The House on Mango Street

THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET (Sandra Cisneros) - Three Stars

Esperanza, we hardly knew ye.

Unlike many stories, which drag on far too long and lose novelty and freshness by the time the final page comes around, The House on Mango Street is one of those rare books that is exactly opposite: just when the book feels like it's hitting its stride and you have formed a rapport with the main character, the book is over.

The House on Mango Street details the trials and tribulations of Esperanza Cordero, a young pre-teen (and then teenage) latina girl growing up in an ethnic Chicago neighborhood. The novel is kind of a hodge-podge of angsty childhood and teenage themes: alienation, dissatisfaction with the present, "coming-of-age", etc. It's told in a truly original style, a series of twenty or thirty vignettes, some only a hundred words long, that read almost like diary entries. However, considering the book is barely a hundred pages to begin with, this stylistic device means there's really only 75-80 "true" pages of material (making it a very fast read; I wasn't really keeping track, but I'm sure it only took me 60-90 minutes from start to finish).

Some of the writing is very striking, and Cisneros has a good voice. She does tend to harp on two points in particular ("poverty sucks" and "men suck"; I agree—and?) a little too frequently for a book of such brevity, and some of her other vignettes practically beg for more elaboration and depth. The House on Mango Street is a literary dégustation that leaves the reader wanting more, which, I suppose, is the sign of a good book.

In the Garden of Iden

IN THE GARDEN OF IDEN (Kage Baker) - Four Stars

In the Garden of Iden is the first of Kage Baker's "Company" novels (of which I will be reading all of at some point). I suppose it's really a three or three-and-a-half star story, but it's a five star concept with five star characters. It's a sci-fi story set in 16th-century England.

Without giving too much a way, the concept is as follows... in the twenty-fourth century, the human race has created both time travel and immortality, but each has a catch. Time travel can only occur into the past and back to the present, not forward into the future, cannot change history even if you try to, and is risky. And immortality is achievable only by medical and technical intervention, i.e., by turning people into cyborgs. "The Company" that invents both of these technologies (Dr. Zeus, Inc.) begins sending agents back into the past to rescue extinct species of flora and fauna. The Company realizes another thing: while you can't assassinate Hitler or otherwise change the course of events of World War II, you CAN send agents back in time to rescue/steal priceless artifacts and works of art from Nazi hands. Soon the Company becomes an all-knowing, seemingly unstoppable entity, both altruistic and profiteering.

But I get ahead of myself. All of this is told to the reader (or implied) in the first book, but the main story revolves around the recruitment and first mission of a new agent, "Mendoza." Mendoza is a young Spanish girl who is captured and tortured by the Inquisition before being rescued/recruited by "Joseph." It's worth noting that The Company usually recruits children, often from dire situations like that, and doesn't give them a choice in the matter. Mendoza spends years being taught and trained in The Company's secret fortress (evidently, underground in Australia), and eventually is transformed into a cyborg to preserve her for all time at the barely adult age of eighteen.

Trained as a botanist, she is then sent to England to preserve several now-lost species of plants from the elaborate gardens of Sir Walter Iden. Easier said than done, as Mendoza (along with mentor Joseph and fellow operative Nef) lands right in the middle of pre-Elizabethan England's great religious and political upheavals. This is, of course, further complicated when Mendoza falls for Iden's secretary, a free-thinker (for the times) and also a religious fanatic (just not of the particular religious flavors favored at the time). Baker refuses to take the easy way out (immortal, technologically advanced beings would have not difficulty using brute-force to get out of many sticky situations), instead requiring her characters to use wit and guile to disentangle themselves from various messes.

The plot itself is old hat, but Baker does a good job of foreshadowing impending disaster without completely giving away the store. The book at first comes across as a scathing indictment against religion, but the more you read the more you realize its more a scathing indictment against fanaticism for any cause. And, as I mentioned before, but the end of the book I was more invested in Mendoza and Joseph than in the actual novel itself. Not a bad story, though, (I liked it better than most of the "pure" sci-fi I've read) and I'll definitely purchase more "Company" novels in the future to read the further adventures of Mendoza.

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"The Lollard statutes were voted in today," I told him angrily.

"The what?" he said, and did a fast scan. "Oh. The anti-Protestant laws, huh? Say, have either of you had any ideas about a Christmas masque I can write?"

"They aren't just anti-Protestant laws," I fumed. "They're special statutes that put bishops above the law. They can arrest people, judge them, condemn them, and execute them—and the civil courts can't interfere! The Parliament just voted them in!"

"Did you think it couldn't happen here?" Joseph grinned briefly.

"For God's sake, it's crazy! These people are giving up their civil rights! It's a step back into the Middle Ages!"

"Funny thing about those Middle Ages," said Joseph. "They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they're in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there's an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can't deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don't you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age. They hate thinking."