaura. Pedro agrees to marry Rosaura, if only because that will allow him to remain by Tita's side. Over the course of the next 22 years, the two circle each other in "unconsummated passion" (according to the back description) that inspires passion in the lives of those around them. Each chapter also begins with the name of a dish and the ingredients for said dish. During the following chapter, the food is somehow woven into the narrative. 

Like Water for Chocolate reads like a folktale, and so there are some extreme exaggerations regarding activity and imagery (ex: losing 65 pounds in a week, having a blanket that covers an entire ranch, etc.). Because this was my first "magical realism" book (and magical realism utilizes hyperbole and mythology), it was definitely something I had to get used to — I took a few hyperboles quite literally and was left going "what?" a few times in the beginning of the novel. 

Continuing on the "magical narrative" trend, the food that Tita cooks assumes a large role in conveying Tita's emotions to others and influencing events in the book. While Tita doesn't often show her true emotions to others (such as anger, lust), other characters pick up on her feelings through her cooking, although their sudden emotional outbursts confuse them. 

I think I was more into the first half of the book, but lost steam afterwards. I guess I just had a harder time sympathizing with Pedro and Tito? I didn't really care for Pedro, and thought that Tita could have done better than him. Like Water was also a little unusual in that the tone would go from being very clinical and detached to being super technical and "whatever" about sex and lust. The book was described as containing "unbridled passion," and I guess my takeaway is that I don't really go for that. (One review on the inside described the ideal reader as one who likes their wine "full-bodied" and their food "zesty." I don't really fall into either category.)

I ended up finishing this book faster than I thought I would; it's very accessible, and — due to its monthly format — felt unimposing and gave me a good sense of how far along I was in the story. While it is somewhat unfortunate that the romance plot fell a little flat for me, there were other comedic parts of the book that I really liked, and one character in particular — Gertrudis — that was by far my favorite. I recommend it to anyone who likes cooking or is interesting in magical realism novels.

(Oh, yes — and """passion""")

Safe Area Gorazde, by Joe Sacco

My cover looked cooler, but this is the best image I could find.

Genre: Graphic Novel, Memoir

Rating: ★★★★

Pages: 229

Published: 2007

Publisher: Jonathan Cape

This rating has a trigger warning for blood/gore imagery, war mentions, and the like.

Hello again, peaches! I'd apologize for the radio silence, but I'm really not that sorry about it. Study abroad has been pretty neat so far, and this past month I spent my Spring Break on (as one guy in my group put it) a "tour of the Ottoman Empire." 6 countries (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Turkey) in 10 days. My takeaway? The Balkans are beautiful and awesome and I wanna go back like nothing else. (As my friend, E., "I could make a life here!")

Because I'm me, and I was surrounded by enabling poli-sci majors, I found time during my trip to go to a few bookstores and picked up some """relevant reading.""" (Book haul post to come later. If I remember.) One of the books I got in Bosnia was Safe Area Gorazde ("Gorazde" pronounced like "gor-AJ-da"). I picked it up after visiting the Gallery 11/07/95, which is a permanent gallery about the Srebrenica massacre (or genocide, depending on who you're talking to). 

Real talk: the Gallery is super depressing and kind of awful, but in a good way? It was very informative and powerful, and definitely impacted my stay in Sarajevo. It was kind of surreal walking around the Balkans and examining the scars that the war left on both buildings and people. 

Building in Belgrade, Serbia.

Inside the Gallery

 

  

The building next to my hostel in Sarajevo.

(But this review is about Joe Sacco's time in Bosnia, not mine.)

Safe Area Gorazde details the time that journalist Joe Sacco spent in Gorazde, Bosnia, from 1994-1995. The book's material is largely based off of his interviews with Bosnian Muslims in the Muslim "enclave" of Gorazde, but also includes historical information and Sacco's opinion on the war. Safe Area Gorazde is meant as a memoir, but delivers Sacco's own brand of self-reflection and political observations. 

I was kinda familiar with Sacco's art before reading Safe Area Gorazde, and had some prior knowledge about the Balkan War. Gorazde was mentioned briefly in the Srebrenica exhibit as a UN Safe Area, but wasn't really elaborated on. My interest was piqued, then, when I saw Sacco's book in Sarajevo (it was one of the titles consistently available in English throughout the city) and I decided to purchase it. I didn't recall seeing Sacco's work in many stores previously, so I thought it would be a worthwhile buy. 

I enjoyed reading Safe Area Gorazde for its writing and art, and was appreciative of how Sacco established the book as his personal narrative during a portion of the conflict, as opposed to a definitive telling of the entire war. Sacco wrote about the privilege he enjoyed during the war (such as being able to travel relatively freely whereas people from Gorazde were stuck in the city). National privilege is an uncomfortable thing to admit when traveling, and I sometimes think that some writers, despite operating outside of the host society as foreigners, tend to over-identify with their subjects to the point where they believe they face the same challenges and restrictions as them.

Page from Safe Area Gorazde detailing the 1994 offensive. Copyright Joe Sacco.

Panels from Safe Area Gorazde. Copyright Joe Sacco.

I would absolutely recommend Safe Area Gorazde to anyone interested in learning about the Balkans War, the intersection of nationality and ethnicity, modern nation-building, and how international government organizations operate. It's a powerful book, a compelling memoir that Sacco shares with other individuals about a dark period in European/world history. Although dark and depressing, the story that Sacco tells does not stand for willful ignorance.