Rosarita, by Anita Desai - Helen
The writer promptly sets out the main dilemma of this short story, diving into this within the first few pages: Bonita is studying Spanish in Mexico and is approached by a lady in a park who claims that, without a doubt, Bonita’s mother studied art in Mexico in her youth. At first, Bonita is defiantly dismissive of this theory but she soon begins questioning the things that didn’t add up in her childhood and wondering if, perhaps it was indeed the case that her mother, who she’d never known to paint or travel to Mexico, had actually done both. This intriguing story is beautifully written and the reader feels compelled to travel with Bonita to try to discover the truth.
As Bonita follows the trail with the stranger she looks at the present through a veil of memories, trying to make sense of what her mother may or may not have done. While it’s not a travel story and the locations are not main characters, I enjoyed the journey aspect. This is far more a book about the search for missing pieces of one’s identity and deciding whether to pursue the search or accept that there are some questions we will never know the answer to. The story explores Bonita’s upbringing, the relationship between her parents, and her grandparents, while also briefly looking at themes of art and social status.
This small book also touches subtly on some big moments in history. I would have liked to have been educated further on the parallels between the Partition of India and the Mexican Revolution. The writer gets the reader’s attention on this topic but doesn’t take the opportunity to teach more about it. There is a discussion in the book about whether an artist should paint flowers or war, and perhaps the writer had the same dilemma and so incorporated beauty in the form of travels and characters while only briefly implying the traumas of historic events.
If you are drawn to shorter books, this is a good one, although I felt that it is perhaps too short. I read the whole thing on a return trip to London on the train, wishing there was more of it to read.
Helen
