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Final thoughts and Goodbye

As “Topics in Hispanic Literature” comes to an end, I’m surprised to find myself quite emotional. It feels great to complete the course and come one step closer to graduating, but this course has had a profound impact on me and I’ll truly be sad to see it go. Throughout the semester, we delved into a diverse and captivating selection of texts, exploring themes such as death, temporality, colonialism, violence, gender, dreams, childhood, nature, and translation. My favorite aspect of the course by far was the prominent presence of female authors in the syllabus, and the unique perspectives they brought to my understanding of the “Latin American experience.” I tried to be intentional in my “chosen adventure” to prioritize the texts written by women and I feel so grateful for that decision. It was incredible to experience culture, injustice, and freedom through their eyes.

Mama Blanca’s Memoirs by Teresa de la Parra, Madwomen by Gabriela Mistral, The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, I, Rigoberta Menchú by Rigoberta Menchú, and Papi by Rita Indiana are just some of these powerful works that will stay with me for a very long time to come. These authors inspired me to deeply reflect on the complexities of identity, the quest for self-expression, and the unapologetic hope for freedom. These texts left a deep impression on me and I hope to re-read them soon in the near future.

The course also introduced me to masterpieces of Latin American literature such as Cartucho by Nellie Campobello, Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. These texts captivated me with their rich imagery, intricate narratives, and thought-provoking explorations of the human condition. I have been curious about these books for years and I’m so grateful this course allowed me to explore them in such a personal and meaningful way.

Ending the term with Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin was an incredible crescendo. It really stood out with its surreal and haunting narrative, blurring the boundaries between reality and fever. Its connections to real environmental and social devastation in Argentina left me extremely contemplative and grateful that such beautiful and haunting art can come out of such injustice.

Overall, this course has truly been a revelation, providing me with a fresh and diverse perspective on Latin American literature. As both a Latina and a STEM major who has had very little academic contact with literature, I’m so grateful for the reprieve and affirmation this class has offered me. It’s been nothing short of amazing to get the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities, nuances, and beauty of Latin American culture, history, and society. This class has been one of my favorites of university, and it has left an indelible mark on my literary and cultural sensibilities. I can’t think of a better way to finish off my time at UBC.

Huge thank-yous to Jon and Daniel for crafting such an engaging and delightful class, and also to my classmates for always providing such fun and thought-provoking discussions. You will be missed!

Schweblin

Week 13: Fever Dream and the Contamination of Anxiety

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin was haunting to say the very least. I read the entire book in one sitting – less out of choice, and more out of an inability to ever comfortably set it down and step away. From the very start, the reader is invaded with anxieties and disorientation. We are placed in the body of Amanda, who we quickly learn knows about as much as we do in regards to what is taking place in this town. As Jon says, there is a low-level anxiety and paranoia that permeates the narrative and we are never really able to escape. There is no moment of refuge, no pause in the spiral of disturbing events to catch our breath. We are stumbling through a fever dream of horror as much as our narrator, Amanda, is. Even the cadence of the dialogue and the hazy, but simple scene descriptions were downright creepy and reminiscent of jarring horror movie moments.

The frequent references to time running out and the need for urgency, kept me constantly on my toes, terrified of what I’d read on the next page. David and Amanda exchanging innumerable hot-and-cold guesses, like “we are very close now,” “this is the moment isn’t it?,” “this is the last moment of peace” (paraphrased), kept me activated and uneasy through every page. The sense of ever-nearing doom was inescapable. The lack of any answers or context further heightened this experience. It was frustrating and almost suffocating to feel as in the dark as Amanda; I found myself feeling indignant that we (the readers) were not given more context than the narrator, it was maddening to feel so blind and uninformed.

Learning about the history behind the very real horror of the novel made me appreciate the narrative style so much more. I can only imagine that the Argentinians affected by glyphosate poisoning felt this same maddening frustration and confusion on a massive scale. The fear that environmental contamination inspires is so visceral and unmoving. Fever Dream, if inspired by real experiences, is a heartbreaking but understandable reaction to this nightmare – meaning-making in dark, magical forces, desperation for dubious cures, and enduring paranoia about everyone in sight. In this light, Fever Dream is really a beautiful, if difficult, portrayal of this very real and devastating sociopolitical issue. Like Jon, suggests generational poisoning of rural Argentina is just the painful manifestation of real, contaminating forces that continue to seep into Latin America via exploitation, colonization, and violence: “The poison was always there,” says David (169).

