Mirabals- Mariposas de la libertad

So I really really liked this book. Probably for a combination of the reasons written about by me in the previous 3 posts about this book, but also something else- it just drew me in, for some reason. I don't know that I can really say what about it did that, or why I liked it so much, but I really did. I should also mention that normally me liking a book wouldn't mean much (I have both a voracious appetite for them and some degree of abibliophobia), but ones in this genre- historical fiction, that is- don't generally appeal to me. For some reason I just don't find them as interesting or engaging, or even helping me learn history that I wouldn't want to learn from a boring dry old history book... but I would definitely recommend this book to you all, and I can only hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Maria Teresa contra Las hermanas Mirabal

If I hadn't known since even before I read it that the survivor out of the Mirabal sisters would be Dedé and someone told me to guess, I would have guessed that it would be Maria Teresa, because if there was an "odd one out," I would have said it's Maria Teresa. For some reason- and don't get me wrong, it didn't make me think more or less of her, or differently than I thought of the Mirabal sisters in general, like in terms of their spirit and such- she seemed different. The others seemed very oriented to their cause and kenw their beliefs, and really believed in them. And even though Patria was the nice one, the maternal one, married at sixteen though she thought she wuld become a nun because of her devotion to the Virgencita, and even though Minerva was the strong-willed, headstrong political one, and Dedé didn't have a specific "thing" so to speak, I felt like they were all united in their causes- other ones first, then against Trujillo. Maybe it's because Maria Teresa was the baby- but not just the baby, she was a full 9 years younger than Minerva, the next-youngest. So I guess I just wouldn't have expected her rather than Dedé to become so involved in the rebellion against the Dominican government. She also- in her diary keeping- seemed more interested in other things- boyfriends, the drama going on with her friends... btu who knows, maybe the other three would have been the same if I had been reading their writings from as young an age as I was reading Maria Teresa's? Also, she must have been much less under the influence of the others than Minerva, Dedé, or Patria could have been- simply because she was at Inmaculada Concepcion (their boarding school) when Minerva was near to finishing.
Anyway. That's all... just an observation.

¡Vivan las Mariposas!

So I was thinking about the sister who survived- Dedé. She wasn't killed, because she didn't go back out on the mountain road that day to visit her husband. She didn't go visit her husband, because he wasn't in prison. He wasn't in prison because he hadn't gotten directly involved, as has Dedé's sisters and brothers-in-law, in the Dominican revolution to overthrow Trujillo. Instead, Dedé stayed home that day. She stayed with her kids, and Patria's and Maria Teresa's and Minerva's kids too. Not only did she never really expect they wouldn't come back, she never expected that, having once been in the middle of four girls, whose bond was way closer than most sisters' that I know, she would become an only child, left alone because she chose not to rebel against her husband's instructions. She actually had wanted to join, but Jaimito didn't let her- so which is better? Better to be the only survivor, and not have your mother and entire family completely wallowed in sorrow, for at least they still have you and the grandchildren? Or better to have died alongside your sisters, 3 of your closest friends, killed in a country whose government you were trying to overthrow so your children and their children could have a better life, having died for a cause in which you were a true believer?

In the Time of Butterflies

So just a little overview before I say the first thing I want to say- this is a book by Julia Alvarez. It's based on an all-too-true historicxal event, and though it is fictionalized, the essence is true- especially because Ms. Alvarez had a very inside source to tell her the truth, true as it comes. Just a veeeeeeeeeeeery brief summary- it takes place in the Dominican Republic in the 1930s to 1960s, and it's told in alternating narrative by the four Mirabal sisters- Patria, Minerva, Dede, and Maria Teresa, 3 of which died rebelling against the Dominican dictator Trujillo and going to visit their husbands in prison (not a spoiler- Alvarez didn't make it up, it's a historical event). So the first thing I wanted to say was even though she fabricated a lot of their personalities, I really felt like I got to KNOW the Mirabal sisters (Alvarez's representation, at least). Maria Teresa, for instance, told her story through her entries in her journal, which were sometimes every day, and sometimes few and far between. But Alvarez did an unbelievable job of portraying their feelings, of portraying who these girls were- not just superficially, but really their personalities and beliefs.

The Color Purple

This is a tough book. It addresses a lot of issues of the time, some of which unfortunately are still hot topics. But it's also a learn-to-love book. Celie was a simple girl, but she knew how to love, once she found people whom she could. Even if she didn't love, say, her husband, or some of her children, or some of the people in her life (who truth be told, did not deserve her love), she knew how to love the people she did love. Like her sister, her sister's family, this force of nature called Shug who blows through town and changes the way Celie approaches life forever- no longer meek and timid, Celie learns not just how to love...
but how to live. She makes the best of what she has, and she hasn't got anything- talk about something from nothing. Celie has nothing. But as aforementioned, she made the best of it that the possibly could, and in that she was a force of nature greater than anyone born to power, who had it easy from Day One.

SPOILAHHHHHHHH ALERT

So in The Color Purple, there's some...
incest. To say the least.
To start off what would later become a hard, work-worn battlefield of a life, Celie was raped by her father (who she later found out was her stepfather, saving her SOME grief... but nto much) at the age of 14- twice. The children were supposedly taken by her father/stepfather and killed. To think- not only a) does this terrible thing happen to her, b) it happens by the hand of her FATHER, but also she doesn't have these children. Maybe it would just be too dark a reminder of what happened, but Celie needs someone to love. Someone to care for. Not a husband who will beat her and abuse her.
More on relationships in this book: the man Celie is forced to marry, Mr. ________, is the man who loved Celie's long-lost sister, Nettie- what an auspicious start to a relationship. When Nettie left home, Celie was left unwanted by everyone- what family she had, any prospective husbands that there were out there...
So not only was she raped- by her FATHER- but she was always second-best (more like last, actually) and least loved by everyone in favor of her prettier, smart, independent sister.

Thanks Polly!

So I mentioned that it was an epistolary novel, and Polly wodnered why she wrote letters- did she have no one to talk to?
So to first address that, no. She didn't. Celie, letter-writer, really didn't have anyone to talk to. The letters were written to two- some to God. It was more like writing a diary, but sometimes it's easier to write something for real if you know you're doing it for someone's benefit (like if you're just doing it for yourself, you might not try so hard). And the other person to whom the letters were addressed were her sister Nettie. But Celie never gets any return letters from Nettie (but that's a horse of an entirely different color), so I guess she kind of diary-izes that, too.
So what I was thinking about is what if it was written in the more traditional form? How do the letters make the book more realistic? How would it be different?
I think that these letters, these letters to know one, symbolize and help to convey Celie's helplessness. Her life is pretty tough, and when you've got no one to talk to, it's even worse. So I think that these letters make the book possible and realistic, and make the reader more empathetic when they can really see that she has shown what her life is- and her everyday life is our worst nightmare, and that's what makes it so hard to read... but then it's a book where you HAVE to find out what happens, make sure everything will be okay, and even when it's not, Celie got through it by writing letters. And if she can do that, think of everyone with more opportunities and more everything than Celie, who had NOTHING, and how quick we are to complain about the smallest things...
...just a thought.