Month: March 2026

Categories
great writing

Growing up and dissolving

I have listened to a podcast about people commenting on Elena Ferrante’s writing before I read this book. People said they were impressed by how honest Ferrante’s writing is. Therefore, when I was reading this book, I attempted to find clues and check if the book is really honest. The Childhood section was quite satisfying, as I read about the friendship and envy between the girls.

But the Adolescence section is fabulous!!! I really like the term “dissolving margins” invented by Lila. Writers usually claim that they are people who are able to describe the feelings that everyone has in detail because they can express those precisely.

Ferrante wrote the following for describing how Lila feels the dissolving margins for the first time:

She seemed to see him for the first time as he really was: a squat animal form, thickset, the loudest, the fiercest, the greediest, the meanest (90).

When I was reading, I felt like I have experienced the same thing before, and I can’t even tell when. It happened with the closest people around me. All of a sudden, I could not tell who that person is and they became something super negative.

Lila is gifted. Not just because she is “smart”. Even though she is always described to be the one who is calm and rational, I think she is also pretty sensitive because of she is aware of the subtle feelings that most people may not be able to accurately describe or recognize as different.

This is also proved by how Lila is able to tell that the “development between Carmela and Alfonso” is constrained by the incidents between their fathers.

I observed that Lenu’s interactions with the world are impacted a lot by Lila and people around her. She makes decisions (romantic relationships) because of Lila; she tries to behave and talk like Lila; she tries to assimilate with her peers but also tries to have some superiority. But Lila never listens to anyone around her. She always has her own opinion and makes her own decisions. For example, when people are blaming Melina, Lila does not do that, and it turns out it’s Donato Saratore’s fault to have a family and also show his affection to Melina at the same time (126). Also, as Lila’s father does not allow her to be educated, she reads the most number of books in the town and self-taught Latin. Phew! Lila is great!

The question I have for this book is: Have you experienced the “dissolving margins” in your life?

Categories
family

The Past and the Splendorium

Well, The Book of Chameleons is not actually about chameleons. I expected this because none of the books we have read in this class have been about the literal meaning of their titles. As I read new books for this class, I try my best to identify the underlying themes.

For instance, when I was reading the second chapter, “The House,” Agualusa writes that the country needs sappers for mine-sweeping operations; I immediately thought, “war!” I was correct, as we, the readers, then see the post-traumatic reactions of the people in Angola.

Felix has a very interesting job: inventing “good” pasts for his clients. He notices that people with secure social status often lack a good family history, so he turns this into a business by making up the entire family trees and legacies for those people. Initially, this business sounded like nonsense to me. However, Agualusa’s writing explains the necessity of it:

“Well—sir—… you’re white.” “And what of it? You’re whiter than I am…” “White? Me?!” The albino choked. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “No, no! I’m black. Pure black. I’m a native. Can’t you tell that I’m black?…” (p.18)

Here, a Black man suffering from albinism is mistaken for being white. His condition conceals his identity, and he feels a desperate need to assert his true self. The word “native” makes me think of belonging. The people who visit Felix may also be looking for that same sense of belonging. Agualusa writes that these people want “a name that resonates with nobility and culture.”

Later, in the chapter “Splendorium,” Agualusa describes Angela Lúcia’s ability to recognize locations by the light. She takes out a few slides and calls them her “splendorium.” This choice of words and the previous discussion about the past reminds me of the book Sternstunden der Menschheit (Decisive Moments in History). That book is about the collective legacy of humanity, focusing on those important moments as “stellar moments.” The book is really famous and people love to know about how great their ancestors were.

Similarly, the characters in The Book of Chameleons love to discuss their family stories, even if they are made up. Felix asks Angela, “Talking about family histories, you know you’ve never told me yours?” Like, he is the one who always made those up!! He is now asking Angela to tell him hers!!!

Discussion Question: Do you think family legacy matters today?

Categories
Money to Burn

Money to burn

Drugs, sexual obsession, crimes. These elements filled in the entire book in the fiction Money to Burn written by Piglia.

Since the start of the book, Piglia is constantly stressing the importance of MONEY, the medium used in the society for exchange. On page 14, the character the Girl is introduced. She is the lover of Mereles for money since she was 15, and she still went to secondary school. Piglia described that when she first brought money to her home, her mother told her that she “has to make the most of being young while she can”. Also, on the first page of Chapter 2, Piglia introduces another small character who is a bank-clerk. He just turned 40 and was short in his financial position because of his sick daughter. He has thought about stealing the money himself (page 19).  For these small characters, even though they are not committing crime, the scarcity of money also brings troubles to their lives (what i am saying??). When Piglia is portraying  the bank-clerk, he states that he just turned 40 and not have many hours to live. THIS IS THE MIDLIFE CRISIS. The scarcity of money is the factor for people in the society to feel anxious and not comfortable about.