Question for discussion: What are your thoughts on Amanda’s increasingly heightened paranoia for Carla? There’s a moment when she believe Carla’s fallen bikini strap and overwhelming perfume were perhaps intentional, malevolent distractions. Do you think Carla had intentions to poison Amanda? What do you think became of Nina?

Indiana

Week 12: Papi, Saint and Tyrant

Rita Indiana’s Papi was a nostalgic and emotional read for me. My family hails from Santo Domingo, La República Dominicana, like the narrator, and the many allusions to Dominican life and culture were both comforting and amusing. Mentions of mangú, Malecón, polo shirts, palm fronds, merengue, Taino idols, loud speakers mounted to cars, welcoming parties at Las Américas airport, dominoes, discos, and bayrum immediately transported me to the streets of my family’s home.

The excess machismo, U.S. glorification, and consumerism were familiar themes as well. The hyperbolic descriptions of Papi returning from the states like a prince, fawned over by extended family and friends, felt all too real. In particular, this passage in the very beginning made me laugh out loud: “your nieces and nephews, cousins, siblings, friends, your siblings’ siblings-in-law, your nearest and dearest, neighbors, classmates, aunts and uncles, godparents, compatriots, the friends of that guy who’s married to the lady whose brother is some dude who graduated from the navy a year after you” (4). This quote captures the bizarre yet amusing community culture of the Dominican so well; there always seems to be friends of friends of relatives of friends hanging around and calling themselves your uncle or cousin. Everyone is family and therefore everyone feels both entitled and obligated to you. This theme felt present throughout the text.

Without a doubt, my favorite aspect of the book was the musical nature of Indiana’s writing. Her career as a musician felt apparent in this sense. She captured the voice and poetic imagination of an 8-year old so vividly. I read the book in English but found a few chapters of the original Spanish online, and, despite being a very impressive translation, I found that the cadence of the original Spanish was missed. The language is very rhythmic and all-consuming; in addition to the magical realism and mythology throughout, Indiana is able to create this beautiful chorus of music with her words.

As the book progresses, the narrative slowly gains coherence, but it always retains this tumultuous, non-linear nature like one long, extended fever dream. There are lots of unexpected tonal shifts and scene changes that speak to the turbulent upbringing of the narrator with her father. He is a man flooded with contradictions: generous, heroic, and protective yet violent, reckless, and misogynistic. The girl details sweet moments of fatherly love, followed by intense images of violence, drugs, and greed. At a distance, her father is larger than life and too good to be true. As he approaches the narrator and their relationship comes into greater relief, we see that he is actually more of a cruel, inconsiderate despot.

There are many more things I’d like to say about this novel and its reflections of Dominican culture. It’s a text I foresee returning to repeatedly. Question for discussion: What aspect of Dominican culture was most striking to you in Indiana’s imagining? How did it strike you?

Braschi

Week 11: Yo-Yo Boing and the Art of Spanglish

Reading Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi was a unique and thought-provoking experience for me. As someone who is semi-bilingual and interested in linguistics, translation, and multicultural literature, this book provided me with a deeper insight into the complex nature of language and culture.

One of the central themes of the book is bilingualism and the challenges of translation. The characters in the novel often switch between English and Spanish, reflecting the reality of many bilingual individuals who navigate between two or more languages on a daily basis. I really liked Jon’s visual of characters “yo-yo-ing” between tongues and cultures. Everyone I know who is bi- or multilingual experiences language like this; not in distinct, black-and-white realities, but in oscillating sounds and voices.

The text also highlighted the struggle of immigrants to maintain their cultural identity while adapting to a new linguistic and cultural environment. Braschi uses language creatively to capture the unique experiences of bilingualism and the cultural clash that occurs when different languages and cultures come together. This felt very familiar to my own lived experience, growing up in Pennsylvania and watching my family wrangle with English and the midwestern American culture. I felt particularly reminded of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican writer Junot Díaz while reading Braschi’s text; this book also uses a liberal patchwork of Spanglish dialogue and linguistic clashes to portray the experience of Hispanic immigrants in the US.

