Hi all,
This week I discuss Papi, mainly focusing on psychological projection, fantasy, what is real, and the role of dullness in life.
Question: Is there a marked ‘truth’ to this story? Where does fact stop and fiction begin? Or rather, how should we read this book – as a fantasy-driven metaphor about a child’s psyche or a literal retelling of things past (or both, perhaps)?
Hope you enjoy,
Curtis HR
Have fun in Winnipeg! I think it would be interesting to look for those moments in the novel in which there is a “grounding” of childhood fantasies. Several of them, as you mention, have to do with the descriptions of sick bodies, whether they belong to the mother or to the narrator. I am left wondering if “The Real” (to get psychoanalytic) “bleeds” into fantasy and to what degree. I am thinking, for example, of Zizek’s ideas, which you surely know, and what he talks about the horror movies of the 80-90s, with which the book itself begins.