Sunday, March 8, 2009
Post 2: Setting
The setting in this book isn’t described nearly as well as the characters, so it can be hard to picture or understand. So far, the novel takes place in Chicago and Mexico, two places that are very different from each other. But since theses places have such varying cultures, you would think there would be more descriptive passages about them, especially noting that Lala is observant of almost everything around her. There were a few passages, though that went into great detail about one particular place. One passage was when Lala and the family go to her Aunty Ninfa’s house. She uses up three pages of the book just to talk about her aunt’s house and all of the furniture and knick-knacks in it. She also says that her Aunty Ninfa is from Italy, so maybe she spends time describing her house to sort of describe that culture. After all, most of her family is Mexican, so maybe she doesn’t feel the need to describe things that are familiar to her – they just don’t stand out as much. Lala also becomes descriptive when they cross the border into Mexico. She illustrates the landscape and the people and even the sounds. So there are certain parts of the book that are explained, perhaps the more significant settings. And then there are others that aren’t.
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I agree that it's weird that Lala doesn't describe the setting very much when she describes everything else in detail. Maybe little kids don't notice setting much? But then to throw in her Aunt's house with three pages of description is kind of out of the ordinary.
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ReplyDeleteI fully agree about the two examples you gave of description. We read and translated the passage when Lala was crossing the border in Spanish class. I didn't realize the passage was from Caramelo until I read it in the book. The descriptions are so distinct I recognized them right away, but great descriptions of setting like these are sparse in the book.
ReplyDeleteThat's funny that the book came up in your Spanish class! And the descriptions are very distinct, now that you mention it. (It's like analyzing McCarthy all over again!) Also, when they are driving on the road to Mexico, she always mentions the cars: red, green and white. Did anyone else notice that these are the colors of the Mexican flag? I've just been wondering about that...
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