El Milagro and Other Stories by Patricia Preciado Martin
University of Arizona Press, Tucson
104 pp., $22.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.
Reviewed by Fiona Drayton Russell
The English translation of "milagro" is "miracle", and each story in this collection speaks of miracles in some way--an unexplained event, or a child learning to understand something new. We discover readily possible miracles (the face of Christ in a tortilla) and the more supernatural (the ghosts of ancestors appearing during a sudden creciente, sailing down the waters of a swollen creek). Patricia Preciado Martin, an Arizona native of Mexicana descent, presents the reader with these rich cuentos as gifts--of Mexican culture and of childhood, of the importance of the most ordinary task of cooking and preparing food. Each story holds elements of one or all of these, often blending them in surprising ways. Deep emotion floods to the surface from everyday activity, like the girl who, religiously learning embroidery under her mother's instruction instead of roller skating or attending slumber parties, pricks herself with her mother's "golden needle while wondering what in the world it felt like to be kissed."Many of the stories are told through a voice that is believably a child's but sometimes holds the wisdom of age. The girl who narrates is different ages in different stories, from niñita to quinceañera (and all the turmoil of her teenage years) to a woman nearing middle age, condemned by her mother and children because she still cannot make tortillas. Each makes discoveries about herself or about life through an ordinary event that becomes extraordinary. The Catholic school girl who wonders, "How can Mary be a virgin if she's a mother?" wanders home through the park and finds herself inexplicably drawn to the winos whose "future dreams [are] blurred by unconsecrated wine."
The title of each story is in Spanish, and many Spanish words and phrases are blended in with the English prose. The blend is a natural one; Spanish is used often for things that have no meaning in English or no significance as concepts in American culture and produces a different image--"buquitos" are different from "brats", for instance; and Americans can gossip but have never engaged in "plática". Most of the more complicated phrases are translated as English in footnotes on the same page, some of make one wonder as to their origins: "Casa donde no hay harina, todo se hace remolina" translates literally into "In a house where there is no flour, everything will turn to shambles," but the meaning of the proverb is "Where there is no discipline, all will be lost." Although there are some words and phrases that a reader who knows only very basic Spanish might misconstrue or not understand, most can be deduced from context. It is the loss of the reader who misses a beautiful meaning that cannot fit within the constraints of the English language, but the sounds of the Spanish words are an important part of the stories as well. Patricia Preciado Martin's writing has a very calming and lyrical quality while spinning a wonderful story; some of the shorter pieces could pass for prose poems.
The stories provide a sweet taste of a girl's life growing up Mexicana, the smells of her ancestry (the phrase "bone dust of generations" appears in the last story, but if there is such a thing, it has settled throughout the pages of El Milagro), and some beautiful and at times wildly humorous writing (those who buy tortillas wrapped in plastic at the supermarket "might as well move to Los Angeles, for they have already lost their souls"). Patricia Preciado Martin has laid out an inviting feast for readers.
All contents copyright © 1997, The Blue Moon Review, All Rights Reserved.