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Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun
Why is the word madre , "mother," so complicated in Spanish―especially in Mexico? Leaping off the page with energy, insight, and attitude, Liza Bakewell's exploration of language is anything but "just semantics." Why does me vale madre mean worthless, while !qué padre! means fabulous, she asks? And why do one hundred madres disappear when one padre enters the room, converting the group from madres to padres ? Thus begins a journey through Mexican culture in all its color: weddings, dinner parties, an artist's studio, heart-stopping taxi rides, angry journalists, corrupt politicians, Blessed Virgins, and mothers both sacred and profane.
Along the way, a reader discovers not only an invaluable lexicon of Mexican slang (to be used with caution or not at all) but also thought-provoking reflections on the evolution of language; its winding path through culture, religion, and politics; and, not least, what it means―and what it threatens―to be a creative female, a madre .
Along the way, a reader discovers not only an invaluable lexicon of Mexican slang (to be used with caution or not at all) but also thought-provoking reflections on the evolution of language; its winding path through culture, religion, and politics; and, not least, what it means―and what it threatens―to be a creative female, a madre .
224 pages, Hardcover
First published October 6, 2010
4 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Liza Bakewell
6 books4 followersLiza Bakewell is a linguistic anthropologist at Brown University. She lives in Freeport, Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 30, 2011
All good novels work on more than one level--'Madre, Perilous Journeys With A Spanish Noun' is no exception-it is so many things- a scholarly exploration of linguistics that evokes so much beautiful and grotesque chiaroscuro.-a darkening and lightening on the madre, a beautiful homage to the pathos and surrealism of Mexico, an excellent travelogue, a funny memoir and spot on research! Bakewell translates and explores the Madre in many guises. I personally love the Virgin of Guadalupe, residing in buses, cantinas, votive paintings, state offices and architecture -blending the disparate nation into a whole- the Queen of Heaven-troubled and embattled without, peaceful and devout within-herein lies the rub. Bakewell takes us to weddings and cathedrals brings us into love affairs and the street--all exclusively Mexican. This book should be read in every Mexican-Meso-American History, Linguistics and Spanish language class--to better understand the pantheon of saints and sinning that goes on in that complex country and to better understand methods in linguistic anthropolgy. Viva La Liza Bakewell!
March 16, 2011
Before I share my thoughts on Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun, I want to dispel a concern some people may have that Madre might be inaccessible. On the contrary! Ms. Bakewell does a beautiful job of making her subject clear and easy to follow. Even if you’re new to the study of language, you’ll learn from and enjoy what Ms. Bakewell has to say. She is an academic, certainly, but she is also a gifted writer, and Madre is a pleasure to read. Her vivid descriptions of life in Mexico, her wordplay, and her light touch of humor combine to make Madre as engaging as it is interesting.
Ms. Bakewell’s journey with madre is, indeed, a fascinating one. Each time I thought she’d run out of angles from which to study the elusive noun, she’d introduce yet another factor that contributed in some way to madre’s contemporary meaning. It would be difficult to examine the word for “mother” without also examining the role of women, and Ms. Bakewell does so: as speakers of the language, as brides, as historical and Biblical figures, and, of course, as mothers. Masculine and feminine exist even in the Spanish language itself.
If your curiosity is piqued by language, if you enjoy diving into other cultures, if you’re interested in gender studies, or if you like memoirs that teach while they transport, I would absolutely recommend Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun by Liza Bakewell to you. My full review is posted on my blog, Erin Reads.
Ms. Bakewell’s journey with madre is, indeed, a fascinating one. Each time I thought she’d run out of angles from which to study the elusive noun, she’d introduce yet another factor that contributed in some way to madre’s contemporary meaning. It would be difficult to examine the word for “mother” without also examining the role of women, and Ms. Bakewell does so: as speakers of the language, as brides, as historical and Biblical figures, and, of course, as mothers. Masculine and feminine exist even in the Spanish language itself.
If your curiosity is piqued by language, if you enjoy diving into other cultures, if you’re interested in gender studies, or if you like memoirs that teach while they transport, I would absolutely recommend Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun by Liza Bakewell to you. My full review is posted on my blog, Erin Reads.
