The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros
paperback, 25th Anniversary Edition, 110 pages
published April 3rd, 1991 by Vintage
(first published 1984)
ISBN 0679734775
ISBN-13 9780679734772
edition language English
characters Esperanza, Nanny
setting Chicago, Illinois
literary awards George C. Stone Center for Children's Books Recognition of Merit Award (1994)
Brief, but not light, good to read for a quick break.
Before my American Literature after Civil War class introduce me the book, I've not known either Sandra Cisneros or The House on Mango Street. I am really glad my professor used this book for class discussion, although not exactly remember what the discussion was about after a year. Rereading the book let me think more then text.
In my opinion, the way she wrote might be the way she tells as she said in the last chapter, Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes, "I like to tell stories. I tel them inside my head," and the way she tells makes it so poetic. She used many repetition and parallelism to express her emotional depth and to emphasize her thoughts. Like telling stories orally, its vocabularies are not hard and easy to follow.
I actually LOVE this book, even though I gave only four stars. I gave four stars for a reason. It might be the problem of mine, but its short short chapter and slightly connected chapter sometimes interrupt my focus; however, ironically, I still like its short short chapter due to easy reading. These are the stories of her own and a true girl. There was no hesitation to show herself directly, and her thoughts and life was well drawn with beauty of language and of imagination. Mango Street is not only referring to where she lived, but also to where her identity was set. My most favorite parts are the story about her name and her complex. Every facts around people has more than its purpose, they all have its own story for every individual, and this book well tells about her life and her stories. Maybe because she is a Hispanic writer, words she used are so colorful.
Someday, I want to rewrite her story by my own story.
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