Dona Florby Pat Mora; illustrated by Raul Colon
by Julia Alvarez; illustrated by Beatriz Vidal
Perhaps it's odd or inappropriate to pair a magical realism story with a religious one, since many will insist that there's no suspense of disbelief in the latter, at least for the religiously inclined. That'd be missing what the stories have in common, which is more than the occasional Spanish phrase and Hispanic backdrop (and the fact that they arrived in the same box. Ah well).
One's a tall tale from what could be either the American Southwest or northern Mexico, the other's the Dominican legend of Our Lady of Altagracia (literally "High Grace").
Mora creates a larger-than-life heroine in the giantess Dona Flor, giving her oversized common sense as well as a heart as big as the hand-made tortillas that double as roofs for a grateful pueblo. When a puma's thunderous roars make both people and animals tremble, she righteously marches off to settle matters. How refreshing to see a protagonist who doesn't face every affront with a massive shot of testosterone, but with folksy wisdom and a wry smile.
Little Maria in The Gift of Gracias prays that her family won't have to leave colonial Hispaniola (today's Dominican Republic) after their olive crop fails. She's rewarded with a dream of planting oranges, accompanied by a vision of the Virgin. When her family plants orange seeds, the trees mature quickly and bear a life-saving harvest.
An aboriginal servant, Quisqueya, acts as a sort of Catholic spirit guide, appearing in Maria's dreams and later bringing home a blanket with the Virgin's likeness that's hung in the new orchard. Alvarez blurs the distinction between the folkloric and the sacred, with a Virgin firmly rooted in Dominican soil and native culture.
It makes the story decidedly Latino, just as Dona Flor, who may have girth akin to Paul Bunyan's, but whose story is only American in the largest possible sense -- an America that spans two continents and whose people are as likely to speak Spanish as not.
Both books channel Diego Rivera in their homage to peasants, though maybe that's not the right word. I think of Latino folk art when I see the rounded figures and earthy colors and the artists' celebration of the simple and everyday. Plus there's the usual clues: the flattened picture plane, the minimal use of light and shadow, the uncluttered compositions, and how the artists freely mix the mundane and the supernatural as if it were an expected thing.
The act of planting orange seeds takes on a religious solemnity, for example, with figures praying as they stoop at their work. Vidal used a magnifying glass on the many details, but her pictures remain clear, straightforward depictions of a modest family's brush with divine grace.
Colon's Dona Flor soars, ethereal and sweet, the lines smudged and smoothed to make her literally soft around the edges, a depiction that is more awed than religious, but uplifting in its own way.
Rating: *\*\*\
Comments