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The Valley
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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February 28, 2021Read this for a Spanish class that I chose to take in part because this book was on the syllabus and I wanted to learn more about the literature of the Rio Grande Valley (where I'll be moving soon).
Hinojosa made the interesting decision to publish Estampas del valle in both Spanish and English, but as a re-write of sorts rather than a direct translation. Having the English version still helped me ensure that I understood the Spanish correctly, particularly because the English version elaborates on some cultural things that the Spanish version doesn't bother to explain. That said, the English version sometimes seemed a bit awkward when it over-explained in a way that disrupted the flow.
Estampas del valle consists of vignettes (or "stamps"/impressions) of life in a fictional county in the RGV. I thought it was entertaining if somewhat scattershot. Keeping track of all the characters and their relations to each other is essentially impossible. The Spanish is challenging but readable for an intermediate speaker (the bilingual edition helps a lot), much easier than the previous book I read for this class ( Las Aventuras de Don Chipote, O Cuando Los Pericos Mamen ) and more enjoyable.
I'm choosing not to rate this book because the slow, choppy way that I read in Spanish probably doesn't do justice to the actual quality of the book, but I'd probably give it 3 or 4 stars.
Hinojosa made the interesting decision to publish Estampas del valle in both Spanish and English, but as a re-write of sorts rather than a direct translation. Having the English version still helped me ensure that I understood the Spanish correctly, particularly because the English version elaborates on some cultural things that the Spanish version doesn't bother to explain. That said, the English version sometimes seemed a bit awkward when it over-explained in a way that disrupted the flow.
Estampas del valle consists of vignettes (or "stamps"/impressions) of life in a fictional county in the RGV. I thought it was entertaining if somewhat scattershot. Keeping track of all the characters and their relations to each other is essentially impossible. The Spanish is challenging but readable for an intermediate speaker (the bilingual edition helps a lot), much easier than the previous book I read for this class ( Las Aventuras de Don Chipote, O Cuando Los Pericos Mamen ) and more enjoyable.
I'm choosing not to rate this book because the slow, choppy way that I read in Spanish probably doesn't do justice to the actual quality of the book, but I'd probably give it 3 or 4 stars.
March 3, 2008
Rolando Hinojosa-Smith's The Valley introduces the fictional borderland of Belken County. In this world, there is a Rio Grande Valley, but cities such as Brownsville, and her surrounding towns, Harlingen, McAllen, Edinburg, are replaced with cities and towns such as Klail City, Ruffing, Relampago, and Edgerton. The Valley is told by the county's many characters, and arranged in a series of "sketches and silhouettes" that opens a world filled with tragic and often comedic circumstances. We hear first hand accounts of Beldemar Cordero's run-ins with the law, or gossip about the county's most affluent resident, Viola Barragan, or war-filled stories from the area's revolucionarios. It's all presented to the reader much like the simple hand drawn map on the novel's first page. One can be quick to compare it to Oscar Casares's work in Brownsville Stories, but where Casares's fiction is simple and direct, Hinojosa-Smith's is elegant and rich with, well, imaginative history behind the lives of the people of Belken County.
July 15, 2014
I read a different edition (1973), the first printing by Quinto Sol Publications which published it as a bilingual edition. If you know how to read Spanish, read it in Spanish. It's just funnier in Spanish. There are certain exchanges amongst characters or certain words that just don't have the same comedic "umph" they do in the original Spanish language.
I've never really read an author who experiments with writing formats as much as Hinojosa does. It's interesting. You get vignettes, an epistolary-style story, and another with a newspaper article, interviews, and a police report.
I've never really read an author who experiments with writing formats as much as Hinojosa does. It's interesting. You get vignettes, an epistolary-style story, and another with a newspaper article, interviews, and a police report.
May 16, 2022
Hinojosa captures the Rio Grande Valley (& South Texas) with brief, yet intertaining vignettes. I had not known of this writer until a few weeks ago. I am more or less from the area and his stories ring true.
