Concluding post

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Time flies like an arrow, especially for those who have had several dues in one week. Overall, I liked this course so much better than I expected. At the beginning of the term, remember we all wrote a blog post in which we expressed how we felt about the course and literature in general and I remember I wrote, “I am not sure if I can read between the lines”, which is something generally expected in a literature course in my opinion. As I was not really a big fan of reading and English was not my first language, this was challenging for me. The literature credits were much scarier than the science credits somehow. However, that the course allows me to fix my own reading schedule by trading off my grades relieved me enough to actually enjoy the readings without concerning my reading skill.

I would say Amulet by Bolano and W by Perec were my favorite books I have ever read in this course. Amulet was very interesting since the characters’ personalities are written in detail. To me, Auxilio was a kind of weird and interesting person. Her description of herself as the mother of something even though she was kind of single raised a very fun in-class discussion. Perec’s ‘W’ was something chaotic to me as a gen-z person. I was overwhelmed by each sentence of the description of life on island ‘W’. These are the two books I had a solid emotion, whatever that might be when I was reading. Also, I really loved how in-person classes were carried out. I even slightly thought I should have contracted a little bit more to read just because I liked the in-person class. Even though I only went to a few in-person classes as I only contracted the minimum and because of covid, it was easy to engage and get to know each other.

I have been thinking about the course title as I approached the final. If I remember correctly, Jon said it was not about love even though it said romance studies as he was showing us the definition in the Oxford dictionary over the screens. Although this remark still haunts my mind, now I can see it is not entirely love. But I think romance is still perhaps a composition of love and memory. Or maybe these two things are the requirements for each other to exist.

Here’s my question,

How do you now interpret the course title?

How would you describe it to your friends who consider taking this class?

Reflection on Bolano, Amulet

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First of all, I enjoyed reading this book. Mostly because I enjoyed the historical and social aspects of their lives. Since the book is written in her autobiographical manner, she put a lot of the historical scenes she encountered as a dweller in Mexico City along with the description of her own life as a poet. And these two are not definitely separated. For example, the scene of local riot police storming into the university and taking their autonomy as an educational institution was repeatedly reminded when she mentioned “the women’s bathroom on the fourth floor of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature. Even from this one scene, we can imagine how those different ideologies were surrounding them and people who resisted against them. The social upheaval in the book was one of the aspects I enjoyed. And this is not only because I am interested in those aspects, but also in her writing style. I feel like she spent really much time describing the atmosphere, people’s impressions, and the wind of those scenes, and whose expressions helped us imagine the scene more transparently. While the way she writes about the “life-threatening occasions” with a kind of excitement like when she went to the Clover Hotel to negotiate the pimp and when she saw a tank on the campus, the way she writes about her solitude or farewell in everyday lives is melancholic even though the former was more dangerous and something to be worried. I think this is because even though these things were more concerning than her everyday problems, she perceived them as something unreal which killed her boredom in her everyday life. And this is evident on page 105 in which she contrasted her everyday lives to the “adventure” she had last night and even concluded herself as she questioned about pursuing such unreality at what cost. As for her melancholic aspect of her, her relationships with Elena and Arturo over time were appeared to be written very melancholy and intuitively. Although she spells her emotion or the atmosphere surrounding her specifically when she faced such farewells, she seemed to think only about how it affected her emotion instead of thinking about how it would contribute to their careers. For instance, when Elena and her boyfriend went off for their last night after the theater (on page 57), She did not say cheerful words or something equivalent to, instead, she expressed her solitude after the goodbye. I am honestly relatable to this type of goodbye moment in which we see off each other after the fun moment and now you are just alone and they would have another fun night in their lives with their lover or friends. You would feel frustrated for yourself. How melancholic it is to feel empathetic to this as a reader. But I enjoyed the book anyway.

Here are my questions:

-What are the effects of describing vague affairs such as the wind or the atmosphere in detail?

-How did her identity as “a mother of all poets” change over time at first and at the end of the book?

