Something to Declare
by Julia Alvarez
List Price: $13.95
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0452280672
Publisher: Plume Books
In this two-part collection
of essays, Alvarez chronicles her abiding passions: the drama of family
and history, and the art of writing. For Alvarez the two go hand-in-hand.
In the first section ("Customs"), Alvarez describes first hearing the
strains of the language that would become the lingua franca of her writing
in her U.S.-educated diplomat grandfather's perfectly enunciated English.
In the essay "My English," she describes how English went from being what
her parents spoke to keep secrets from her to her ticket into a new world
and a career. Conversely, in the essay, "Family Matters" Alvarez describes
how Spanish remains a strong influence on her writing. She writes: "What
surprises me is to discover how much of my verbal rhythm, my word choices,
my attention to the sound of my prose comes from my native language as
spoken by la familia." Alvarez's family is ever present in these essays.
Few contemporary authors have written as keenly about the relationships
between sisters, and between daughters and fathers and mothers as Alvarez
does. Alvarez's doctor father is a lone, proud man among five women;
at peace with his family and yet rooted in his culture's code of male
privilege and domination. Alvarez's mother tries to keep her four
girls from plunging headlong into a culture that mocks the rules of the
old world and la familiaķa land of private schools, rebellion, boyfriends,
bell-bottoms, marriages, divorces, and careers as farfetched as a that
of a writer living in Vermont.
In the second half of Something
to Declare ("Declarations"), Alvarez tackles the business of writing itself.
She talks openly about the personal sacrifices she has made for writing.
She describes how she chooses which story to tell, why some of her projects
have been stillborn, and how her career as a well-known writer living
in the United States has "played" (and not played) with her extended family
in the Dominican Republic. Among the gems in here is a description of
Alvarez making a keynote address to the Caribbean Studies Association
in Santo Domingo only to receive a tongue lashing from an elderly Dominican
writer for writing in English. Alvarez's response is a powerful proclamation
of a writer's sense of identity, roots, and the need to live in many
worlds at once.
In the essay, First Muse, Alvarez
describes her discovery of The Arabian Nights and Scheherazade. Seeing
herself reflected in the dark-haired, almond-eyed girl on the book's
cover, Alvarez identified with the bright, ambitious girl stuck in a kingdom
that didn't think females were very important. It was Scheherazade who
gave Alvarez the courage to explore the cross currents of sexual politics
in the Caribbean and introduced her to the power storytelling gave her
within her culture and family. The title of Something to Declare captures
with typical Alvarez wit the dual dramas she describes in the book's
pages. While she often feels like a stranger, passing through customs
of a strange world, her passport is the writer's voice: ringing out
with clarity, commitment and the will to declare the truth as she sees
it, wherever it is to be found. People magazine wrote of Something to
Declare: "Reading Julia Alvarez's new collection of essays is like
curling up with a glass of wine in one hand and the phone in the other,
listening to a big-hearted, wisecracking friend share the hard-earned
wisdom about family, identity, and the art of writing."
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1. Something to Declare is divided into two parts: Customs, and Declarations. Why do you think she structured the book in this way? How are the two sections different from each other, and in what ways do they work together?
2. Although Julia Alvarez writes in English and claims that she "is not a Dominican writer," can comparisons be made between her work and that of other Latin-American writers you have read? What authors come to mind?
3. Throughout Something to Declare Julia Alvarez invokes the names of English language authors to whom she feels a kinship. Are there other English language writers whose influences you see in her work?
4. In Something to Declare Julia Alvarez discusses her own writing techniques and methods of forming stories, as well as her belief in writing as a discipline that must be practiced every day. Do you find Alvarez's discussion of writing and the writing life inspiring, or daunting? What advice do you draw from this work?
5. Alvarez finds the subjects of her poems and fiction in unusual places: the 1961 Better Homes & Garden Sewing Book, the kitchen of a writing colony, etc. How does this approach differ from what you were taught or have come to expect from other writers' descriptions of their writing process?
6. Alvarez uses autobiographical information as a basis for the two essays, Family Matters and Grounds for Fiction. Specifically, how does she incorporate this material and use it to illustrate her points?
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