Moreover, the novel explores the role of translation as a tool for bridging cultural gaps. Translation is a way of preserving cultural identity and heritage, as characters try to translate cultural traditions and beliefs into a new context. Hurdling language barriers with code-switching and bilingual slang becomes an essential means of understanding each other. Linguistically, it felt like a third language was born in the expanse between English and Spanish. I thought this was beautifully executed with Braschi’s focus on a chorus of nameless dialogue; it concentrated all the focus on the poetry of spoken translation in action.

As a bilingual person, I could relate to the characters in the book and their experiences of navigating multiple languages and cultures. The book made me reflect on my own linguistic and cultural background and the challenges that come with maintaining my cultural identity while living in a different linguistic and cultural environment.

I think Yo-Yo Boing! is a powerful reflection on the complexities of language, culture, and identity. It challenges traditional ideas of code-switching and offers a fresh perspective on the immigrant experience. Braschi turns Spanglish into an art in and of itself; something that I was once very ashamed to resort to is made into something quite beautiful and singular here.

Question for discussion: Do you have any words, phrases, or discourses in mind that you feel are untranslatable? Language that can only be understood and appreciated in its original form?

Menchú

Week 10: Rigoberta’s Resistance

I feel so grateful to carry Rigoberta Menchú’s story of resistance with me. Although the events of her life are deeply painful and tragic, it feels cheap to classify her life’s story as just that, a tragedy. Rigoberta’s story is one of incredible and unyielding resistance, in every form, from the seemingly mundane to the most compelling. This is evident immediately from the introduction by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. She talks about Rigoberta’s cultural resistance practiced intentionally and thoughtfully even while making tortillas. “By resisting ladina culture, she is simply asserting her desire for ethnic individuality and cultural autonomy… Rigoberta’s refusal to use a mill to grind her maize is one example… a way of preserving the practices connected with preparing tortillas and therefore a way to prevent a whole social structure from collapsing” (xviii). Throughout Rigoberta’s testimonio, we see that resistance is an active practice, taken on by necessity. Her own survival becomes an act of resistance in itself as the profile of her community rises and her family is steadily taken from her.

Rigoberta’s many references to secrets also carry this practice of resistance. For Rigoberta’s community, secrets provide security of more than one kind: physical security from enemies, social and emotional security from violence, and cultural security from colonization. It is so simple yet so powerful in its defiance, as if saying, you may think you’ve conquered all of us, but you’ll never have this; this being Quiché traditions, customs, ceremonies, practices, or wisdom we can hardly imagine. Rigoberta’s final words in the text are monuments to this kind of resistance. As if she’s speaking directly to Burgos-Debray and her readers, it’s a chilling and unequivocal reminder that through everything, she retains her autonomy and narrative agency. “Nevertheless, I’m still keeping my Indian identity a secret. I’m still keeping secret what I think no one should know. Not even anthropologists or intellectuals, no matter how many books they have, can find out all our secrets” (289).

I’m especially grateful to carry Rigoberta’s story, because, upon graduating this May, my friends and I will travel to Guatemala for two weeks. We have been planning this trip for over a year, committed to doing months of research to make ourselves aware of the cultural context we’ll be guests of. In this, I’ve learned an incredible amount about the Indigenous communities of Guatemala, which represent more of the population than non-Indigenous Guatemalans. As travelers, it’s paramount to make ourselves sensitive to the cultures we are passing through and resist treating local customs as circus spectacles when we encounter them. I’m glad I will be able to carry Rigoberta’s voice with me as I enter her home and remind myself of my responsibility to her memory and survival. Decolonization and resistance is a daily practice we must all undertake no matter where we find ourselves.

Question for discussion: Do you think Rigoberta Menchú and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray were as close as the introduction would lead us to believe? Rigoberta’s final words make us question what we’ve just read and how much we’ve been trusted to hear; it reveals that Rigoberta is much more aware and intentional about her narrative agency than Burgos-Debray may have implied.