January 29, 2024
Funny and solid. Described Mexican culture so well. Not fabulous and at times too academic.
February 6, 2013
By Jessie Williams
For The Literary Review
Volume 54 "Emo, Meet Hole"
In the long list of naughty words we are taught from childhood that we should
not say in public, none in this country comes close to the incendiary Mexican idioms surrounding the word madre. While men all over North America may have
“Mother” tattooed on their biceps, in Mexico, the word does not necessarily, as it
does here, call forth an image of the giver of all comfort or the provider of our apple
pie. Just over the border, you might easily provoke a serious beating for using the
word in the wrong way. It’s a big word, a dangerous word, a sometimes funny word,
(but only if you use it right and only if you’re male). Mamá is your mother. Madre
is something else entirely.
The staggering complexity of this one word is chronicled in Liza Bakewell’s
Madre: Perilous Journeys With a Spanish Noun. While writing her anthropology
dissertation in Oaxaca, Bakewell sees a wall spray-painted with the words, “¿A
todo madre o un desmadre?” and translates it to herself as “A total mother or a
dis-mother?” It was not the first time she had been confounded by the term and its
ability to be both a positive and a negative, and so began what she calls her journey
to understand the word, the many uses for it, and the mysterious, and often violent,
power behind it.
When she first begins her informal research, she finds that men are unwilling
to discuss madre with a woman. They stonewall and say it’s not proper to discuss
such things. Their reluctance makes her more obsessed and she works harder to discover the many meanings of the word. Bits of information from her closest Mexican
male friends, discussions with her Mexican women friends, and finally, the cultural
analysis she devotes as a linguistic anthropologist lead her to discover an entire
world built around the term and its hundreds of uses.
Madre hangs in the air at weddings, where Eve and the Virgin Mary bookend
a woman’s position in the world. (You are an innocent virgin until you marry,
become a mother, become a whore.) It seeps into Mexican politics, family hierarchy, how men define women and how some women allow themselves to be defined.
Most importantly, madre makes clear how men define themselves. A big word,
Bakewell says, “Because ‘grammar’ doesn’t just mean grammar. It also means a can
of worms.
Madre was a weapon, the way swear words can be. Excitable. Combative. And
like other fighting-word weapons, she was made of sticks and stones when she
rolled off the tongue in Mexico. Depending on how madre was said, if women
were present, the level of alcohol, if it were night or day. So many different ways
of using her, abusing her, tossing, throwing, kicking, hurling her. To insult.
Sometimes for fun like a game of cowboys and Indians. Bang, bang you’re dead,
where everyone has a good time. But sometimes not
Madre is an engaging, spirited, careful book. Bakewell’s fair-minded approach
and non-confrontational style allow her to define the word and its relation to rape,
violence, and a generalized cultural suppression of women while never attacking
the men who are, in this case, the suppressors. Although “madre lives in a man’s
world,” Bakewell does not waste time passing judgment on that world. She rather
seems to move easily from one clue to the next, drawing a seamless and fascinating
sketch of how a single word can give clues to a culture as a whole. Are there such
words in English? If there are, perhaps Liza Bakewell will discover them and dissect
them for us as well.
For more great reading
Subscribe to The Literary Review
For The Literary Review
Volume 54 "Emo, Meet Hole"
In the long list of naughty words we are taught from childhood that we should
not say in public, none in this country comes close to the incendiary Mexican idioms surrounding the word madre. While men all over North America may have
“Mother” tattooed on their biceps, in Mexico, the word does not necessarily, as it
does here, call forth an image of the giver of all comfort or the provider of our apple
pie. Just over the border, you might easily provoke a serious beating for using the
word in the wrong way. It’s a big word, a dangerous word, a sometimes funny word,
(but only if you use it right and only if you’re male). Mamá is your mother. Madre
is something else entirely.
The staggering complexity of this one word is chronicled in Liza Bakewell’s
Madre: Perilous Journeys With a Spanish Noun. While writing her anthropology
dissertation in Oaxaca, Bakewell sees a wall spray-painted with the words, “¿A
todo madre o un desmadre?” and translates it to herself as “A total mother or a
dis-mother?” It was not the first time she had been confounded by the term and its
ability to be both a positive and a negative, and so began what she calls her journey
to understand the word, the many uses for it, and the mysterious, and often violent,
power behind it.
