Rosarita

As the author explains in an afterword, Rosarita found its beginnings in artwork produced by two art students from India during their time in Mexico. Inspired by works documenting events during the Mexican Revolution, these students began creating work documenting the extreme violence of the partition of India and Pakistan. That's an interesting place from which to begin a novel, but Rosarita only touches on those artists and their work briefly.

The plot of Rosarita (as opposed to its inspiration) tells the story of an unnamed present-day student from India who is in Mexico to study Spanish. A key part of our student's back story is the relatively recent death of her mother and how little her daughter actually new about her. Our student show more is approached one day by an elderly woman who claims to have been a friend of her mother and who insists the student's mother studied art in Mexico. However, as far as our student knows, her mother never traveled beyond India and never made art, so she's torn between the possibility of coming to know her mother a bit more and the possibility that the older woman is either delusional or running an elaborate con of some sort.

The novel leaves readers in a state of unknowing, which seems appropriate. What our student doesn't know about her mother and what she doesn't know about herself should remain a mystery to us as well. If you like novellas that make wonderful use of language and don't spell everything out in detail, you'll enjoy Rosarita. If you're a reader who wants extended and certain plotting, you will probably find Rosarita both interesting and frustrating.

I received an electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. show less

3.5? I need to puzzle this one through - or read it again, which isn't hard sinces it's a skinny 90 pages. The narrator, Bonita, a young woman from India, is studying Spanish in Mexico when she is approached in the park by a flamboyant woman who claims to have known her mother. According to this unstable (?) woman, (Bonita thinks of her as the Trickster) Sarita was a talented artist who spent time in Mexico in various art schools/artist's colonies. Bonita is quite sure her mother has never been to Mexico, and so begins a journey - partly in memory and partly in parts of Mexico with the Trickster, Bonita tries to better understand her mother, of whom she has only a surface understanding. How well do any of us know our mothers before they show more had that role? Bonita's childhood in India was very wealthy and structured by male dominance - it seems so unlikely that Sarita ever had a free spirit - and yet tiny memories - or doubts - bubble up in her consciousness. "Such incidents revealed her unsutiability as a wife. Father's family had established order; out of what disorder had she arrived?" (20) With the Partition and the Mexican Revolution as an inherited traumatic influence, the narrator is left to determine whether art heals or stokes the rage of powerlessness. Kind of bifurcated and mind-messing, but artfully written. e.g. "...the ever-present doves gossiping convivially in the trees, a tap running into a tank that collects water - the afternoon unfolding like a scroll, its beginning and its end both invisible." (11) show less

This short book is written in second person. Things in this tale become strange and it winds up turning into a ghost story of sorts exploring memory. The cultural mixture adds to the vertigo of not knowing what is solid ground. It's not hard to read Desai but there is a skillful condensation in the writing that hints at more than what's on the page. This may be her last book but she is definitely worth exploring further.

fiction - Bonita, a language student from India living in San Miguel, Mexico, meets a woman who claims to have known Bonita's mother (Rosarita) as an art student, making Bonita question everything she thought she knew about her mother.

short novella loosely inspired by real-life Indian artist who traveled to Mexico where he studied art that depicted the Mexican Revolution and similarly produced his own art showing the violence he witnessed during Partition. In this case, I found the inspiration blurb contained in the brief author's note at the back more interesting than Bonita's journey, but it is a thoughtful story that won't take you long to read.

A lovely, redolent jewel.

"... a charmed moment embroidered by recollection."

Indeed.

And, I miss my mom.

??? Don't know what to say about this- not a book I would pick up again.

A very brief excursion to Mexico.