"There are only two ways to get to San Miguel..."
Right before the trip, I finished reading, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone by Mary Morris. At the Sarah Lawrence workshop last summer, we read a chapter of it, and I fell in love. I will admit, though, that I was disappointed at first. It's about her time living and traveling in Mexico and Central America. The chapter we read had more to do with her childhood and how it led to her desire to travel the world. Finding out that the book was limited to one part of her adult travels was a let down, but I was wrong to leave the book aside for so long. It really did pull me into it right away. She's vague about dates and time, but she lived for a long period in San Miguel a few hours from Mexico City. She was leaving a bad relationship behind in the states. The book says a lot about being a woman in this culture. And this is odd to say, but it's not as much about being a woman as it might first appear. The book was published in 1988, and I wonder if the feminist agenda might be more at the forefront if it were published later. Or, more accurately, having been raised on a 90s brand of feminism, it didn't feel as direct in this book as I might have expected. But that's not a problem. It's still there when it works. And the story is compelling throughout. I loved reading it and was sorry to see it end.
- posted by Nels @ 9:13 PM | | | Link |