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Bezig met laden... Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (Camino del Sol) (1998)door Luis Alberto Urrea
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. What an amazing voice! He has a way of describing something so different from my experience by making it familiar. All the while he is doing this he is courting me with his amazing grasp of language and complete vulnerability. Wow. ( ) This is the third installment of a memoir. I actually read this book first, and it is beautifully detailed. Urrea's narrative is at times beautiful, and at other times haunting. He shares those experiences that people rarely talk about (the odd cruelties of parents), and how we as children just deal with them. He describes his family's move from Tijuana to the United States, and how this impacted his parents relationship, and specifically how it impacted their economic lives. Urrea is a great writer. A hidden treasure. This collection of essays from the author's life experiences were written in prose-like language, alternating with story-tellling and occasional rants. There were parts of this autobiography that I enjoyed. The author's caustic wit was most apparent when discussing his feelings of isolation regarding his mixed Mexican-Caucasian heritage. His experiences of racism and disdain for intolerance was a primary theme throughout the narrative. I think I would have enjoyed this book more had it not been so disturbing and sad. While you can't judge a book about an author's life over whether it was happy or dysphoric, it made for a rather depressing read. His experiences of abuse from his father were barely lightened by his near adoption by his fictive kin/godparents in San Diego. His years of pseudoadoption taught the author about love and joy, something he had not been aware of prior to those familial experiences. I wish the rest of his story had been as optimistic but unfortunately, this was not the case. Urrea writes a meandering book with tidbits that try to get at the struggle of being born Mexican and White non-Hispanic ---unfortunately, although at times charming, his story never rings true to this struggle...he goes from autobiographical writing to story telling to prose ... a strange style of writing and at the end I had the sense that he just wanted to finish the book. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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Here's a story about a family that comes from Tijuana and settles into the 'hood, hoping for the American Dream. . . . I'm not saying it's our story. I'm not saying it isn't. It might be yours. "How do you tell a story that cannot be told?" writes Luis Alberto Urrea in this potent memoir of a childhood divided. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an Anglo mother from Staten Island, Urrea moved to San Diego when he was three. His childhood was a mix of opposites, a clash of cultures and languages. In prose that seethes with energy and crackles with dark humor, Urrea tells a story that is both troubling and wildly entertaining. Urrea endured violence and fear in the black and Mexican barrio of his youth. But the true battlefield was inside his home, where his parents waged daily war over their son's ethnicity. "You are not a Mexican!" his mother once screamed at him. "Why can't you be called Louis instead of Luis?" He suffers disease and abuse and he learns brutal lessons about machismo. But there are gentler moments as well: a simple interlude with his father, sitting on the back of a bakery truck; witnessing the ultimate gesture of tenderness between the godparents who taught him the magical power of love. "I am nobody's son. I am everybody's brother," writes Urrea. His story is unique, but it is not unlike thousands of other stories being played out across the United States, stories of other Americans who have waged war--both in the political arena and in their own homes--to claim their own personal and cultural identity. It is a story of what it means to belong to a nation that is sometimes painfully multicultural, where even the language both separates and unites us. Brutally honest and deeply moving, Nobody's Son is a testament to the borders that divide us all. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)818.5409Literature English (North America) Authors, American and American miscellany 20th Century 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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