When she first begins her informal research, she finds that men are unwilling
to discuss madre with a woman. They stonewall and say it’s not proper to discuss
such things. Their reluctance makes her more obsessed and she works harder to discover the many meanings of the word. Bits of information from her closest Mexican
male friends, discussions with her Mexican women friends, and finally, the cultural
analysis she devotes as a linguistic anthropologist lead her to discover an entire
world built around the term and its hundreds of uses.
Madre hangs in the air at weddings, where Eve and the Virgin Mary bookend
a woman’s position in the world. (You are an innocent virgin until you marry,
become a mother, become a whore.) It seeps into Mexican politics, family hierarchy, how men define women and how some women allow themselves to be defined.
Most importantly, madre makes clear how men define themselves. A big word,
Bakewell says, “Because ‘grammar’ doesn’t just mean grammar. It also means a can
of worms.
Madre was a weapon, the way swear words can be. Excitable. Combative. And
like other fighting-word weapons, she was made of sticks and stones when she
rolled off the tongue in Mexico. Depending on how madre was said, if women
were present, the level of alcohol, if it were night or day. So many different ways
of using her, abusing her, tossing, throwing, kicking, hurling her. To insult.
Sometimes for fun like a game of cowboys and Indians. Bang, bang you’re dead,
where everyone has a good time. But sometimes not
Madre is an engaging, spirited, careful book. Bakewell’s fair-minded approach
and non-confrontational style allow her to define the word and its relation to rape,
violence, and a generalized cultural suppression of women while never attacking
the men who are, in this case, the suppressors. Although “madre lives in a man’s
world,” Bakewell does not waste time passing judgment on that world. She rather
seems to move easily from one clue to the next, drawing a seamless and fascinating
sketch of how a single word can give clues to a culture as a whole. Are there such
words in English? If there are, perhaps Liza Bakewell will discover them and dissect
them for us as well.
For more great reading
Subscribe to The Literary Review
March 4, 2011
My family calls me “Madre." I was, consequently, eager to read this book, a book that centers on a single word, "madre." Imagine my horror, then, when I discovered in the very first chapter that this word is often a very, very ugly word in Mexico. Oh dear. Quite disconcerting. I’d envisioned a book of happy stories about "madres." I read on, nevertheless fascinated with Bakewell's stories about this word. (BTW, “Madre” does have some positive connotations. Sigh. Thank goodness.) If you love language, and especially if you love the Spanish language, you will enjoy this book.*
December 2, 2012
Given my interest in linguistics and anthropology, I was really excited to discover this book. While it does a fantastic job of exploring the myriad ways in which the word "madre" is utilized in the Spanish language (and particularly in Mexico), the writing style itself was a bit off-putting. At times it felt unorganized and this made it difficult for me to follow every one of Bakewell's trains of thought.
April 7, 2011
There are so many wonderful things to learn in this short but rich foray into the way language and culture intersect in Mexico. More generally, one can observe how imbalances in languages reflect and reinforce imbalances in culture. Above all, this little gem of a book got me interested in further investigations into the subject matter. I always love a book that stimulates my desire to learn!
July 15, 2011
This is a book for people who like to know the origins of words. I'm not that type of person, so this book started out pretty slow for me. I put it down one day and it hasn't beckoned me. Bakewell wants to figure out why "madre" is such a curious word in Spanish. I'm recommending this for true wordsmiths and grammar nerds.
January 8, 2015
I've been reading, and trying to finish this book for a while. The information on the uses of the term 'madre' is very interesting, and I can see she tried to make this research interesting, but a good read it just in not! At least not for me. I'll keep it on my currently reading, but it may take me a while.
December 19, 2010
Fun book for anyone who has lived in Mexico or who studies Spanish and wants to understand what all of the madre expressions in Mexican Spanish actually mean. Part memoir, part anthropological investigation, it's a fun read
July 14, 2012
For students of Spanish who are intrigued by Mexican culture. Humorous and fun, but not for everyone.
May 3, 2012
A smart and fascinating book by a linguistic anthropologist and member/founder of my favorite book club. A Maineah does it again!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews