(Pun intended.)

So in class today we talked at length about some of the parallels between Beli and Lola, and how they may or may not have formed some of their identities around their bodies and physical attributes. This got me thinking. We discussed how Lola doesn’t seem to have the same sort of epiphany concerning her own body in the way that Beli does, but as time passes she definitely does sense the potential power her body has:

“I can’t wear shorts anymore without causing traffic jams” (71)

“I never knew my big ass could be such a star attraction…. I…looked at my culo for the first time…. A treasure” (73)

I couldn’t help but think of both of these quotes when I got to page 92, with the lengthy description of the splash Beli’s new body made in her neighborhood. “And what about that supersonic culo that could…pull windows from out their motherfucking frames?” Dominican womens’ bodies have tremendous power – okay, okay, we get it – but I  really like how Lola uses a similarly dramatic metaphor for the attention that parts of her body receive.

Also, I just have to say that there is a gigantic amount of irony in the fact that Beli’s greatest weapon as a young woman – her boobs – are the part of her that literally become the death of her, what with her breast cancer. That notion just keeps nagging at me.

So after reading these two parts, I guess what I really want to know is whether or not Lola was a planned pregnancy for Beli (I didn’t miss that in the reading anywhere, did I? I probably did…) She is the older child, so maybe Oscar was planned but Lola wasn’t. This might help to explain why Beli is so crazy, if having a baby interrupted her youth, and said baby grows up to be a daughter in which she sees echoes of her younger self. After all, we don’t know anything yet about O and L’s dad (right? Just gotta check, we’ve read so much family history here I have to make sure I’ve got my facts straight.)

Oh, and one last thing: on page 101 the narrator refers to Beli as the …”femme-matador I’d come to know“. Once again we see that the narrator is personally familiar with these characters but it really really bugs me that I don’t know how. He (she? I’m guessing he) is the fly on the wall here but we don’t know yet to what extent.