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{"id":1634,"date":"2019-06-09T09:45:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T09:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=1634"},"modified":"2019-06-09T10:32:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T10:32:15","slug":"lone-star-review-cabanuelas-novel-norma-elia-cantu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=1634&lang=ar","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Review: Caba\u00f1uelas: A Novel by Norma Elia Cant\u00fa"},"content":{"rendered":"

A review of Caba\u00f1uelas: A Novel<\/a>,<\/span><\/span><\/em> the second novel from Texas ethnographer Norma Elia <\/span><\/span>Cant\u00fa<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Cada cabeza es un mundo <\/em>is Nena\u2019s favorite dicho. Each mind is a world unto itself. Nena, a university professor, travels as a Fulbright scholar to Madrid, Spain in 1980 to read about fiestas and plays at the Biblioteca Nacional in order to analyze the similarities with the fiestas of her home, Laredo, Texas. Before she leaves, during her family\u2019s annual Christmas Eve tamalada<\/em>, her father worries that his oldest, unmarried, \u201ctoo independent\u201d child will get hurt somehow or won\u2019t come home, while her grandmother warns Nena not to fall in love, to come home at the end of her studies. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Once in Madrid, Nena discovers that reading about the traditional fiestas is not enough, of course, and she sets out to discover Spain. As she explores, she discovers Paco, a graphic designer of book covers, and grapples with what she\u2019s learning about the world in general and Spain in particular, the evolution of tradition, the endless permutations of love, and herself.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Caba\u00f1uelas: A Novel<\/a><\/em> is the second novel from Texas ethnographer Norma Elia Cant\u00fa, who is the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Endowed Professor of Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio. Her previous novel is Can\u00edcula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera<\/span><\/em>, first published by the University of New Mexico Press in 1995 and updated in 2015. Both novels are autofiction, but we can\u2019t know where Cant\u00fa diverges from Nena in <\/span>Caba\u00f1uelas<\/em>. What we can know, what is lyrically evident in Cant\u00fa\u2019s latest novel, is her trust in commonalities and her love for both the people and the landscape of the borderlands. As Nena ponders, <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The culture that protects and shelters. But also the culture that circumscribes and limits. How can she not love this land? How can she not hate this land? This land of her ancestors? This land of the future? How can she not love the cultural experiment that it is?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Caba\u00f1uelas <\/em>is enhanced by many photos (Remember, autofiction.) scattered throughout the novel, which illustrate the many traditional fiestas that Nena attends and documents. The narrative unfolds in a third-person-limited point of view. We know the other handful of characters, including Paco, only through their interactions with Nena, but we know Nena intimately, and her excitement, trepidation, and confusion are visceral. Cant\u00fa\u2019s sentences have a distinctive rhythm, short\u2014almost Hemingway-esque\u2014and evocative, deliberate. But those same declarative sentences are frequently followed by brief phrases or single words suggestive of choice: but, almost, until, or maybe not. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I highly recommend, if you\u2019re planning a trip to Spain, that you consider using <\/span>Caba\u00f1uelas <\/em>as a travel guide: la Endiablada<\/span><\/em> in Almonacid del Marquesado, Santa \u00c1gueda<\/em> in Zamarramala, Valencia\u2019s Falles y Ninots<\/em>, Corpus Christi in Toledo. <\/span>After all, Caba\u00f1uelas <\/em>is a love story lovingly wrapped in cultural anthropology. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Cuentos<\/span><\/em>. Commonalities. Nothing new under the sun. <\/span>Take what is useful and nourishing from tradition, discard what is not, add to it, and pass it along. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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