June 15, 2026
A vivid and engaging coming-of-age memoir set entirely at sea. The unique sailboat upbringing is fascinating, balancing adventure with the real emotional challenges of isolation, identity, and growing up. A memorable read for anyone drawn to unconventional childhoods and life on the water
March 15, 2014
A TOP SHELF review, originally published in the March 13, 2014 edition of The Monitor
As late as 1970, very little Mexican-American literature was being published, and virtually none of that was about the Rio Grande Valley. Then Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, a Mercedes native who had just wrapped up his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois, published a short story set in the Valley with the budding Quinto Sol press out of Berkeley, California.
The story was warmly received, and Hinojosa was inspired to write a longer work. Released in 1972, Estampas del Valle became an urtext for Valley letters, demonstrating how the lives of working-class Mexican-Americans in small border towns could be leveraged into vital, important literature.
Over the next decade, Hinojosa crafted an English-language “rendition” of the original Spanish, which was published in 1983 by Bilingual Review Press as The Valley. The book formed the nucleus of his critically acclaimed “Klail City Death Trip” series. On the occasion of his being awarded the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, Arte Público Press has re-released the two versions as a single bilingual book.
The Valley: Estampas del valle consists of a series of vignettes set over seven decades in the fictional South Texas county of Belken (corresponding roughly to Hidalgo and Starr). Using a sort of epistolary approach, Hinojosa weaves newspaper articles, gossip, interview transcripts, court documents and stripped-down dialogues that read like scenes from a play to build up in overlapping layers a portrait of the community in and around Klail City (a stand-in for Mercedes).
Though Hinojosa introduces us to dozens of residents of the Valley with intersecting lives, a good portion of the novel is dedicated a series of particular men. Jehú Malacara, orphaned at a young age, finds a father-figure in old Don Víctor, a veteran of the Mexican Revolution who teaches Jehú the carnie trade.
Bruno Cano, a ne’er-do-well and con-man, finds himself trapped in a hole he is digging with fellow treasure-hunters, certain that he’s being attacked by a ghost. The reaction of the local priest is not what he’d expected. Baldemar Cordero, fed up with verbal abuse and humiliation from Arnesto Tamez, finally snaps and fatally stabs the man. Though no one in the community can find fault in his actions, the law does.
Dozens of shorter sketches and incidents fill in the narrative quilt, leaving the reader with a collage portrait of a community caught up in the same loves, lies, conflicts, ethnic betrayals, land-grabs, victories and joys of any other, but with that particular border flavor unique to the RGV.
Hinojosa’s style in English is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s, bemused and satirical while remaining empathetic and respectful. The range of spoken and written registers he manipulates with ease is impressive, and his Spanish (often bolder and less circumspect than the English) is a delight to read.
Any lover of literature and the Valley who has not read this book (and the rest of Hinojosa’s work) needs to remedy that oversight soon. This is where it all started.
As late as 1970, very little Mexican-American literature was being published, and virtually none of that was about the Rio Grande Valley. Then Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, a Mercedes native who had just wrapped up his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois, published a short story set in the Valley with the budding Quinto Sol press out of Berkeley, California.
The story was warmly received, and Hinojosa was inspired to write a longer work. Released in 1972, Estampas del Valle became an urtext for Valley letters, demonstrating how the lives of working-class Mexican-Americans in small border towns could be leveraged into vital, important literature.
Over the next decade, Hinojosa crafted an English-language “rendition” of the original Spanish, which was published in 1983 by Bilingual Review Press as The Valley. The book formed the nucleus of his critically acclaimed “Klail City Death Trip” series. On the occasion of his being awarded the National Book Critics Circle’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, Arte Público Press has re-released the two versions as a single bilingual book.
The Valley: Estampas del valle consists of a series of vignettes set over seven decades in the fictional South Texas county of Belken (corresponding roughly to Hidalgo and Starr). Using a sort of epistolary approach, Hinojosa weaves newspaper articles, gossip, interview transcripts, court documents and stripped-down dialogues that read like scenes from a play to build up in overlapping layers a portrait of the community in and around Klail City (a stand-in for Mercedes).
Though Hinojosa introduces us to dozens of residents of the Valley with intersecting lives, a good portion of the novel is dedicated a series of particular men. Jehú Malacara, orphaned at a young age, finds a father-figure in old Don Víctor, a veteran of the Mexican Revolution who teaches Jehú the carnie trade.
