The Tortilla Curtain
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Product Description
When Delaney Mossbacher knocks down a Mexican pedestrian, he neither reports the manufacturing accident nor takes his victim to hospital. As a replacement for the man accepts $20 and limps back to poverty and his pregnant 17-year-ancient wife, leaving Delaney to return to his privileged life in California. But these two men are fated against each additional, as Delaney attempts to clear the land of the illegal immigrants who he thinks are turning his state park into a ghetto, and a boiling pot of racism and prejudice threatens to spill over.
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07 March 2006
Why Me?
This is a book review for the novel The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle. Just to get things straight, I want to start by adage this, I was not impressed. The title on the take in of the book is not even capitalized, maybe that will show you that the leader doesn’t know how to write, or that he at least knows that you should only capitalize vital thing, which this book is not. As you can probably tell by this first paragraph this is not a book report by a fan of the novel. The picture of the leader on the back of the novel is not very satisfying either, every time I turn the book over and look at it, it makes my stomach turn with fright and disgust, it looks like a picture that belongs on America’s Most Wanted, and the first thing it makes me want to do, is to scream out hide your women and children. If this first paragraph has not turned you away from reading this novel yet, than continue reading the next paragraphs. If you are unfortunate to read this book like I was, than you will regularly shake your head in despair and question yourself why me?
I suppose I should summarize the torture I was forced by my school to read. If you can stay awake from reading a synopsis about this book, than that makes one of us. Here it goes nonetheless, the opening pages start to sound appealing enough when a man named Delaney hits a man named Candido with his car, as he was driving down the highway. But that is about as appealing as it gets, it is all down hill from that point. It doesn’t even clarify who was in the incorrect, Delaney claims he didn’t see Candido and that he just jumped up out of no where, and Candido, the second main character (who is an illegal Mexican immigrant), claims he was just walking on the side of the road and Delaney purposely ran him over. To me that is a sad excuse as a plot starter. The setting of the book is in Los Angeles California. Delaney, his wife Kyra, and his son Jordan live in a gated community. Candido and his wife America (yes I know, really creative naming a name after the continent they live on) live in a park forest, in a tiny hut that they made themselves. Living in a park forest is of course illegal, and non-surprisingly enough causes them distress in the near future. The narration changes every chapter between Candido and Delaney.
The rest of the book is basically a conflict between Candido finding a job to support his pregnant wife, and Delaney trying to keep Mexicans out of his community. I already know there are prejudice rich people, and there are very pore people. So I don’t know what boundaries Boyle thought he was breaking when he wrote this book. But he has broken some, probably not the ones he was looking for, I give him the award of the worst book I had to read in English class.
The largest problem that I have with the book, besides from it being so dull, is that everything in it is sad. I cannot remember one pleased moment in the book. The only time I can remember smiling during that novel was when it was over and I could close the book never to reopen it again. The smile of course soon faded because of all my time lost reading the book, and the scary picture of the leader on the back, looking up at me, as previously mentioned. I know I am going to have nightmares about that face sooner or later. But in all truthfulness it was depressing. The poor Mexican’s first wife has an affair with him, and he loses the fight he gets into to protect his honor: he gets hit by a car, he can’t find a real job throughout the entire novel, he starts to steel, his wife gets raped, he gets cheated from pay from a landscaper, he burns down the forest by manufacturing accident, he lives in tiny dirty hut, his daughter is born blind, he gets blamed for things he doesn’t do, a man (Delaney) pulls a gun on him, he loses his house, the few personal effects he had in a flood, and his new born daughter drowns to death in the flood. I get depressed just remembering it. Just to help prove my point, here is a sentence from the book, about how Candido feels; “It was beyond irony, beyond questions of sin and culpability, beyond superstition: he couldn’t live in his own country and he couldn’t live in this one either. He was a failure, a fool [...]” (322). Delaney’s life isn’t all fun and games either, yes he is rich, but his car gets hurt a number of times: his wife’s dream house gets burned down, his community keeps getting broken in to and vandalized, he marriage life sounds dull, as does his kid, he gets in a fight, a name threatens his life, he becomes paranoid and stays up all night looking at a wall trying to catch vandals, and a person he despises (Candido) saves his life.
I have seen and heard of enough sadness in my life. I don’t need to read about it in some stupid book. If I wanted to see more sadness I could just look out my car window, turn on the news, or look at kid’s faces in the hallway. In conclusion, I hope I have caught you in time, to stop you from building a huge mistake and reading a horrible book. I can honestly say that I wish I had not read this book, and that my life would have been better if I hadn’t.
Work Cited
Boyle, T.C. The Tortilla Curtain. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
T.C. Boyle wrote a very dull novel about races (not the inspirational Chariots of Fire kinds of races, but the depressing kind of races), and it’s like whatever.
Excellent thing: the leader’s initials are TCB. TAKING CARE of BUSINESS! Whoo!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I can not start to clarify my disgust with this novel. The way he sets out this farfetched situations just surprises me. He describes immigrants as ignorant people, who are permanently running. Makes them seem like some kind of animal, I ‘ve seen more respect agreed in describing a dog.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This book is worthless. Don’t waste your time or money. If you want a biased, slanted, bleeding heart view of illegal alien squatters who are invading our country, just pick up the LA Times editorial section. I’ve heard this leader is not willing to debate this book with persons who are fighting to save our country against this invasion. Is he worried of being exposed? It seems T.C. Boyle is desperately trying to make a buck off this issue. Remember he wrote this book in 1996. Forget this piece of junk and go for an honest account of the illegal alien invasion with any books by Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo, or Jim Gilchrist.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The tale Tortilla Curtain was very thought provoking. I read it for a book discussion at my library. If I didn’t have to read it for the discussion, I wouldn’t have. It was a depressing book, and I establish it hard to get through. Most of the characters were unlikable. I thought I would like Delaney, but he was the most hypacritical character. I live near Farmingville, NY where there is a very huge problem with Mexicans. They group at 7-Elevens during the day to get work and there are additional problems. I related to the problem that Delaney and Kyra had with the Mexicans, even if they lived in LA, California area.
On a positive note the leader wrote fascinatingly, going back and into the world between the Mexican couple and the Yuppy White American Couple. I felt the anguish and pain that Amerika felt eating food from the garbage and when she was raped.
If you live where there is a problem with Mexicans or additional groups that are not from America, you might find this book an appealing read.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5