Thursday, May 21, 2009
Waiting for Snow in Havana #2
As I continue reading this novel I think about the importance of the European culture and its influence on this Cuban family. For instance, the fact that the protagonist's mother calls herself Marie Antoinette and that the father calls himself Louis XVI, and that Cuban folk music is played solely in the kitchen and in the housekeeper's room, says a lot about the great impact the colonizers left on the colonized.
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The part where the Cuban folk music was reserved to only the kitchen where the maid was seemed a bit shocking to me. Then I realized that it's like that in lots of places. All things foreign always seem grander and more desirable.
ReplyDeleteAnd the French nobility names were apparently a motif. I wonder if Carlos Eire's dad actually thought he was the French king in his past life. If Eire made up that part solely for his memoir then I wonder why he chose French royalty as opposed to Spanish.
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That's a really good observation about the culture...I didn't even think about the impact of European culture being the underlying reason for "Marie Antoinette" and "King Louis." Great job connecting what we learned in history about colonization to the book!
ReplyDelete~Natasha