The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros (1984)
Vintage (2009)
110 pp
For most of my reading life I’ve known about Sandra Cisneros’s 1983 novel, The House on Mango Street, and despite the fact that I’d never read it I think a part of me figured I knew what it was all about. Recently, for a library book club, I finally sat down to read it, and I absolutely loved it. In some ways it was what I expected from a lifetime of hearing about it: a coming of age story about an impoverished Latina girl. But I did not expect how beautifully written, how powerfully insightful, this short book would be. I already want to read everything Cisneros has written.
When the book begins, we meet our narrator, twelve-year-old Esperanza Cordero. She and her family has moved around a lot, but most recently — and it will turn out to be her home for the next several years — they have moved into a house in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood on Mango Street. It’s not all she’d hoped for.
When I picked the book up, I was surprised by how short its chapters were. There are 44 of them in this book that goes barely over 100 pages. But they’re often even shorter than that would suggest. The way the chapters are laid out in this edition, the start of each begins well below the fold on its first page, and some of the chapters end just a few lines onto the next page. The longest ones are just a few pages.
Despite the brevity, Cisneros packs so much into the short vignettes as we go through the next few years of Esperanza’s life. Some vignettes are funny, some are tragic, but all are immediate. Cisneros captures the voice of a young girl trying to understand the complicated world around her, and in Esperanza’s confusion we learn so much about her, about growing up in general, and about growing up in her situation in particular.
Cisneros has referred to this book as a button jar, with each vignette a different shape and hue, which is such a lovely way to think of this remarkable book.
I live in New Zealand and just read it for the first time and loved it too – each vignette was a like a gemstone or a bit of interesting sea-glass found on the beach Three high school girls I tutor read it recently for their year 10 (15-16 year olds) English class. Mixed reviews – one loved it and added it to her Classics list, another liked it because it was ‘so vivid and relatable’ and the last didn’t bother to finish it (a non-reader and this didn’t change her mind)
I know I have a copy of _The House on Mango Street_ , somewhere. It’s gotten to that point: so many books, not enough shelving, so I sometimes lose track of where they are. I know it’s a short and easy read, so I’ll read it as soon as I find it.
Meanwhile, I’ve got her poem “Hernia” in the current (July 1) New Yorker, which I saw while reading “Vincent’s Party”.
Is copying the whole poem here allowed? If so, let me know, and I’ll post it. For now, a few clips.
I’m not the best poetry interpreter, by far. But I can relate to this. A hernia has made the speaker feel her age, or more.
“A mean trick” has warned her not to “grow cocky”, and think herself “forever young”.
Seven years ago, I too late found 3 bloated infected ticks in hidden places. Became sick and weak with Lyme, lost over 20 pounds—all lean weight, I had virtually no fat. I was very “young” and buff for my age. Had become “cocky”, proud, I suppose, forever young… But the spirochetes aged me 20 years. I routed them out and healed myself, but was never again what I once was. In my weakened state, I then develped shingles and was left with chronic nerve damage, which for over 5 years has felt like a big 3rd degree burn, 24/7, irritated by movement.
^…”more and more complaints to threaten complacency. Please.”
I take no pain killers, because they kill the brain—and the body, truth be known!
I let my new condition limit me for a long time. I believed in it, excused myself…
“Is old fear, and, if fear,
now is the time to deal with
here”…
Not sure how Cisneros, or the voice of her poem, is dealing with it, but:
I stopped allowing myself to be controlled by pain or fear of pain. If I must feel pain, so be it. Pain is just “there”. I may die with it, until then I plow on …
I’ve just read a story by Sandra Cisneros: ^Never Marry a Mexican”. It may be her most famous story. It’s in her collection _Woman Hollering Creek_ (1991). It is also included in _More Stories We Tell_ (2004), the second of two anthologies of stories by North American women, edited by Wendy Martin. The first was _We Are the Stories We Tell_ (1990). The two volumes total close to 700 pages, with 48 stories from 1946 to 2002, although only 14 are before 1980, and those are mostly 1970s.
The first person narrator is Clemencia, American woman born to an American born Mexican mother and a Mexican born Mexican father. The mother tells her, never marry a Mexican. Clemencia says she’ll never marry anyone, although she has dreamed of doing so, except that she has certain ideals, but has come to know what marriage and men are really like. She has engaged in infidelities, and. “… I’ve… committed premeditated crimes. I’m guilty of having caused deliberate pain to other women. I’m vindictive and cruel, and I’m capable of anything.”
All this and more we learn in the first three paragraphs. She goes on to tell us the details. As narrator, she addresses the reader, or else Drew, a man she was having an affair with while his wife was giving birth to his son, whom she also alternately addresses. Toward the end of the 15 pages, she asks us, “Are you convinced now I’m crazy as a tulip or a taxi? As vagrant as a cloud?”
I look forward to reading the rest of the Cusneros collection. The anthology set also looks like a great reading project.