Thoughts on George Perec, “W”

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The very first emotion when I finished this reading was enjoyment and a little excitement. Because the book takes readers through fluctuational stories along with emotional up and down. The book consists of two storylines; a fictional story about an island called “W” and a story based on the narrator’s own childhood memory. The contrast between those two stories is intensified by their fiction and the realities the narrators incorporated, but somehow, we see some themes are shared in these two stories. The main theme I identified from this book was a memory. As the story written in the print script instead of italics is the story yielded by his own memories, the way it narrates is straightforward and sensibly subjective whereas the story written in italics is some kind of testimony of someone. In the reality-based story, I feel like he is likely to recall his bad memories more precisely and frequently, which is relatable to us, such as the scar on his lips made by a ski stock by his friends and the peer’s condemnation of him locking up a little girl in the cabinet. Moreover, even though he said he does not know how the religious education proceeded upon him (94), he well describes the moment he got “purified” by the headmistress when he intentionally wore the casual uniform instead of the sailor suits. Given that the story about the island “W” is corresponding to the story of his childhood that was affected by the second world war, the clear recall of his bad memory might be reflected upon the story of “W”. For example, the culture of W in which the athletes fight to earn and declare the entitlement instead of his or her name is related to that his forged identity was acquired through the hard work of his mother. In addition, the relationship between the athletes and the official board members is somewhat associated with his memory of religious education. The oppressive hierarchy power described in the W might have come from it as well. According to Perec, the story of W was written at the age of thirteen, but the in-detail descriptions of the harshness and cruelty of the island such as the minefield around each village seem to have incorporated his own observation of the concentration camps after childhood. The contrast between his protected life and the harsh life in the W looks like some kind of reminder of how he managed to have it.

My questions are followings:

What is the effect of describing the places in detail along with his memory?
What kind of role did the specific sports rules on W play in the whole story?

Thoughts on ‘Shrouded Woman’ by Bombal

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I think I have read something like a roller coaster. In the contrast to the previous two readings, the dramatic transition in the relationship and emotion of the characters was excessively described, which really caught my attention. In that sense, I enjoyed reading it more than the two we have read. I felt like I was watching a romance drama film which would be great if projected in a black-and-white. The story was written in a concrete manner which makes it easy to read even though tracking all the relationships of the characters in the story was kind of difficult for me.

The first impression I got as I finished it was that there are a lot of deaths and anguish and sadness. I would say the keywords in the reading are; betrayal, the eyes, and the confession. As I mentioned earlier, there is so much going on throughout the story in which the characters experience severe emotional up and down. The most well-described betrayal I have seen was the scene of Antonio kicking Ana’s blue leather shoes with fury and she accidentally saw it (on page 225). The scene really depicts the core sadness of betrayal which is that betrayal is revealed when the person and action appears and occurs at the wrong time and place. There is always some madness they cannot be aware of below the surface. People act more naturally when they think they are alone and it exposes the essential part of the person. The contrast between the mask he wears when he’s with her and the true him he shows when he’s not with her results in generating more hatred and sadness in her. That is why I think the eyes play a somewhat key role here. The story contains many of the descriptions of the eyes of the characters when the narrator talks about how they are so beautiful that attract each other. But I think it links to the sadness of seeing something they do not want to see. The confession in the chapter plays a significant role in the end. And interestingly, the confession is taken at two places; at the church and at their private place. Religious aspects of their life is well written in the story as joy and unity, but, because of that, the confession in their own private space emphasizes its helpless and mad situation whereas the confession to Gods leads to some kind of rescue.

Here’s my question,

Did Ana Maria genuinely justify her own suicide by regarding it as a way of escape without any hesitation?

Thoughts on Proust’s ‘Combray’

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When I read the first one to two pages about her sleeping, it gave me feelings that were very empathetic as it started by describing how sleeping was disturbed or got comfortable by some actions. Especially, for instance, the sentence, “[…] the thought that it was time to try to sleep would wake me […]”, was very catching and relatable to the readers even today. And the other descriptions of obstacles about sleeping that those who sleep have are also relatable such as natural or industrial noises coming from outside. At the same time, this very detailed depiction of sleeping also shows that her solitude felt at midnight, which can be felt in the passage on page 6, about her Mama’s kissing before she goes to bed. She also writes about how safe she felt it was on page 13 in which this time her Mama kissed her before going to bed, which is a contrast to the beginning.