Bruno Cano, a ne’er-do-well and con-man, finds himself trapped in a hole he is digging with fellow treasure-hunters, certain that he’s being attacked by a ghost. The reaction of the local priest is not what he’d expected. Baldemar Cordero, fed up with verbal abuse and humiliation from Arnesto Tamez, finally snaps and fatally stabs the man. Though no one in the community can find fault in his actions, the law does.
Dozens of shorter sketches and incidents fill in the narrative quilt, leaving the reader with a collage portrait of a community caught up in the same loves, lies, conflicts, ethnic betrayals, land-grabs, victories and joys of any other, but with that particular border flavor unique to the RGV.
Hinojosa’s style in English is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s, bemused and satirical while remaining empathetic and respectful. The range of spoken and written registers he manipulates with ease is impressive, and his Spanish (often bolder and less circumspect than the English) is a delight to read.
Any lover of literature and the Valley who has not read this book (and the rest of Hinojosa’s work) needs to remedy that oversight soon. This is where it all started.
June 15, 2016
Contrariamente a muchos autores "hispanos", Rolando Hinojosa, autor chicano, escribe en español. Pero como la vida chicana no puede ser fácil, se traduce él mismo el libro, que se publica en versión bilingüe. Pero no es una traducción de traductor, sino de autor, al punto que no es lo mismo el texto inglés que el texto español.
Por fortuna para mí, la primera parte son los textos en inglés; y la segunda, los textos en español. Así compruebo que la regla que dice que la traducción tiende a ser más larga que el original se cumple: la traducción intenta explicar cosas que en el original no precisan explicación. Así también entiendo mejor la segunda parte.
Trátase de una serie de estampas, como acertadamente dice el título en español. Pequeños retazos que pintan un cuadro de lo que es el Valle del Río Grande, en el condado inventado de Belken. He de confesar que los textos en inglés me interesan mucho menos que sus hermanos en español. Por algún motivo, los últimos me parecen más auténticos. Globalmente me causa buena impresión, aunque no parece una obra mayor.
No deja de maravillarme la difícil identidad de los personajes: los mayores participaron en la Revolución villista, la frontera se cruza de acá para allá hasta que llegó la migra, los que hablan español son mexicanos, cuando no raza, mientras los otros son anglos, en la versión inglesa, o bolillos, en la española. Un vendedor de dulces vende los americanos los naciones (sic). Vaya, que nada es claro y todo es confuso, como si se tratase de una realidad.
Me sirve de puerta de entrada a la literatura chicana, que debo investigar algo más.
Por fortuna para mí, la primera parte son los textos en inglés; y la segunda, los textos en español. Así compruebo que la regla que dice que la traducción tiende a ser más larga que el original se cumple: la traducción intenta explicar cosas que en el original no precisan explicación. Así también entiendo mejor la segunda parte.
Trátase de una serie de estampas, como acertadamente dice el título en español. Pequeños retazos que pintan un cuadro de lo que es el Valle del Río Grande, en el condado inventado de Belken. He de confesar que los textos en inglés me interesan mucho menos que sus hermanos en español. Por algún motivo, los últimos me parecen más auténticos. Globalmente me causa buena impresión, aunque no parece una obra mayor.
No deja de maravillarme la difícil identidad de los personajes: los mayores participaron en la Revolución villista, la frontera se cruza de acá para allá hasta que llegó la migra, los que hablan español son mexicanos, cuando no raza, mientras los otros son anglos, en la versión inglesa, o bolillos, en la española. Un vendedor de dulces vende los americanos los naciones (sic). Vaya, que nada es claro y todo es confuso, como si se tratase de una realidad.
Me sirve de puerta de entrada a la literatura chicana, que debo investigar algo más.
December 16, 2012
Book about the linguistic and cultural problems in the border region between Mexico and the US. How the Latino community manages to integrate in the south of and English-speaking supercountry. This book shows how the Hispanic community is often negatively stigmatized in the US and their difficulty in really integrating a country that is not their own.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews