On Paths Unknown discussion

Thread for discussing chapters 5, 6 and 7.

I can't say I am sorry to see Mama go...

Let's take the discussion chapter by chapter.

In the previous thread, Michele said: The thing that really bothers me is that Tita doesn't just walk away or figure some way out instead of just taking it. This takes points off her heroic scorecard for me.

Yes, agreed, but in Chapter 5, we sort of find out why: Tita has had her life so tightly regulated from birth, that she doesn't know how to live her own life. Having had a bit of that myself, having my father decide for me what I am allowed to do or not, it can be hard when you suddenly get to decide for yourself; you simply don't know how, because you don't know what you would have done if it had been up to you to choose and to decide.

In the aspect of the relationship between Mama Elena and especially Tita, I am reminded of the relationship between Erika Kohut and her mother in The Piano Teacher. Even when Erika in the latter novel is a grown woman, she does not know how to live normally, because her mother had infused her from day one with mother's own ambitions, and left no room for what her daughter might want out of life.

We see how Mama Elena wrings, or in the words of Dr Brown (in chapter 6), extinguishes all normal, warm, human impulses from Tita's psyche. All her love and passion, and finally even her nurturing instinct, is dowsed with ice water and smacked through the face. She is not even allowed to mourn for the little baby that she had loved and nurtured as her own.

So, in a way, I think Tita is probably suffering form a form of PTSD eventually.

Tita, through food, is the glue that holds this family together. She knows it will be bad if she leaves. Choosing to stay makes her heroic in my book.

I left. From my perspective leaving is the easier choice.

So, Mama's poison becomes self-inflicted. I really do love how the abstract becomes real over and over in this book.

I'm looking to be annoyed by the sexism but I don't think I'm evolved enough. I can see being annoyed by how Tita's prospects are only ever cast in the light of a man. I just read The Color Purple which is a nice comparison. It is a decade older and casts Celie's prospects in terms of what she can do on her own and with the help of the strong women in her life.

And now we have the love triangle.

OK, I am starting to get annoyed now.

Yes, I suspect Mama Elenea's guilty conscience made her suspect Tita of poisoning her: she knew she had acted like a ogre towards Tita, and frankly, she never stopped acting that way...

Looks like we need the next thread. :) Next thread here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Let's discuss the next bit of juicy gossip on that thread. :D

Mama Elena's story is quite sad, in the end. Even though she had reason to feel bitter, she needn't have made other people suffer so much just because she herself was unhappy... but I suppose one can see why she would have felt angry and bitter. But her unhappiness should have made her break sad traditional strictures, not perpetuate them.

I like that Tita is against perpetuating the tradition that messed up her life.

Oh, I keep forgetting that I had wanted to ask what you all think of the washing the clothes in urine and other interesting substances....

Naw, not so keen on urine as detergent, nope, not so keen.

I don't remember all the substances but I do think the urine makes sense since it is antiseptic and it is mostly ammonia. Ammonia is a good cleaner.

I wouldn't wash my clothes in it but I know it does work. Ammonia will get out blood stains for instance when other things won't.

Well, then, I stand corrected. Gonna be tough to squat and aim in that little hole, though.

ROFL, you guys. Yeah sure, it is aseptic when it comes out, but it doesn't stay that way for very long....

But thanks for reminding that it has ammonia, Michele, which of course will help for stains, so I guess there is some method in the seeming madness.

Let's just hope she was using fresh urine, eh? ;)

LOL, I suppose a female with bad aim could always enlist passersby for help. As in:
"Excuse me sir, would you mind pissing on my pants for a mo?"

Certainly, miss! Pardon me while I go fetch my dog!

Hahahaha! Oh, please stop or I'll have to find a stain somewhere really soon.

101 experimental ideas on obtaining fresh urine.

Top of the list: contract a cold so you have to drink lots of fluids.

Well, tea is also a diuretic, of course. Drinking tea with mint might just make it a lot more pleasant on the poor launderer's nose.

Stop, please stop (she cries while running down to the laundry room).

I'm kidding, I love it. Hahaha

We like to torture (read: piss off) the other members with our urine anecdotes, Ruth. ;) Like when ...
Ha, I'm just taking the piss out of you.

But before I piss off, I want to refer you to a real-life incident involving actor Gerard Depardieu: http://cheezburger.com/24376833?ref=r...

Aaarrrrgh!

There were some good (or should I say BAD) puns there.

But I am not thanking you. The mental picture I know have will not allow It (though I haven't been particularly a fan of GD since he had a pissy fit, whoops, I mean hissy fit about paying French taxes.

This thread totally devolved into slush and got flushed down the toilet. X_X Sorry!

Just quickly re-posting the link to the next thread which luckily retained a bit of dignity, I think.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Traveller wrote: "This thread totally devolved into slush and got flushed down the toilet. X_X Sorry!

Just quickly re-posting the link to the next thread which luckily retained a bit of dignity, I think.
https://w..."

Traveller you said you answered my post on domesticity somewhere. I can't find it. Help!

Haha. That incident is scarily in character with the role Depardieu played in Man in the Iron Mask. He did similar drunken related stuff in that. So I'm kind of not surprised :p

Yolande wrote: "Haha. That incident is scarily in character with the role Depardieu played in Man in the Iron Mask. He did similar drunken related stuff in that. So I'm kind of not surprised :p"

The idjut. :) (Cool story, that, btw. - I mean The Man in the Iron Mask)
Speaking of Dumas; although my father had the French originals and the English translations of the original versions of all of Dumas's work, whom he adored, I can't remember if I ever read any in the original, they're so well known and ubiquitously copied.

But in any case, I now have to read The Three Musketeers as part of research on masculinities. Now that I've gathered a few copies, the book seems so much thicker than I seem to remember it being, so ... I wonder if I should cheat and see if there isn't an abridged version.... :P I hope it wouldn't defy the object if I did... ugh, maybe just stick to the long unabridged and skim where necessary. :P