Sirens Conference discussion

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the book club! This month, I read Dreaming in Cuban, by Cristina Garcia, a National Book Award finalist, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. I deliberately picked this book to be part of my reading list for this year for a couple reasons. First, I have an ongoing interest in Cuba's history and a great love of political novels (and while Dreaming in Cuban doesn't have a political agenda, the revolution is, itself, an almost sentient character). Second, Dreaming in Cuban is, in several ways, not the sort of book that I read regularly: almost poetic in nature, featuring magical realism, and focused on female familial relationships (though for the record, I adore books about female familial relationships; there just aren't many of them in the fantasy space).

I found Dreaming in Cuban to be, interestingly, lyrical more than anything. I read an interview with Garcia and she mentioned her great love of poetry and how she kept works of poetry on her desk while she was writing Dreaming in Cuban. I thought that was evident. Her language is almost musical, and it's clear that she spent a lot of time getting the flow just right.

I don't know that many of Garcia's themes resonated with me. Dreaming in Cuban focuses significantly on displacement and culture as a divide between families, as well as nostalgia, as ongoing themes. Which isn't to say that I didn't like Dreaming in Cuban. I very much did, though I do wish I had sat down to read it in one sitting instead of several. But I felt more than an observer than someone truly engrossed in the story.

I'm happy to discuss anything you like, including the attempts to ban Dreaming in Cuban from high-school classrooms (oh, pornography charges, will you never stop?). And I'd certainly love to know what you thought.

Amy

I liked the language in this as well. I have to think more about, well, what I think, but I do appreciate that we got to see women and families being important.

I appreciate books in which major aspects of the setting are characterlike! I haven't had a chance to read this one yet, but it sounds interesting.