Author Archives: suroor mansouri

A Paris Peasant’s Point of View

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This reading had me reading with caution based off the fact that it was in evidently written off well-developed, personally-deep opinions and ideas. Majority of the book is written in often disorienting surrealism and although there is some imagery I would not characterize it as vivid. Surroundings of the specific Arcade, or mini-mall, are described continuously throughout the story and references of historical significance is brought up to the point where it feels like it was written by an old friend. It felt like receiving a letter that was reminiscent and commanding but also light and descriptive. He walks through the town, stopping at different shops and stores describing what he sees and how he remembers them. He speaks of them as though the reader would have some general knowledge on the area, although he assumed we were locals. The descriptions however were not so vivid that once again we could apply them to familiar areas. Almost like this arcade was the world around us. Our own little mini-mall to exaggerate and take note of consistently. I could not map Passage de l’Opera in my head but it seemed I did not need to. The structural integrity of the scene had no effect on translating his observations and reflections. There was a passage on page 36, where the narrator speaks about women in social settings. Although, at times, his descriptions felt nearly dehumanizing and crude, it is an accurate depiction of how we perceive people. There is no social contract or terms and conditions for our internal monologue. We think how we want with no filter because we know, even by the Almighty, we will be judged solely for our actions. It is also why insecurity exists and why people wish to read minds when asked about a hypothetical favoured superpower. He describes them not on the surface level but as though he can see right through them, past the “paint and powder”, and into their souls. I am not sure if anger or refreshment is what I feel, however, I understand this story requires reflection. The cultural context begs empathy and the text requires rereading, deliberation, or discussion. His dips and dives into surrealism and allusion made for a quasi-fictional read but also made the reader transport into the arcade. I walked into the Certa cafe and window-shopped at the bookshop. I stood at the windows with the narrator and as though on a screen, watched his observations and experiences while comparing and contrasting with my own. I gave weight to his observations as all texts deserve not because I would internalize them because I understand this text went past a solo date centred around retail therapy. He was exploring a town that symbolized the modern world, with poetic description and subtle ambiguity.

Did you hope for some clarity, or did you like the room for creativity? Would you read more of Aragon’s work?

Combray 1: The Power of a Space

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For a lack of better introduction, this week’s reading reminded me of one solitary thing; the concept of deja-vu. I found that with the beginning of the chapter, the vivid imagery persisted and felt so increasingly reminiscent that I could no longer decipher whether the character was asleep or awake. I found myself making sense of the specific descriptions by applying them to my own childhood room. I began with the four walls, the window, the placing of the bed. I even went as far as imagining the mother as my own, entering my room to give me a goodnight kiss. The trail to the downstairs living room where my disgruntled father sits waiting for my mother to return to him, frustrated by the pause in his ranting. The great-aunt as my own, or rather a collection of the judgemental aunts waiting for me back home. The rapid dynamics and how one’s own narrative and the power they have can deconstruct and reconstruct an entire scene and how the on-looker interprets it. Was the great aunt truly judgemental and bitter or was she just insecure and begging to insert herself into the story, resulting from a lack of attention in her earlier years? Would I have imagined a different scene or mood had I not set my internal narration of this book to a British accent? So many little tweaks and adjustments could make for an utterly different reflection of the chapter let alone the book. I began reading solely thinking about what I would take away from it rather than what I could contribute. As I read fellow classmates’ blog posts, I take away from your own contributions as an enhancement of mine. How would you answer the questions I have in bold? Would you agree or disagree that our power over our own spaces exists in our mental mapping of fictional spaces? Are we constantly dreaming or are we waiting, gathering material to eventually dream? More than anything, I have almost answered my question from the previous blog post, what does one earn citizenship into the Romance World? Speaking in completely theoretical terms, we earn our place in the Romance World and anywhere by proving ourselves worthy of being there. Asserting our place by deeming our thoughts, reflections, and opinions as worthy of taking place in that space is equivalent to gaining a role in any society. Proust’s text went from confusing, to repetitive, to familiar simply because I used mental mapping and my own experiences to make the complex and peculiar, mundane and familiar.

Introduction.

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Hello all,

My name is Suroor Mansouri and I am a Psychology major in my third year, trying to cover avenues outside the scientific and neurological domains of my field. I have been taking numerous creative writing and literature classes to study how moods, themes, and senses that we study in psychology intertwine in prose. I am quite a fan of current and past pieces of text that are written in the languages of romance as I find they translate complicated feelings and thoughts through text so elegantly. I wish I could say I had a familiarity with the genre enough to recommend authors but I welcome that nonetheless. My expectations for this term and this course is to gain a more holistic and intersectional approach to my understandings of Psychology. I feel as though everything and anything can be tied to each other. The way we interact with people and our food can be tied into mathematics but also, poetry. Everything in our lives can find their ways into other domains of our lives to the point where I want to surprise myself. I took this class to fulfill my literature requirement but to also throw myself into an environment that would challenge me and give me an avenue to question, think critically, and investigate subjects I know very little about.

In terms of my thoughts on the introductory lecture, it doubled any interest I had entering this class as I was suspecting a geographical element to the course teachings. The idea that the Romance World exists but doesn’t at the same time. In the lecture, Professor emphasized that “It has no geographical pinpoint. It is tied to no territory, deterritorialized.” I find this point incredibly intriguing because many times to come across as experts on certain subjects we tried to contextualize and gain control over it somehow. Whether it be pinpointing a location, origin, date, name, etc; we always try to gather details on a subject in a way to conquer it. In the Romance World, we would not even be able to begin this process. We are all strangers to the concept but also forever learning and aspiring to understand it and I think that is a beautiful thing. 

One question I would put up for discussion is how would one categorize a citizen of the quasi-fictional Romance World? Let’s imagine it as a concept and therefore, the citizen as a concept. What would they look like? Are we citizens of the romance world? are the authors?