Peel My Love Like an Onion

by Ana Castillo

Book Overview

The seductive world of flamenco forms the backdrop for a classic tale of independence found, lost, and reclaimed. Like Bizet's legendary gypsy, Carmen "La Coja" (The Cripple) Santos is hilarious,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385496761
• ISBN13: 9780385496766
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 213 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Encantador

Aunque la traduccion fue un poco debil, me encanto este libro. El tema es muy unico- una bailadora famosa que es coja debido a una enfermedad juvenil. Los personajes son bien desarrollados y el final es sorprendente. Asi que yo lo he leido dos veces! Yo tambien prefiero los libros escritos en espanol y no las traducciones- sin embargo, este cuento vale la pena.

Crippled within

What a lovely piece of writing by Castillo. As I started reading 'Peel my love'I couldn't leave before finishing it. The novel fluctuates between different feelings: pity for Carmen (the crippled heroine), sympathy, admiration. Castillo seems to emphasize that if one feels crippled it is one's soul that is crippled that keeps one motionless. It is not physical cripplness that only detains one's decisions. Cripplness within is much more dangerous. One's inertia might be caused by customs and traditions that obstruct one's capabilities.

Flamenco Beats

Strong and smooth like the beats of flamenco Castillo wrote this novel to defy patriarchy. Carmen--Castillo's main character--refuses being possessed by any of her lovers. How? Read the novel. It is an impressive novel indeed.

transparency of ethnic belonging

This novel is a product of a mixed and multicultural writer. I'm European and for our culture American multiculturalism is becoming a model for openness, but at the same tgime for closure. Carmen could be no one and everyone.She is a Chicago Mexican and a Gypsy. Her homelands are Central America and Eastern and Mediterranean Europe. Historically, these two geographical places share a common culture based on spirituality and music, but also on strict patriarchal principles embued with severe moral issues. Flamenco is a way-out, rejection of consumist and materialist society. Carmen lives a fake romantic existence and dreams of the sea, Spain, other beautiful places her lovers have described her. When she travels to Germany there is only tears and disappointment with their own history based on wars. The novel could be discussed in thousands of aspects, but here is neither place nor time. I was wondering about postmodern elements in the novel, as I'm writing my final thesis about this. If someone could help me? I hope to meet Ana Castillo in Europe-actually, in Italy!

Peeled onion: more than just a root vegetable

From beginning to end, Carmen "La Coja" (the cripple) is a woman who is as loveable and insecure as your best friend. The author's skillful dialog is some of the best I've ever read. The wry humor and tongue-in-cheek observations made me laugh out loud. Carmen's mother who shouts on the phone when she talks long distance reminded me of my own mom. Carmen's mother has lived a hard working life, and now in her later years, God help the person who comes between her and her afternoon novelas.Carmen fully plunges her passionate spirit into her lovers and into her dance. Polio and lack of education color her life, as does her beauty. The book plays the extremes: ecstacy and despair, devotion and revenge, health and illness, discipline and abandonment, Gypsy, Mexicana and Gringa. The novel is deliciously laced with Gypsy music and folklore, Mexican family life, love, cooking, lovers, and of course dance. Like Hemmingway in "The Old Man and the Sea," the author uses a light, simple touch, natural dialog, and understated, narrative. It's a book to bring to bed... unless of course your lover is waiting.