The Tortilla Curtain (Wheeler Large Print Book Series (Cloth))

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Summary: The Tortilla Curtain Review
Review: The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle, is a story about two couples living in America. Delaney Mossbacher, a nature writer, and his wife Kyra, a real estate agent, live in a gated development. Candido Rincon and his wife America, both illegal immigrants, live at the bottom of Topanga Canyon. However, Delaney and Candido's paths cross when Delaney almost kills Candido in a car accident. This triggers a chain of events that leads to an even more dramatic confrontation.

T.C. Boyle did a good job of writing the story and giving his opinion. His opinion about the two couples was made very clear. T.C. Boyle used contradiction and sarcasm to express his feelings and opinions on the issue that is still going on in Southern California. T.C. Boyle also made it very clear who the victim or victims are in the story and he wrote in a way that made the reader actually care and feel for the victims in the book.
I am a type of reader that has a hard time finding books that keep me interested and motivated to keep reading, well this story did just that. Every night I would pick up the book and be like "Ok I'm going to read 20 pages", well 20 pages turned into 40 pages. I just couldn't get enough of the book. I wanted to keep reading to figure out what was going to happen next. I wanted to know what was going to happen to Candido and America, and if Delaney and his wife ever go what they deserved.

This book is great to read because a) it's not required to read in school, except it was required for us to read by Ms. Hanes. 2) It shots out little bits of issues that we are still dealing with today, and c) because it is a great story that will make you just say "Oh My Gosh!" both the good way and the bad way. So go and pick up a copy of The Tortilla Curtain, and you will see for yourself what I mean.


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Summary: The Good the Bad and theUgly
Review: "Not knowing what to expect, shocking"
This book is dealing with alot of controversial issues, such as race issues and the way people are towards eachother. It goese into the lives of two opposite families and it gives a perspective of what they think of eachother. The incidents such as a car accident when an American ran into pedestrian over and didn't even bother to call the police. In return he gave the president twenty dollars. The American had a life of luxury and a privuiledged lide in California. The character Cantido lives and adores his seventeen-year-old wife, America. Tortilla Curtain shows how some people are just privileged with some things such as a house and a loving family. For example, the American family lives in a gated community with not really knowing what happened on the outside, while Cantido struggles to pick up the scattered pieces of his life. As these two familes cross they [...] heads and make some prejudice comments. This happenes more than people actually think. All people struggle but some more than others.

This book seems to open the minds of many objectives that we deal with everyday. It doesn't matter what race you are. Anyone can relate to this book some how. This book is definitely a must read. It takesyou to a place in someone else outlook at things.


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Summary: Well-intentioned piece of trash
Review: As someone who grew up in Topanga and witnessed the class struggle portrayed in this book first hand, I was excited to read The Tortilla Curtain. The dynamics between the Latino population and the incoming yuppies during the early-nineties is a story well worth telling and makes for a great opportunity to address socio-political concerns within a naturally dramatic framework. Unfortunately, the writer who chose to tell this story has no understanding of humanity, let alone the community he pretends to document. Page after page I looked for one character or situation that was even remotely human -- to no avail.

Tortilla reads like one of those hysterical paperbacks from the 1950s. It perpetuates every small-minded, lazy stereo-type imaginable while shedding absolutely no new light on anything what-so-ever. For the purpose of making his book as melodramatic as possible, he creates a fictitious community where the mountains seeth with evil, white people are afraid to leave their homes, Latino rapists abound, and no one ever has one single conversation or thought that reflects any empathy at all.

This book is not only a total waste of time, but for someone who actually believes what they read, it will only make them more pessimistic, hopeless, hateful and ignorant then they were before they read it.

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Summary: Too Unrealistic
Review: I actually liked the book and looked forward to what was coming next. But I think the "bad luck" of Candido and America became too unbelievable and Candido's lack of common sense was staggering.

I am not saying that their situation had an easy solution, but after getting beat and robbed the solution was pretty clear - head for the INS and get deported back to Mexico. There is a reason why illegal immigrants head for the US, but after reading this book it would seem that the reality of the situation would keep everybody back and never want to come over the border.

I do not speak from ignorance on this issue. We immigrated from South America back in 1973 and my cousin came over the border illegally in 1983. I am well aware of the immigration problems from both the illegal aliens viewpoint and from the American citizen viewpoint (myself being a US citizen). As other have pointed out, it is just way too exaggerated. The disparity between the rich and poor in this book is no different from a dirt poor American homeless family living in Colorado and one that lives in a winter home near a ski slope.

I would still recommend the book though. I think that it does shed light on things that the average person doesn't really think about when they talk about the immigration problems that we have.