In the middle of the work, her writing moves onto the story of her family from her own sleeping topic, which seems kind of boring to me. However, as we read and read, it gives me some sense of what kind of society was there. For example, she writes about social mobility related to jobs and raised several stories about lawyers and stock traders which of social class is still remarkable today. And I think this is one of the great things we can get from that literature. These kinds of very detailed histories of people are frequently ignored in a history textbook and do not come out on the surface. But I think history, in general, is really human-centered except for natural disasters. Thus, the worth of this very detailed human history is valued.

Also, I enjoy reading her emotional transition between in her room and in front of visitors. It is like she has two faces; one for in her own room where she feels security and generates many kinds of thoughts, another one for which she has some kind of politeness or limitations for her own actions (even though she tried to get kisses from her mother at dinning).

At the end of chapter 1, her overall emotions about Combray, the title of the chapter, is spelled out in a way in which her emotional attachment to the place is written with involving her memory. What I like most about this part is that the spelling of her memory is centered around tea. I think tea and other description involving liquids such as water is a metaphor for life. Life has each original taste and flows as they are also many phases of boiling or chilling. The expression describing one’s life with liquid is a powerful way to conclude this chapter.

Here’s my question, what kind of transition of her personality do we see when she is in and outside of her room?

who am I?

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Hi all, this is Tsuyoshi from Japan. I preferred to be called Yoshi as the pronunciation of the sounds of “tsu” is kind of hard and don’t want to make it a burden. Anyway, I’m in my third year and majoring in Sociology here at UBC. I am taking this course for literature credit and really randomly chose this course for the credits. But it seems to be no regret since it has a nice flexible assessment system.

However, I have seldom interacted with literature in my life and I can even count how many literature books I have read, like around 2 or 3 (and those were also for my school assignments, not for my genuine interest. This is because I honestly don’t like to read books at first and I always expect to get some practical knowledge that I can use in my daily life, which sounds very boring for some people. When I read poems, I always am like “okay, so what?”. That is one reason why I am such a boring person, yes I admit it. So, thanks to UBC, it gives me an opportunity to immerse myself in this literature world where I have not been to that much.

As for the expectations that I have for this course is that I want to be able to express myself with more freedom as I can write pretty much anything on my mind (like this introduction blog post, I really enjoy writing this), how I like or dislike about that literature unlike other disciplines like science or sociology. So I hope it will be a nice place where I come to like literature and increase my engagement with this discipline.

As a reaction to the first lecture video by Jon, I would say I was surprised and attracted to this course. Because I thought I really would be dealing with a specific culture or country related to “Romance”. However, as he mentioned where Romance studies are in his video, the paths to Romance studies are widely scattered around the world and ultimately there is no specific one place that attributes Romance studies. In the meantime, I maybe have understood why he said “inventing Romance studies”. It is not something constructed or created by autonomous but collected by someone who intended to create the genre. The literature themselves are not being “Romance studies” as they want to be so. I want your opinion on this. Perhaps there’s no special meaning in it, simply relies on our interpretation. But if you have some opinion on why “inventing”, please share it here!

The above pic is a pretty and beautiful jellyfish I met at Sumida aquarium just a couple of days ago. It gave me a chill.

你好！我姓何。我叫何眺盛。我叫Yoshi用英语。我的名字是桥口毅用日本语。我是日本人。我是千叶人。可是，我在加拿大现在。我是UBC的学生。我是二年级。

The reason why I take this course is that this could be a help in several ways.

First, I have a couple of Chinese friends from my first year at UBC and one from my high school! So, if I could communicate with their language even a little bit part of the conversation, that would be wholesome 🙂 Second, since China is located next to Japan, I have touched many Chinese cultures such as a movie (my favorite is 警察故事 by Jackie Chan) and many kinds of food for sure! Lastly, I went to Hongkong in 2018 and was so great journey. At the moment, I thought I wish I could speak Chinese! So, I think learning Chinese at UBC is a great start to understand their culture more deeply, which drives me to enroll in this course. Below are some random photos of when I went to Hongkong.

My goal in this course was that I would be able to express my emotion at least and arrange some dinner appointments by myself at most. At this mid-term point, I feel more confident with materials than at the beginning of the term. In fact, I already know how to invite someone to dinner or whatever, so it has been great so far. Since then, my goals are now to enhance my explanation skills just like we did in lesson 2.

