anna vukota – RMST 202

A Conclusion to Romance Studies

It’s crazy that we are wrapping up the course already! Thank you so much to Jon, Jennifer, and Patricio, for all the hard work and effort put into this course every week. This course was one of a kind and I’m so happy to have had the freedom to explore literature from the romance world.

My favourite books I read were Bonjour Tristesse, The Old Gringo, and Amulet, which is pretty surprising because they are all drastically different. The fast-paced family drama of Bonjour Tristesse is really what kind of book I expected from this course whereas The Old Gringo, and Amulet were more unexpected, powerful stories. I really enjoyed our class discussion of Bonjour Tristesse when we analyzed all the characters! It showed that the book wasn’t just a cliché romance plot set in the French summertime, it was deeply layered by the complex characters and their motives. Amulet definitely moved me because of it being based on a true story. Auxilios resilience and overall thirst for life through her friendships and poetry was really inspiring. Then set in the politically tense PRI era Mexico, it ended up moving me unlike any book in the course. The Old Gringo brought the aspects of both of my favourite books and brought it into one. Although the romance struck me as a little bit off putting, the journey of the old man as he ends up in an unlikely group of revolutionaries was exciting and intriguing. Although all of the books offered different perspectives, contexts, and stories, these 3 truly stood out to me.

At the beginning of the course one of my biggest concerns was translation and how that would effect the story. I’ve learned that some things simply can’t be translated as they lose their strong meaning. For example “Bonjour Tristesse” or “el pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (Amulet, p.75). But for the most part, the work of the translators has been seamless and the language difference didn’t have a negative effect on my reading experience. For the class, did any of you notice translation detriments in the books we read? Did that effect the way you read a certain book?

Overall, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this course. I feel like now I’m not afraid to pick up translated books from all over the world, and i’m looking forward to reading more in the future 🙂

Thanks again for an amazing semester!!

Thoughts on Agualusas The Society of Reluctant Dreamers

Wow the final book! I’m glad Agualusas The Society of Reluctant Dreamers was my final read because it made my top 3 for sure. I was very interested to read a book set in Angola because unfortunately i’ve only ever learned about its colonial history and the Portuguese expansion so I can now say I know a little more about the country itself.

I found Agualusas narrative fairly easy to follow compared to our previous reads. Possibly because its more character driven or I just enjoyed the plot more. It mostly follows Daniel who is a struggling journalist in Angola during a time of transition (although he does make trips around South Africa and Brazil). I liked Daniel as a narrator because, unlike some of the books we’ve read, we get to know him really well and we get an insight into his childhood, early years, and his daughter through the many journal entries and letters. The italic journal aspect reminded me of Perecs W and The Memory of Childhood but rather than being two completely distant stories, the journals in Agualusa aided my understanding of the book more. I enjoyed this aspect a lot as it transported me further into the lives of the characters, I almost forgot this book was fiction.

In addition I felt so involved in this book, my emotions were all over the place. Some parts read as a comedy, others (especially the the story of Daniels beloved lion cub called Moshe Dayan pg.25-30, poor guy) almost made me cry. There were even pretty dark aspects (like Hossi’s history). Overall it was a very multi-faceted story that could get overwhelming very easily but I think Agualusa organized it very nicely.

I was really intrigued by the title The Society of Reluctant Dreamers and wanted to try and unpack the meaning. I think dreams are our most raw and real thoughts because we can’t control them, thats what makes them reluctant. Dreaming is a human characteristic that we all share. We don’t choose to dream and we can’t force ourselves to either. Dreaming can be euphoric but also traumatizing, it’s almost like a surrender, to dream. As a kid one of my biggest curiosities was why we dream, do they have any meaning or significance, do they predict the future? I still don’t know the answer to this but I also think that there is no answer. I think the quote on the introductory page says it best:

“Let us always remember that to dream is to look for ourselves” Bernardo Soares/ Fernando Pessoa

So, for my question to the class, I wanted to ask what does this quote mean to you? What do you think was the intention of the author of opening the book with it?

Thoughts on Bolaño’s Amulet

This was the first book I read entirely in one sitting. I was surprised, but how could you not keep on reading when the first line is “This is going to be a horror story”(pg.1) …

The theme of memory is quite present throughout Auxilio’s broken narrative. Her recollections seem very “…fragmentary, as if mauled by an enormous animal”(p101). The way that Auxilio tries to piece together the dates and events of the story reminded me a lot of Perec’s W. “And I had nothing either, except my memories” (pg.44) Perec and Auxilio both seem to be running, from their past life, with not much to their name (just their books of writing). But they both hold tightly onto their memories. I think they are both affected by the trauma they endured and it is evident in both texts. “Memory plays malicious tricks on me when the light of the waning moon creeps into the women’s bathroom like a spider” (p107). Auxilio’s trauma is repeated with the vision of the fourth floor bathroom of the faculty of Philosophy and Literature during the armed takeover of the UNAM, throughout the book which almost felt like an anchor and re centred me as a reader. Whenever she feels heightened emotion such as when she was being followed in the night (pg.66) or was about to follow Arturito and Ernesto into the Clover hotel (pg.91) she reminds herself of her strength by reliving that powerful memory.