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Summary: It depends on how you read it.
Review: I started reading the book as it was intended, in one go, but quickly found I didn't much care what happened to the superficial, self involved, totally Granola, Delaney and Kyra and her spoilt child.
Cándido on the other hand, that was much closer to real life, things many of us can associate with, not enough money, not enough food, worrying about the kids, trying not to appear useless and hopeless to your partner or husband or wife. And América, well, she had the same feelings a lot of us have felt, she loves him, she hates him, she gets so sad she's totally indifferent to him....That's life.
I read it all the way through and found it a bit distracting, however, when I re-read it, I stopped reading the book as a whole and skipped from chapter to chapter following the plight of Cándido and América, and totally ignoring Delaney and his slappable wife.
It is a sad and desperate tale. Wishing you had hot water and a toilet and some food, you can feel it when you read it if you have ever been poor. If you know how it feels, this feel the same way. It is very well done. Cándido is a fool and he knows he is, that makes it so much sadder to read, he can see his life going down-hill and dragging his girlfriend with him but he doesn't know what to do to stop it. He makes the best of what he's got and it's still not good enough. It's just too sad.
Read it.

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Summary: Tortilla Curtain = differentiated view on immigration?
Review: In the book "The Tortilla Curtain", T.C. Boyle evaluates a over the years still relevant and often discussed topic - illegal immigration in the USA - and can be seen as a representative of the modern realism movement, describing this " historical situation from a new social and political standpoint" (Malcom Bradbury "Modern realist Fiction" 1988).

The epigram at the beginning of the book, an excerpt from the novel "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, puts Boyle's work in a certain tradition.
In the past years, many artists, writers, producers etc. tried to focus on this topic more closely.

Boyle's intention writing this book, is the attempt to presentate the topic in a very differentiated way, including as many different opinions and points of view as possible.

The story is set in Topanga Canyon (Los Angeles) - a wealthy region near the dividing line between America and Mexico, between rich and poor - the tortilla curtain.
Many descriptive details are making is easy to place in the geographic area.

The story is based on the life of four main characters, coming from different social and cultural backgrounds.

On the one hand you get to know the well organized and wealthy Californian couple Delaney and Kyra Mosbacher but on the other hand you get also aware of the delicate and dangerous life of a illegal immigrated couple, called América and Cándido Rincón.

Delaney, a journalist for a natural magazine, and Kyra his wife, a successful real estate agent, live in a exclusive and secure community, overlooking the Topanga Canyon.

The 17 years old pregnant América camps with her 13 years older husband Cándido within the canyon, enduring hunger, crime, pain and abuse.

The story starts with a car accident, where the two "worlds" meet the first time.
A chain of events follows, leading to a dramatic confrontation at the end of this borderline grotesque.
From now on life is determined by one setback after another.

Boyle chose the third - person narration, switching from one nationality to the other at the beginning of each chapter.

One of the main strengths of the book are the lively descriptions of the main characters.

Delaney's attitude towards foreigners develops, referring to the change of his point of view concerning Hispanics, throughout the book.
At the beginning he calls himself a liberal humanist and becomes, forced by circumstances and several events, a racist.

Also Cándido, his Mexican counterpart, is three dimensional.
Flashbacks are giving the opportunity to get to know him more closely, his way of thinking, his attitude towards life and the reasons for his acting and we can also gain knowledge about the immigration system in the USA, concerning for example the flashbacks where he remembers a deportation or how he crossed the border.

At first glance, taking the symbolic meaning of the names of some characters into account, ( for example América - a young wife, full of faith and dreams for/ of a better future in the USA) the topic seems to be presented in a very superficial way - only in black and white.

Besides, the Americans are presented in a sometimes a bit exaggerated and harsh seeming way, that one can have the impression of getting persuaded, feeling pity for the Mexican protagonists.

But still their are also some interesting flat characters, making the view more differentiated.

There is for example José Navidad, a violent, inhuman "bad-Mexican", who rapes América; or Mary an alcoholic, American hippy and Tod Sweet the " good- American", who represents the convinced and active humanist.

At the beginning one will share an alternating sympathy for both nationalities, seeing them endure separate fates in a form of cultural or environmental predestination, but the use of irony and sarcasm changes this attitude throughout the novel.

Delaney and Kyra for example, content interiors of the American Dream, live just a few miles away from the starvation, pain and loss of Cándido and his wife.

The fact that America defines itself as a nation of immigrants leads to an interesting question: What right do (immigrated) Americans (themselves) have to exclude other people embodying different social and cultural backgrounds such as the Mexicans?

Caused by some exaggerated descriptions of the characters and the plot, one can hardly escape the critic drawn on the American society with its superficial liberal and humanistic ideals.

