I’m not sure how to write this. I’m not sure what the correct wording to use here is because how do you write a concluding blog post?
To begin with, I enjoyed this course (really mundane start but hey! gotta begin somewhere!) especially because we learnt a lot about literature in the romantic era. I had already had an introduction to this in school but mostly through poems and little excerpts of novels, never to the extent we did in class.
Being candid, I stumbled across the course when I was looking through options for my literature requirement. I didn’t expect to be able to take a course that catered to my interests while fulfilling the requirements and when I found this course, I was intrigued by it. Signing up for it, I knew it would be literature focused but not to the extent it was and it was a pleasant surprise.
I didn’t contract for the highest grade like I’m sure most people did because I had a bit of a heavy course load and couldn’t have kept up with all the reading. But the books I read were eye opening, both in terms of literature from a bygone time and socio-economic situations during the eras the novels were set in. The fact that they were translated also gave me a different take on reading books because I found myself pausing several times over sentences in different novels, wondering how the author must have worded them in their native languages.
The class with Manea was undoubtedly my favourite because it was so new and a chance to almost go back in time and peel back the layers of the story he wrote, from the plot to the situation at the time. It was beyond fascinating to hear his life experiences and hear the way he connected them to his stories.
Thank you to our professor and TAs for the the great books and the opportunities we had throughout this class to discover and learn while journeying through various eras.
My last question is really simple: what was your favourite book that you read in this class?
Hi! I really enjoyed your concluding thoughts about the course and agree with a lot of them. I too was just looking to fulfill my lit requirement but really enjoyed the material! To answer your question, I really enjoyed reading both My Brilliant Friend and W or the Memory of a Childhood.
hey! Thanks for your blog post:) I found that writing the concluding blog post to be a bit strange too, and honestly a bit bittersweet. I too was looking to fulfill my literature requirement, but to be honest with you, I might consider taking more literature courses. Having the opportunity to read books I wouldn’t normally pick was cool, and to have a sort of guide in the form of lectures, a prof and two TA’s was really helpful! I would say that my favourite book was either Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, or a Time of the Doves by Merce Rodoreda (the second one may be controversial but I thought it was good haha). What about you?
Hi there! I also really enjoyed the class with Manea. It was unexpected and really powerful. I wish I had chosen more books in my contract. My favourite book was ‘The Shrouded Woman’ because of the imagery and plot.
Hello! I too was in for a very pleasant surprise with this course; I really enjoyed it.
My favorite book I think was the Shrouded Woman. I thought it had an engaging plot, and characters, and I really liked the perspectives and message going on in the book.
Hi Chiara! I enjoyed reading your blogpost, because it seems like you found the course interesting for the same reasons I did. I also enjoyed the novels that we had to read, because it felt like I was looking into the mind of someone who lived decades or a century before I did.