Distant Journeys

by Rafael Castillo

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0927534150
• ISBN13: 9780927534154
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Bilingual Review Press (AZ)
• Length: 101 Pages

Customer Reviews

Hegemonic deconstruction

Ralph Castillo, a Professor of English at Palo Alto College,is living testimony to the reality that community collegesoffer first rate instruction. Castillo could be teachingat Harvard, but instead chose to help educate the sons anddaughters of the poor and dispossessed. His publications aretoo numerous to mention.

Good Prompts for Writing

I read Rafael Castillo's collection DISTANT JOURNEYS and found the stories interesting and memorable. They were fascinating. Although the book cover does not do justice to the book, the stories do reflect an original voice. I would definitely buy another of Mr. Castillo's books and have used them in my composition classes. Students like the stories because they are short, precise, and entertaining; I like them because they can easily be interpreted at various levels and are excellent prompts for writing.

Magical Realism!

This strangely funny book is a really a slim volume of fictional philosophy with a penchant for the ironical. Please don't judge this book by its cover because the art design is amateurish and probably done by a grad student learning design. Castillo's fictional pieces are short and intense with an edge toward the comical yet structured on a Woody-Allen type format with a Chicano voice. All the stories are well-written, hilarious, and thought provoking. I think this book will no doubt be used in graduate literary theory courses making fun of graduate literary courses. A quick read into Chicano literature of the 21st century.

Distant Journeys into the Mind

Rafael Castillo's DISTANT JOURNEYS is a collection of postmodern fiction with a twist toward the O. Henry ending, either intentional or ironic. The book's focus seems to be on mythic tales of journeys: from the eerie landscape of Latin American to the down-and-out boulevards of Paris to the mundane barrios of San Antonio where Kafkaesque characters vie for prominence and spectacle. Seemingly theoretical in some parts, the fiction blends twists of Derridean Deconstruction with laughable portrayals of pseudo-intellectuals who become, inescapably, symbolic references for other fictions and stories. It's almost like Michel Foucault and Ernest Hemingway tangled with The Three Stooges at the Bronz Zoo. There is high drama with a wide smile, philosophical interludes with Kierkegaard and a Dwarf smitten by a young damsel, and political rhetoric disguised as allegory and fable. Tightly written and compact, the stories are remarkably short and to the point. They are cleverly written, intellectually diverse, and wholly original because the writer is probably a generation ahead other Chicano writers attempting this type of fiction. Bilingual Review Press is definitely at the forefront of hip, existential fiction. Hey, I'm hooked on this writer.