UPDATE: So, at the mid-point, I was expecting myself to learn more explanation skills such as when, what, how, and who. Yes, in terms of these, I have learned a lot of materials that covered the way of telling who, when, and what. Now I can introduce my hobbies and even my friend’s hobby. Also, I can tell what I do at night and when to sleep and etc. The complexity of my sentence is still low and very limited, but surely the density of information of each sentence has increased, which is progress.

Also, pronunciation is a huge challenge for me. For now, I do not focus on tones that much because I spend much of my time remembering characters and pinyin. And it makes my tones inappropriate many times. So, I make the most use of Oral practice sessions as much as I can, and I sometimes record my pronunciation and listen to it to detect the incorrect part. For the transferable learning strategies between language learning and learning in general, I think making a connection between materials is very useful and helpful to increase my understandings. For example, one historical event cannot be understood by the event alone. We need to see what the context is and before and after the event. And understanding one historical event is highly likely to help you understand another historical event too. Likewise, when we cover two Chinese terms, 日本, and 学生，we then know how to pronounce 生日. So, making a connection between things is highly helpful and can be applied to any subject.

UPDATE: Yes, I surely have become to pay more attention to it than before and been trying to remember of tone number. However, the progress did not show up well as a number. To be specific, I took the Pinyin listening quiz that contains 25 questions. But the result was not good. I still have difficulties distinguishing the sound of “Zhu” and “Qu”, or “Zhi” and “Chi”. And there’s more of it. So, now I found my new challenge in learning Chinese.

As for the cultural aspects of China, I found their sense of seniority similar to Japan where I am from. Specifically, when they pair up a kinship with the same gender, they mention older first. For example, 哥哥弟弟，not 弟弟哥哥. This sense of seniority is assumingly unique and highly accepted only by Asian countries including Korea and Japan. For example, we write “兄弟” for referring to brothers. Also, in this case, the character “兄” which means older brother comes first. In another aspect, the seniority in some firms in Japan today is still sticking with its tradition, and promotion is sometimes based on age, not the progression or succession. So, It is very interesting to find this kind of similarity and trace it back to the history of Confucianism.

As you may have seen this before, this is a sign of 福 (fu). This is the one that my previous roommate gave me just a couple of months ago as a souvenir. Since then, I keep it and put it on my desk. 福, this sign, is a sign of fortune and presented when Lunar new year. The most interesting aspect of this sign is that when we put this on our front door or somewhere everyone can see, it is common to put this upside down! And at this time, it is called 倒福 (daofu). This is because the pronunciation 到 which means ‘arrive’ is the same as 倒. So, it is a pun on the words 倒 (make something upside down) and 到 (arrive). And they wish their happiness arrives at their home! This sign can often be seen and there are many kinds of it. As for the structure of this character, it has 礻as a radical, which means “show”. Also see https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2400/why-%E7%A6%8F-is-often-used-upside-down

Understandings of radicals of characters are helpful when you encounter some characters you do not know. For example, we have the radical “女” for women. So we can assume 妈妈 or 妹妹 are something related to women. In fact, they mean mother and younger sister. Likewise, we have the radical “亻” for a person. Therefore, we can assume that the character 他 or 你 are referred to person. In fact, they mean he and you. With the understanding of radicals of character, we can break it down into several parts and guess the meaning of it. Although you cannot perfectly guess the meaning, this is helpful. And you can also remember those characters by remembering their radicals. This type of understanding is also able to be applied to Japanese which is my native language since Japanese has emerged from Chinese. For example, when we see a character “樹”, we can predict it is something related to wood. And indeed, this refers to wood. It is very helpful. As for differences between Japanese and Chinese in terms of the radicals or structure, I found Japanese uses more traditional ones than Chinese. For example, my Japanese last name uses “橋”, but in Chinese, we use “桥” for common use.

Update (April 14th);

Finally, I have come to the end of the semester. Now I have something to update. First, I did communicate with my Chinese neighbor who lives in the same house and does not speak English. When I was doing my chores in the kitchen, she asked me in Chinese, “你做饭吗？” Since I was only doing dishwashing, I immediately responded to the question, “不做”. Although this was the simplest conversation ever, I did communicate with someone in Chinese outside Chinese class! Although it was very small talk, this reminds me of my first time I talked with someone in English in real life, which I finally felt the progress of my language learning (Remember, my native language is Japanese). And this time, the same thing. This kind of experience enhances your motivation for your language learning.