Lispector

Week 9: The Hour of the Star and the Arrival of Self

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector is by far one of my favorite reads of the class so far. It was chilling and deeply moving, and had a very intense effect when read in one sitting. Macabéa, the subject of Rodrigo’s narration, lives a life of great external suffering yet even greater internal freedom. All of Rodrigo’s musings on perception and reality, in combination with Macabéa’s uncertainty of her own existence, made me wonder if she was even a real person or rather a figment of Rodrigo’s imagination. Upon finishing the book, I think it may be fair to say that both are true, for, as the narrator states, “[Macabéa] believed in angels, and because she believed in them, they existed.”

I was struck by Rodrigo and Macabéa’s characterizations of solitude. Having just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, the concept was still top-of-mind. Both Rodigo and Macabéa find great peace and strength in their solitude: “My strength undoubtedly resides in solitude. I am not afraid of tempestuous storms or violent gales for I am also the night’s darkness;” “[Macabéa] could enjoy at long last the greatest privilege of all: solitude” (18; 41). These passages stand in stark contrast to those of the Buendía family, who felt endlessly haunted and tormented by their solitude.

Throughout the book, we are aware that Macabéa is enduring abject poverty, with barely enough to feed or clean herself. The narrator says that she is so poor that she cannot even afford to possess self-awareness, “Were she foolish enough to ask herself ‘Who am I?’, she would fall flat on her face. For the question ‘Who am I?’ creates a need. And how does one satisfy that need?” (16). I thought it was beautiful and devastating that right before the moment of her untimely death, she seemed to finally encounter her own self. She had become fully embodied and conscious from the pure excitement of her promised future. “For at the hour of death you become a celebrated film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes” (28). As foretold, when Macabéa had finally possessed self-awareness, she fell on her face, knocked over by a lavish car, and was serenaded by a fiddler, a candle, and on-lookers who finally “gave her an existence” (81). At the closing moments of her life, she had finally arrived at herself and became the star she’d always dreamed of being.

There are so many other things I’d like to say about this book that unfortunately won’t fit here. But I will certainly be reflecting on Lispector’s words for a long time to come. Question for discussion: What, if any, do you think is the purpose or symbolism of the narrator, Rodrigo’s, recurring insecurity around blame, ethics, and perception? Claiming to be the only one who loves Macabéa and yet the one who fails to save her life, what, if anything, does Rodrigo owe her?

García Márquez

Week 8: One Hundred Years of Solitude and Collapse

I found that I enjoyed the second half of One Hundred Years of Solitude by García Márquez significantly more than I enjoyed the first half. Many of the symbols, broader themes, and patterns started to become more coherent for me, and this awareness infused each chapter with much more significance.

The imagery of “spiral and collapse” has persisted throughout my reading of the text, and I believe it fittingly characterizes the world of Macondo and the Buendías. I imagined the plot, rather than a classic mountain, as a large corkscrew that coils forward in time but continually reifies the past’s events and tragedies. When I reached the end and read about the tornado winds that finally swept Macondo away, I thought this was a fitting symbol to complete the narrative. At the center of this spiral, trying bravely and desperately to create order within the chaos of the family, is Ursula, the relentless matriarch. She is one of the only constants in the midst of changing yet repetitive characters and events. In a sense, I imagine her being the “eye of the storm” in the center of the spiraling hurricane of this family.

In the second half of the novel in particular, we see Macondo and its founding family spiral through chaos and false progress. Capitalism and imperialism seem to overburden the once idyllic town until it explodes under the weight of its many tragedies. Conversely, we see the Buendía family collapse in on itself. This is illustrated quite vividly through their repeated turning in on themselves incestuously. Shut away, wading yet again through their enduring and collective solitude, the spiral finally seems to crash into its center upon the death of its indelible matriarch. But, like the text suggests, I think the beginning of the collapse really came upon the death of Pilar Ternera, who has always acted as a shadowy and unloved matriarch in her own right. Pilar is also one of the few founders of Macondo, present throughout the text. Despite being rejected, she births two sons of the Buendía family and comforts/”grandmothers” several others. In addition, she has a special relationship with time that seems to place her at the center of this hurricane too; able to envision events of the past and future, she seems to know the Buendías’ fate all along. When she dies, this spiral has finally lost the integrity of its center and collapses in forcefully.