I found the way that Bolaño touches on the social/political climate of Mexico in 1968 very accesible and I think even if you don’t have background on the context it’s still very powerful. “…as if they weren’t creatures of flesh and blood but a generation sprung from the open wound of Tlatelolco…”(P.g 77). Here Auxilio is describing the young “children of the sewer” poets that Arturito hangs out with when he comes back from serving in Chile. This touches on the generational trauma of the children of Mexico that have to live with this bloody betrayal by the government. “They were all growing up exposed to the storms of Mexico and the storms of Latin America, which are worse, if anything, because they are more divided and more desperate” (p.g44 )They were raised in this time of chaos and tragedy which provokes Auxilio’s mother instinct to look out for them.

This book has really stuck with me unlike any one we’ve read so far. The beautiful writing created a dreamlike almost hallucinatory quality that was really enticing. Overall I was completely mesmerized with Bolaños work. My question for the class is how did you feel about Auxilio’s “mental trips”? (such as to Remedios Varo’s house) What is the significance of this imaginary narrative? How did it add to the story?

Some quotes that will really stick with me that I just have to include:

“…now there’s another reoccurring and terribly Latin American nightmare: being unable to find your weapon; you know where you put it, but it’s not there” (pg. 67)

“History is like a horror story” (pg.66)

“El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (pg.75)

“And although the song that I heard was about war, about the heroic deeds of a whole generation of Latin Americans led to sacrifice, I knew that above and beyond all, it was about courage and mirrors, desire and pleasure. And that song is our amulet.” (pg.184)

Thoughts on Fuentes’ The Old Gringo

I was way too excited to read The Old Gringo because I love anything set during the Mexican Revolution. It’s such an interesting struggle of democracy, land, and freedom strongly rooted in colonialism and foreign intervention. (If any of you want more context and liked the book, I highly recommend taking SPAN280: Revolution! It’s mostly literature from the Mexican Revolution but also parts of Latin America and it fills the literature requirement 🙂)

I think we talked about this concept in a previous class, but I found the beginning starting with the end (which was the burial of the old man) very powerful. I liked being introduced to him through the eyes of the other characters. There is also a lot of weight and significance in a burial scene because we find out that this was the ultimate goal of the old man. This style of opening the story got me hooked and created a lot of suspense to find out how the story got to this place.

An aspect of the book I really enjoyed, and was not expecting, was the role of the Mexican landscape. Mexico itself almost presented itself as a character intertwined with the war. The descriptions of the plants, cacti, and scorpions as “advance guards” (pg16) created super vivid imagery that complemented the mood of the story so well. The mountains and deserts even spoke to the characters almost as guides which added to the personification of the landscape:

“But Arroyo knew that the mountains were shouting it, from chasm to peak, from cave to canyon, across barrancas and bone-dry creeks; A brave man has come here, a brave man is among us, a brave man has set foot on our stones.” (pg.56-57)

And because the Mexican revolution was heavily based on the rights and freedoms of the farmers living in the hacienda system, the feelings of the land itself holds a lot of importance.

Throughout the book, Don Quixote is referenced a few times. The old man brings a copy of the book with him to Mexico but, importantly, has yet to read it (pg10). In addition, the strange way the people reacted to the old man first entering the encampment reminded Colonel García of how the girls had looked at a Quixote figure (21). In extremely basic terms, Don Quixote is on a quest of chivalry, but his delusions and unrealistic approach often finds him in impractical situations. What is the significance of this and how does it connect to the story of the old gringo?

Thoughts on Perec’s W or The Memory of Childhood

This week while reading “W or The Memory of Childhood” by Georges Perec, I felt as if I was reading someone’s personal diary mixed with some odd dark version of the Olympics. I found it a bit difficult to follow the two narratives (especially with the copious amount of footnotes) but as the book went on, I found myself quite immersed in the two worlds.

Despite the title, the narrator expresses “I have no childhood memories” (pg.6), however the autobiographical part of the book reads as a desperate attempt to salvage and revive them. The memories he has seem to be the only thing left of his identity because he is constantly on the run for safety., “…living another illegal existence, with another fragile alibi, with another fabricated past and another identity?” (pg.11). He doesn’t seem to have much to live for, with all his loved one’s dead, and is more surviving day to day as a ghost. Other than his memories of the past, as readers we don’t know many objective facts about our protagonist.