The book takes the climax, the scene the gang burning money as its title. The gang was burning the 1000 peso bills, each of those will take the bank clerk a month to earn it. When people saw that, they are super mad about the gang. Because if the reason for them to murder is to get the money, people totally get it. But if they are burning the bills, it means that “they had no morals nor motives” to kill people. One people shouted that the gang should have donate the money. When I read this part, I was laughing. It is hilarious. From my point of view, the gang definitely has no morals nor ethics. So, people should definitely not expecting them to “improve” the conditions of the society, just don’t make it worse.  From the reaction of the crowd, it explains the usage of money: the value of it can improve the condition of the society; it can also be used to solve the midlife crisis of individual person. When people sees the money is “wasted”, going back from a bill to a piece of paper, their value got challenged.

The question I have for this week is that: do you agree that with an infinite amount of money, there is no crisis for an individual?

Categories
the lover

Foreshadowing Queen

WOW! I love the storytelling method of this book. It really allows me to know everything that is going to happen before I actually read the actual part of the plot. Great use of foreshadowing!! It may also due to the repetition, where she divided the entire story into fragments and glued them together while switching the order!

For instance, for the death of her younger brother. On page 7, the narrator talked about the death of her younger brother in between of discussing the clothes. The topic just appears from nowhere, and embedded that into the reader’s mind without telling us the reason of the death. Also, after she talked about his death, her younger brother does not disappear from the story like the other books. He was still a part of the story, like he was not dead. And suddenly on page 17, she said he was dead again! So did her mother. The point of view is always changing, from the first person point of view to the third person point of view. I like this kind of change as long as it is not THIS FREQUENT!!! Sometimes it just made me confused.

Also, she repeatedly talked about her clothes and the clothes of women around her. I swear that everyone who have read this book remember  the”gold lame shoes” and the “men’s hat” she was wearing.  It showcases her desire to the fancy clothes that her family is not able to afford. And it brings up the topic of living in the poverty while “having” privilege as a white girl.

We were white children, we were ashamed, we sold our furniture, but we weren’t hungry, we had a houseboy and we ate… we indulged in the luxury of declining to eat. (p.6-p.7)

She stressed that the houseboy cooked her family “garbage” that they had to eat, showing her superiority in front of the houseboy. But her identity as a white girl is not valued by the Chinese guy’s father, where on the page 35, she wrote:

He won’t let his son marry the little white whore from Sadec.

It is worth mentioning that page 35 is before she starting to date the Chinese guy. Same technique again! Here is how she foreshadowing the ending to the readers that a fiancee has been chosen for the guy ten years ago by his dad.

The foreshadowing ends at where he phoned the narrator and told her he’d love her till death (117). Okay… this is out of expect. I thought that was just an affair…

The question at the end of the blog is that do you think the Chinese guy really love her?

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Mission Incomplete!!!

I have to confess that I picked this book because the title is sooo poetic. It is an unfinished sentence, so I guess that there may be a cliff hanger at the end of the book. Clearly, there is something similar but not exactly a cliff hanger.

I found the book to be sooo CHAOTIC when I started to read it. The first chapter is fine, I know the point of view is a bit weird, but there was a mission! I really want to know why is the suitcase important and what is inside the suitcase, but I never got to know. Anyway, the first chapter is still more fulfilling than the ones after because I know at the end that Chief Gorin was the person the narrator was looking for. The stories, or fragments that appeared later are different.

The constant change of exposition made me confused. I read about an argument in class about Cimmerian language, then suddenly been directed to read about a war. The characters surrounded the narrator change as well. Then at the end of chapter 5, Italo introduced another story Looks down in the gathering shadow. At this point, I really feel like Italo has many ideas been drafted but they are not good enough to be written as an entire book, so he combined those ideas together to be this book.

As I just thought in this way, Italo wrote in the beginning of the chapter 6 that readers are wondering the complete volume must exist, and they are seeking for those. Ya, exactly, this is what I was doing! Then, I took a step back, reflecting on the previous stories. Even though the first story gives a satisfactory ending, it does not mean anything to me. When I was small, what I usually do is looking for what I perceived from the book name. And if the book does not go in the way I expected, I just put it away.

It is interesting that the book constantly talks about reading a physical book when I was reading it on my tablet. It is not just about reading a physical book, it is the old ones, where we need to use the paper knife to cut the pages. I have never read a book like that, so correct me if I am wrong. I feel like the movement create a feeling of uncovering while reading a book. This book gives me a lot of feelings about uncovering. The first a few pages are about a station, it turns to a cooking scene afterwards, then it starts to describe a conversation at uni, and the prison at the seashore, etc.

The question I asked for this week is: is there any connections you guys found between these fragments?

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