Honestly… I’m still not entirely sure of what I just read. I’m so lost. The story felt chaotic and overwhelming, but also fascinating. The narration seems to jump around between various voices, descriptions, and conversations so quickly, making it a little hard to follow. But! Like lots of other stories I’ve read in this course, I guess the confusion might actually be part of the experience that the story is creating. Everyone in the story seemed just as confused as I was, so I’ll take comfort in that…
One thing that really stood out to me was the character names. The narrator constantly describes the same person as “the Kid,” “the Guileless One,” “the Learned One,” “the Researcher,” and “the Child.” These roles and identities that kept changing made it difficult to feel completely certain and gave the character a strange sense of instability. At times he seems naïve, at others intellectual, and sometimes childlike. He feels like someone who’s constantly being observed and analyzed… I’m not sure. He never fully settles into one clear identity.
I thought that the dinner party scene was interesting to read. Everything about it was described in such lively detail, whether it be the food, the drinks, the house, or the conversation. The hosts provide a luxurious environment, which feels bizarre compared to the outside world that the characters mention from time to time. Inside of the Beldeanus’ house everything is very elegant, abundant, and warm. I thought it created a strange contrast between comfort and tension.
The trenchcoat itself was just… weird. It seems like something so small and unimportant. Dina simply notices “a raincoat that didn’t belong to them, hanging on the coat tree in the hall” (234) after the dinner party, but no one claims it. From there on, the situation escalates and becomes unsettling. She describes it as “irritating” and “unpleasant, simply unpleasant” (220). Dina calls multiple times trying to figure out who it belongs to, and it seems to spiral into something much bigger. I still don’t really know what’s going on with that. It’s interesting how the coat is described with different words throughout the story – raincoat, coat, trenchcoat, overcoat. I guess it adds to the uncertainty of the object.
Nothing ends up being actually explained. The coat just remains there in the hallway, and no one knows who left it. Eventually Ali explains that Dina became deeply disturbed by this discovery, but he’s unsure as to why. The coat feels like something that’s invisible but threatening.
Maybe the story’s less about solving the actual mystery of whose trenchcoat this is and more about capturing the feeling of uncertainty. Everyone seems tense and slightly suspicious of each other. I guess the coat kind of exposes how fragile that sense of normality really is.
Question: What do you think about the various names used to refer to Felicia’s husband?
Hi Emily! to answer your question, i thought the names were a bit odd and hard to follow. It was confusing trying to understand if they were talking about the same person or not… I do feel like they matched his character or what little I understood about him..
agree, the names were weird and didn’t provide much imho, everyone has different parts of their character and could have different nicknames to highlight them. I agree the coat is threatening, I think it ties together the story.
“Maybe the story’s less about solving the actual mystery of whose trenchcoat this is and more about capturing the feeling of uncertainty. Everyone seems tense and slightly suspicious of each other. I guess the coat kind of exposes how fragile that sense of normality really is”.
Yes, I agree! We as readers are sometimes too attached to the plot and sometimes the actions are not the most meaningful aspect of the book.
Share your thoughts in class!
See you on Wednesday.
Julián.
Hi Emily! The names given to Felicia’s husband got so confusing, genuinely thought that it was like 2 different people for a bit. I guess that was probably the point, its hard to pin this character down or even describe him from how little we know about him.
Hi Emily! The names given to Felicia’s husband got so confusing, genuinely thought that it was like 2 different people for a bit. I guess that was probably the point, its hard to pin this character down or even describe him from how little we know about him!!