Unlike in Proust’s “Combray” or Laforet’s “Nada” where objects or places trigger certain memories, Perec seems to go out of his way to explain that physical spaces or objects do not. When reflecting on photographs, he simply describes what is pictured and nothing more. From one of the photos explaining that “of all my missing memories, that is perhaps one I most dearly wish I had” (pg.49). When visiting Rue Vilin where he lived in Paris, he explains that he doesn’t remember which part he lived in, and he hasn’t attempted to go inside any of the dwellings “since I am in any case convinced that it would do nothing to revive my memories” (pg. 48). When I read this, I was doubting the narrator’s intentions of not revisiting the place in which he grew up. Does he really think it would not revive his memories or is he too traumatized to face them? I think trauma is an important aspect of our protagonist’s narrative due to the historical context he’s grown up in and being a low-class Jewish child. I’m not a psychology major but I think that a main trauma response is to just black out those memories. It made me wonder is this what the narrator is experiencing with his so called “lost memories”? Do we trust the accuracy of our narrator despite the trauma that may affect the story? Does it even matter?

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!

Thoughts on María Luisa Bombal “The Shrouded Woman”

In The Shrouded Woman the story of our protagonist Ana-Maria is one of reflection on her life through the eyes of her corpse. She walks the reader through memories with people close to her throughout her life. Unlike our previous texts, I really found myself getting lost in the text. Right from the beginning, I felt transported into Ana-Maria’s shoes by the narrator with the eerie feeling prose. The way the author described the simplest things like opening your eyes with two or three lines of incredible figurative detail was captivating and made me want to read more.

I found it really refreshing to see death written differently as Ana-Maria is accepting and reflecting on the people around her saying their final goodbyes. “…she takes delight in submitting herself to the gaze of all, so perfectly still, serene, and beautiful.” (page 158) I found this closing sentence of chapter 2 a lovely example of this. Instead of presenting death as a dark disruption and chaos, through Ana-Maria’s eyes it’s seen more as a calm acceptance of life and reflection. Although she never seems quite content and faces hardship, conflict, and feelings of jealousy, this perspective gave me more insight into Ana-Maria because it seems as if she was able to somewhat accept death. Because she is also writing as a dead narrator, everything she says seems more intimate and personal. Perhaps she knows that her words will not be heard by anyone else which provokes genuine retrospection and emotions not censored by judgement from those around her. This made me wonder how the text would differ if she wasn’t writing as a corpse and had the opinions of others at her disposal. How do you think the thoughts expressed would change (or if they would at all) if Ana-Maria was writing as a living person? Because after all, books are written to be read, right?

When Ana-Maria begins talking about the men in her life she gives them a lot of space. I think this speaks to the role of woman at the time and how their worth and ability to take up space was determined by the men in their life. The women in the story were often pit against each other through envy. This archaic idea of woman constantly being jealous of one another was frustrating to read and I could feel that frustration coming from the author. No ones seems to be happy in their life which adds more significance to Ana-Maria narrating as a dead person.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this read and I can’t wait to hear everyone else’s thoughts! 🙂

Thoughts on Proust “Combray”

Proust’s Combray reads like an ever flowing stream of consciousness between the lines of sleep and wake. In true modernist fashion, Proust jumps from thought to thought often moving along before assuring the readers understanding. In this way I found it quite challenging to understand at first and felt as if the text dragged on toward the end. However, I really enjoyed the beautiful writing and descriptions in that I felt completely immersed into the world of Combray.

In order to fully capture the thoughts behind the text, I wanted to first understand the significance of the title of this section, Combray. Through his vulnerable words we discover that Combray was the home of his grandparents in which he spend much of his childhood. This is telling as throughout the text he is longing for his childhood in this dreamlike state. It makes me think of how the title of a work usually gives a lot of insight into the work and I wonder if this theme will be consistent throughout the course texts. He seems to use this state as an escape to a better time or as a way of coping with the loss of his childhood, thus making the title quite significant as his safety or comfort net almost. He even explained that through his troubling relationship with his parents he was able to turn to literature (as we are doing in this course as well) to escape reality.

I found Proust’s writing style very captivating and unlike anything I’ve ever read. The dreamlike haze that he is writing from is a universal experience that is hard to capture. That time when you are half awake half asleep often expose your most raw and genuine thoughts which I think Proust captures perfectly. The detail that he uses in describing these visions of childhood (such as the Gothic style architecture, churches, queens and saints) provided great insight and almost transported me into his mind/world. I loved the detail he provided of the architecture as it also gives insight into the time period and place that Proust was living in, truly transporting the reader into a historical era.

Proust encapsulates this idea that memory is what we make of it in the sense that it can be completely fragmented or distorted but we can recreate it through our own thoughts and attachment to certain places. Through Combray Proust idealizes his childhood through much detail and emotion through a dreamlike state.