This quote illustrated this imagery and Pilar’s role most for me: “There was no mystery in the heart of a Buendía that was impenetrable for [Pilar] because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle” (396).

To bounce off of Jon’s discussion question, I think the family’s fate could have been saved by the naming of the last Buendía Rodrigo, rather than another Aureliano. The text repeatedly alludes to their destiny for greatness and I believe this greatness could have been truly preserved with the symbolic ending of the name cycle. Question for discussion: Do you think something else could have saved the Buendías from their fate?

García Márquez

Week 7: One Hundred Years of Solitude and Spiral

The first half of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez was a vibrant and overwhelming ride. It felt as if the narrative spun into chaos within the first 30 pages. It was beautiful to experience but also disorienting and somewhat tedious. Like the title suggests, and as Jon mentioned in his lecture, the greatest enemy of the characters (and the readers) here is tedium. A slow-boiling circus of chaotic personalities and circumstances that never seems to progress past its repeated mistakes.

Given the nature of magical realism and also the events of this novel, I found it difficult to differentiate the momentous from the mundane. Metaphorically speaking, García Márquez’s writing was extremely saturated and rich – it felt like a deluge of vivid colors – and hence, at times I wanted to put on sunglasses to mitigate the blinding intensity. Even the syntax of García Márquez’s writing seemed to contribute to this flood of imagery. He crafts his narrative through large blocks of text in which context, points of view, and time periods can fluctuate without apparent connection. Even dialogue would sometimes be buried in these long paragraphs, giving the reader a choppy sense of organization and progression. As I settled into the book, I began to acclimate to García Márquez’s game and found myself getting used to finding profound passages embedded in seemingly unrelated text – for example, “Amaranta’s sensibility, her discreet but enveloping tenderness had been weaving an invisible web about her fiancé, which he had to push aside materially with his pale and ringless fingers in order to leave the house at eight o’clock” (107). Breathtaking passages like these felt like were difficult to identify and ruminate on because they were often sandwiched by an excess of equally intense descriptions and events.

One thing I loved in particular about the text was the absurd humor, planted dryly at unexpected moments. There are too many instances to mention, but this one in particular truly made me laugh out loud: “He soon acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians” (71). Moments like this especially stuck out because their simple and blunt delivery stood in contrast to adjacent passages of serious intensity.

Disney’s Encanto popped into my head repeatedly in the first half of the novel. Upon further research I found that I’m definitely not the first to make this connection and many believe that One Hundred Years of Solitude may have been a significant (or entire) source of inspiration for La Familia Madrigal. Both the Buendía and Madrigal families live in massive, multi-generational mansions in the jungle of Colombia, acting as the social and political leaders of their village, and juggling surreal and magical powers. I loved thinking about this possible connection as the novel progressed; it helped to lighten some of the darker aspects of the plot.

Question for discussion: How did you make sense of time in the novel? At times it felt like the narrative crawled along at snail’s pace and then sped into overdrive skipping across decades. I could never get a sense of the children’s ages or relationships to each other. Do you think time is also subject to the magic of Macondo?

Rulfo

Week 6: Pedro Páramo and the Company of Death

I was so excited to begin Pedro Páramo this week. I decided to amend my contract and add it as a text last minute and I’m so glad I did. I knew I was in for a treat when the librarian at Vancouver Public Library in Kits stopped me to gush over the book as I was checking out.

To be honest, by the time I sat down to start reading, I had completely forgotten about Jon’s spoiler alert in last week’s class (paraphrasing: everyone in the text is dead) and I found myself truly haunted by the unfolding of the story. Undoubtedly the most representative quality of magical realism is its nonchalance; the muted, ordinary way in which it describes the surreal and extraordinary. This is definitely my favorite part of the genre – the way it casually unsettles you. This was the feeling I had while reading the text, uncovering more and more about this “ghost” village. It felt almost haunting discovering each new dead character and the apparently thin relationship between life and death itself.

