February 2022 – RMST 202

Thoughts on “The Passion According to G.H”

From the very beginning “The Passion According to G.H” felt like a downward spiral of emotion. It took me quite a while to understand and situate myself in the narrative, often having to reread pages to even comprehend what was happening. The writing style felt like manic overthinking. For example, on pg.12 she backtracks her own usage of the phrase “billows of muteness”for almost a whole paragraph, making it feel like continuous word vomit. In addition, the amount of grand existential questions posed on the reader felt overwhelming, to a point where I just had to put the book down to take a breath. Like “Before I entered the room, what was I?” (pg.27). It almost feels like this book is a voice recording or a direct transcription of thought rather than carefully crafted sentences. However, I did like how in her writing the author referred to the reader directly (“for now I cling to you” pg.11) which gave the experience a personal feel. The writing style really contributed to the memorability of the book for me because I’ve never read anything quite as chaotic.

What immediately stood out to me was that the narrator is scared of everything. Scared of freedom (pg.5), scared of passion (pg.7), scared of truth (pg.11), and even scared of simply being (pg.5). This opened up the book in an unexpected way that sets the narrator up for her mental breakdown after the cockroach incident. I also found lots of contradictions that the author refers to which reminded me of our discussions of “Nada” by Laforet. She talks about how finding is getting lost and how gaining something is losing another and vise versa (pg.12). Another example, “all sudden understanding closely resembles an acute incomprehension” (pg.11). Meaning that understanding opens up a door of misunderstanding. I found this theme of comparing opposites very interesting.

A quote that really stuck with me was: “Creating isn’t imagination, it’s taking the great risk of grasping reality” (pg.12).

I think it’s interesting coming from the narrator who is a very wealthy artist. Because it’s not actually her art or creation that sends her into a mental breakdown of realizing her privilege, it’s the cockroach. Her version of “grasping reality” is becoming aware of her privilege in Rio De Janeiro where there are “six hundred thousand beggars” (pg 109). It also contributes to what I was saying before about comparing opposites (imagination vs reality). It made me wonder can the author actually grasp this reality of poverty from their penthouse suite?

Lastly, another small thing I noticed is that the last sentence of each section (or “chapter” if you could even call it that) is also the first sentence of the next. Why do you thing the author made that choice? How does it contribute to the fluidity of thought of the text? I can’t wait to read others’ thoughts on the book and how they interpreted it!

Thoughts on Sagan’s “Bonjour Tristesse”

“Bonjour Tristesse” was exactly the type of novel I was expecting to read in this course. A series of romances intertwined with family drama and a backdrop of summer, it felt like a classic French story. But wow, did this book make me uneasy…

Right from the beginning, I found Célie’s relationship with her father very odd. There is little backstory provided about her mother or her life prior to when the book starts, but I’m curious if there’s any cause of this infatuation with her father. There are many passages that made me cringe but this one has to take the cake…”I went up to my room to put on an evening dress, as it happened the only one I possessed. It had been chosen by my father, and was made of an exotic material, probably too exotic for a girl of my age” (pg.35). Then Célie tells her father “’You’re the best-looking man I know'” (pg. 35). Célie describes her father almost in a romantic tone, then combined with the protectiveness over him and wanting him all to herself, it made me quite uncomfortable.

Célie is essentially a 17-year-old being treated like a 30-year-old and a toddler at the same time. Her father exposes this strange mature lifestyle to his teenage daughter along with his fascination with women. This is then reflected in her own relationship with 25-year-old Cyril and her not knowing what she wants with him. I also don’t think she’s been told ‘no’ by her father in her entire life which is the reason she takes Anne’s discipline as a threat to her relationship with him. “At all costs I must save myself, regain my father and our former life”(pg.52).

I really didn’t like Célie as a character. I would describe her as impulsive, manipulative, and careless. “For the first time in my life I had known the intense pleasure of analyzing another person, manipulating that person toward my own ends” (Pg.71). This is what she says after manipulating Elsa into trying to make her father jealous so he wouldn’t marry Anne. She gets pleasure out of selfishly using people to her advantage and is fully aware of that.

Célie never seems to express how she genuinely feels to anyone because I don’t think she even knows herself. For example, in part 2 of the book she says, “For the first time in my life my “self ” seemed to be split, and I discovered opposing forces within that shocked me” (p.g 57). This feels like the devil and angel on Célie’s shoulders trying to reconcile with the thought of Anne barging into what she believes is the perfect family dynamic, just her and her father. Honestly, it really annoyed me seeing Celie like this because it’s not up to her, yet she is so consumed by her father’s love life. On the other hand, being a child of divorce myself and dealing with ambiguous stepparent figures, I do relate to this conflicting feeling she has. I believe she thinks she is just wanting the best for her father but she’s actually wanting the best for herself, again relating to her cynicism and ego.

Although I don’t like Célie, she does make an interesting narrator because of her intense conflicting emotions that kept me on my toes as a reader. It made me wonder how the book would differ if it was narrated from another point of view. So, my question for the class is: Who else would you like to see narrate this story and why? How would it affect the series of events?

Thoughts on Carmen Laforet’s “Nada”

In “Nada” Laforet creates a setting where I felt on edge the entire book. Following the orphan protagonist Andrea through the ruins of war struck Barcelona, she navigates a new hostile family dynamic while eager to study. The narration of the story carried a creepy, paranoid, and overall unsettling feeling of post war trauma.

A theme I found that was carried from previous texts so far has been memory. In “Nada” Andrea’s more positive memories of Barcelona come from her childhood spent there. But when she returns …“Everything felt unfamiliar in my imagination; the narrow, worn mosaic steps, lit by an electric light, found no place in my memory” (page 5). The effects of the war seem to disrupt and alter how she sees the city. Like the madeleine cookie in Proust and the family members in “The Shrouded Woman” memories are also triggered but by aspects of the city. For example, on page 10″of the Barcelona in my memory: this sound of the first streetcars”, the painting of her grandparents bring her back to a more pleasant time where she wasn’t trapped in this toxic, almost suffocating, family. It made me wonder how Andrea’s experience in Barcelona would differ if the effects of the war weren’t as prominent.

Looking at the narration style, I noticed that Andrea was mostly uninvolved in the dialogue and was used to further the development of other characters or the plot rather than express her own feelings. For instance from pages 31-34 while her Grandmother and Gloria are engaging in reliving memories and discussion, Andrea is just being talked at. The effect of this is an overwhelming amount of information being thrown at Andrea who we’ve gathered is quite timid and reserved. I think she serves more as a device to carry the story rather than a typical protagonist.

Although it is fiction, I believe this book serves as a great historical account on the mood of the people in Franco’s Spain. Distraught, paranoid, and unable to trust anyone in fear that they’re working for the other side. But Andrea and her family are a fairly wealthy family with servants and a giant mansion so I wonder how this book would differ with a change in social class. It’s hard to ignore the privilege that Andrea’s family has and how it gives them an advantage in the wreck of the war-torn city. I’m curious if any of you have any thoughts about this question on how the social class of the family effects the story.

Overall I enjoyed this book and i’m looking forward to all of your thoughts!