First three chapters

Hello, this is Alyssa. I finished this section over the weekend but haven't had time to post until today. Aryana has already pointed out a lot of the main sources of the fantastical in this first half of the book. One person that hasn't been mentioned that is very fantastical is Uncle Marcos, Clara's relative that goes off sailing into the sky on an augmented bird skeleton (13-14). It's clear that her uncle has had a big impact on Clara's life and may explain why she spends most of her time isolated in a dream world. Marcos himself was an explorer, physically inhabiting a place other than Clara's and filled her head with stories of those distant places until she could "see reptiles slide across carpets between the legs of the jacaranda room divider, and hear the shrieks of macaws behind the drawing-room drapes" (17). Marcos was also the first person to really encourage Clara's gift of clairvoyance (16), which has so far been the only positive affirmation of her abilities. Almost all the other times she voices her predictions, it is followed by a death in the family.

As we move into the second part, I'm really worried about Clara. As was pointed out by Tiffany, Esteban has a past of simply "us[ing]" (62) women to release the tensions created by his ravenous libido and the rage produced by Rosa's death. He feels as th0ugh he must control everything, to be on top or he'll be forced to confront the feeling of inferiority he experienced as a young boy (92). Because of this I'm able to sympathize with him. At the same time, however, I am frequently horrified by the way he treats women like mere wads of tissue to be discarded and the way he talks about those in the lower classes, especially since he experienced class struggle himself. My fear for Clara is that he will end up crushing her spirit in his attempt to possess that "undefined and luminous material" (96) that Aryana already mentioned. I'm very anxious to see how things will turn out.