It was both unsettling and amusing to take in. In particular, I liked this quote towards the beginning of the text, which reflects both the absurd and morbid nature of the people’s relationship to dying: “So, she got a head start on me, eh? Well, you can be sure I’ll catch up with her. No one knows better than I do how far heaven is, but I also know all the shortcuts” (23). The aloofness of Doña Eduviges’ speech almost reminded me of the cadence and timing of a horror movie monologue. There were many instances like this that inspired amusement, but could also be somewhat chilling in their content and blunt delivery.

Rulfo’s narrative power was especially evident in descriptions of intense emotion. For instance, I found myself returning to this line in particular over several days: “And inside, the woman standing in the doorway, her body impeding the arrival of day: through her arms he glimpsed pieces of sky and, beneath her feet, trickles of light. A damp light, as if the floor beneath the woman were flooded with tears” (37). This depiction is pure imagination and yet can be visualized so viscerally. It captures the deep anguish and denial felt at the beginning of grief and it’s just breathtaking to read.

The entire book read like a dream, which felt at times like a bizarre nightmare. The narration flowed seamlessly across different times, narrators, memories, and states of reality. This stream-of-consciousness style accompanied by the magical realism descriptions made the entire text feel like long, hazy dream – beautiful and transcendent but difficult to root in real time and reality. I can’t articulate here how much I enjoyed the dreamy journey Rulfo led me down and I’m excited to return to Pedro Páramo one day in the future.

Question for discussion: How did you experience the “chorus” of narrators in the book? Did you find it “loud” in a sense or confusing? Or did you enjoy the layered voices and varied perspectives offered on the town and its people?

Borges

Week 5: Labyrinths and the Maze of Understanding

Exactly as the title foreshadows, I found myself quickly getting lost in Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths. The first definition Google provides for labyrinth is “a complicated, irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze.” Fittingly, I found Borges’ narrative style to be at times complicated, meandering, or just misleading. I found myself needing to read sentences or passages more than once – usually several times over. And even when I felt that I was properly following the storyline, I’d come across a passage that would make me question my understanding of what came before. In this way, both frustratingly and amusingly, I felt like I was navigating a real labyrinth consuming Borges’ work. I’d like to think this was his exact intention.

Despite feeling occasionally uncertain, I really enjoyed the reading journey Labyrinths led me down. The stories were unusual and unexpected yet vivid and compelling. In each, I am positive something significant or interesting completely flew over my head. But, again, faithful to the title, I think the stories were written to provide unique paths for every reader and allow certain details to go unexamined upon your first pass. Typically in a maze, people will walk up and down the same corridors repeatedly in the process of way-finding, and in this same way, I expect multiple reads of Borges’ text to be necessary to reveal all the nuanced mysteries.

Before reading this text, I had known Borges to be associated with the genre of “magical realism,” but upon finishing, I was surprised that scientific-fiction (sci-fi) wasn’t a more affiliated style. The short stories were full of incredible invention, science, mathematics, physics, and philosophy. Certain passages were so formal and academic – almost mathematical – that I sometimes felt a rigorous background in these topics was needed to properly appreciate what was being said.

Throughout, Borges remained faithful to the themes of time, plurality, and importantly, labyrinths. In many of his stories, Borges completely deconstructs my understanding of time and introduces extraordinary layers of possibility in each narrative. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the way Rick Riordan describes the Labyrinth in the fourth novel of the Percy Jackson series; a self-aware, self-expanding maze that bends time and has a fragile relationship to reality. Similarly, Labyrinths felt like an infinitely vast, infinitely layered maze, with supernatural intelligence. There is one quote in the very first short story that I think perfectly reflects the text’s enormity: “This plan is so vast that each writer’s contribution is infinitesimal. At first it was believed that Tlön was a mere chaos, an irresponsible license of the imagination; now it is known that it is a cosmos and that the intimate laws which govern it have been formulated, at least provisionally” (8).

Question for discussion: Do you think Borges could have achieved the same maze-like reading journey in a single narrative arc rather than across multiple short stories/essays?