The book is worth reading, including many different aspect on the topic immigration such as overpopulation, unemployment, crime or a debate on "gated communities" and gives so a good reasonable and general idea about illegal immigration in the USA.

Sara


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Summary: Shows true hypocrisy, but still very exaggerated.
Review: Living in California, I sense the extreme hypocrisy amongst many of the state's residents. This is a state with a large population from out of state yet has a tendency to be isolationist at times. A place that votes largely liberal, yet only a few years ago passed the extremely controversial and conservative Prop. 187. A place that is expensive to live, yet relies on low-paid illegal immigrants to shoulder much of the low end jobs. This is what Boyle brings out in this book; a book about two simple couples living on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Boyle describes a typical yuppie upper-middle class couple who moved to the outskirts to avoid urban living. The typical "White Flight" family. He describes an incident where the man from this couple runs his car into the an illegal immigrant, his exact counterpart. While the white couple has everything and lives a very posh yet uneventful live, the illegal immigrant and his wife exist on the opposite end of the spectrum, living in extreme poverty and hardship. Boyle does a wonderful job of splicing those two different ways of life together to further show the economic and class divide without explicit political pandering. He also manages to show the transformation of well off individual who is open minded to a man who is borderline racist.

While good, the main problem is that the two extremes are overdone. Without going into details, the hardships on the illegal immigrant couple are so increasingly sad and horrendous that it borders on ridiculous and moves to the realm unbelievable. On the other end of the spectrum, the white couple's "problems" are so vain that reading about them is pure drudgery at times. For example, he goes into much detail, pages and pages, about a wall being built. If he toned down the dullness on one end, and the horrors on the other, the credibility and believability would become vastly apparent.

All in all it's a decent book, but could have been much better.

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Summary: Ahhh
Review: Predictable storyline and nothing new. I read it for a college English class and I just it was boring. Props for the author for writing the book and cool title but I don't care for this book at all.

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Summary: monica 's review of tortilla curtain
Review: the book tortilla curtain by t. c. boyle. is an exageration of two cultures, Mexicans and Americans. Candido and his wife america are portrayed as two stupid, poor, dirty, savage-like, and ignorant mexicans. While, Delaney and his wife Kyra are portrayed as selfish, stuck up, and self centered. Everything was taken to the extreme. this book lacked a lot of real life point of view. Also a lot of racism that doesn't exsist as much now in real life. my parents are immigrants, and they came searching for the american dream as well, however their experiance was nothing like Candido's and America's. im not saying that every immigrant's life is like my parents, but it is certenly not the way that it was described in the book. if you want to read a joke, read this book.




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Summary: The Tortilla Curtain - Superficial Or Differentiated?
Review: The Tortilla Curtain tells the story about the life of two little families in southern California. One family, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher and their son Jordan live in welthy conditions. Having a job as a real estate trader Kyra is the boss of the family, the unsuccesful author Delaney is the houseman in their home in a private community near L.A.. Candidò and his unoficial and pregnant wife Amèrica are illegal immigrants from Mexico, struggling for a good life in the USA. Everytime the ways of that characters cross, they cause conflicts consiting of fear, hate, prejudice and aggression.
Here I want to judge how T.C.Boyle makes it to write an entertaining novel about that complex topic of immigration.
In my opinion he does it well.
Allways trying to consider the conflict between the Mossbachers and the couple of illegal immigrants from as much perspectives as possible, the book consists of stories about the Mexicans and the Americans told from the limited third-person point of view. Also the lots of flashbacks of nearly every main character make the reader understand the behaviour of them, even when the Mossbachers always make the impression of being narrow-mindet and a little bit ridiculous, for example their sexuall life, witch is just used as a therapy, or the Delaney's irrelevant magazine -articles about his hikings. The characters are credible.
Another point is, that Boyle doesn't serve clichès of heartless Americans and likable Mexicans. For every nationality there is at least one positive and one negative example. Though Candidò and Amèrica have to suffer under the daily unfairness of the Americans, in one flahback it becomes clear that an American farmer saved Candido's life once. Also there are some Mexicans who you can't feel any sympathy for. Hosè Navidad and his nameless friend rape Amèrica and threaten Kyra. Working with so many different characters ensures not prejudging a nation for whole.
And telling so much different stories cares for a very important argument for that book. The tension.
Though there are some boring passages included in the novel, like the descriptions of Kyra's working days, it owns a recognizable plot. The car accident, the fire in the canyon or the robbery of Candido give the story interesting twists. You want to know the end, wich is also surprising.
So I come to the conclusion, that the book is worth it's price. Buy it, borrow it, or whatever,
you will not be disappointed.

Johannes Hub