Monthly Archives: February 2024

02/27/24

Time of the Doves – the female rage

Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda.

It seems the further we get into this course, the better the novels get. I genuinely enjoyed the read for this week, so much I couldn’t put it away. Maybe because it was easier to read. Speaking of that, I found the stylistic choices and the ‘stream of consciousness’ structure very interesting. Some sentences kept going and going, some started with ‘And’. I remember learning in primary school that sentences should never start with ‘And’, or ‘But’. The way she wrote the whole book felt like a diary entry or a rant on what happened throughout her life, with the lack of direct dialogue and its manner of simply retelling a story. The lack of silences or short sentences even felt like she was breathless at times, or in a hurry.

Anyways, I felt like Quimet was a person with a big personality. He was very charming and charismatic, yet possessive and toxic. Right from their first encounter, I think we can see how he almost turned her into something of his possession, something he owns, by calling her ‘Colometa’, or ‘my little dove’. Throughout the story, he reveals more of his personality by being jealous and mad at her for the littlest things, making everything about himself with his little leg pains, and believing he is in the right for everything . And the tapeworm part was actually very funny to me. Nonetheless, it is clear that she misses him after his death, even when she was in a new marriage. This sorrow is mixed with the anxiety and fear of him possibly being alive and finding out about her marriage, but it indicates his impact on her as a person. She even carves her nickname in the door of her old house when she comes back to it. Despite his toxicity and jealousness, he was a good father and had definitely left a big part of him in her.

I discovered a lot of symbols of femininity and the vulnerable and painful experiences of women and mothers during wars while reading the novel. Starting from the mundane, like the step-mother’s obsession with bows (very coquette), and Natalia spending a copious amount of time staring at the dolls behind the windows at the oilcloth shop, to the awful dilemma she faces as a mother living in difficult times of war and poverty, it all reminded me of womanhood. It was definitely refreshing to read another book written by a female author after all the ones from a male perspective. This brings me to my point, which was written in the title: feminine rage. Throughout the book, Natalia feels powerless and helpless, with her nagging husband, her hungry children, the doves, her difficult work, and it all weighs down on her until she bursts. She didn’t seem like an emotional person, but she relieves her anger and distress by killing the birds or (attempting to) her children. This isn’t to say that her thinking of killing the children was from anger, but it was from pure despair, from exhaustion. It really showed the sorrowful reality of how war affects everyone, especially women and children. I would say Natalia was the strongest woman – she took whatever jobs she could just to keep herself and her children alive, yet she never complained, unlike Quimet. However, it is evident how the series of events put a toll on her.

One more thing I noticed is how much beliefs and superstitions are mentioned in the novel, and in the previous ones as well. The step mother and Senyora Enriqueta seem to say the most, like how birds bring bad luck. It makes me wonder about the culture in the romance countries.

“Senyora Enriqueta told me I had to control myself because if I worried too much, the baby inside would turn over and they’d have to pull it out with tongs.”

 

My question regards to when Natalia decides to kill her children and herself with the hydrochloric acid.

Would you have done the same thing if you were a mother in despair, without looking back at the grocer?

 

 

02/14/24

Deep Rivers

Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas.

 

This week’s read was definitely a ride for me. I don’t think I’ve ever looked up words or referred to the footnote this much when reading a book, but it was fascinating reading about the culture, their language, and the nature of the Andean people. I really liked and appreciated how the translator kept some words untranslated to show the nuance of the language, enrich the narratives with layers of meanings and perhaps to pay respects to it. The stops I had to do while reading the novel to see the translated word almost kind of kept me aware that it was in Quechuan and painted the illusion of what it was like living in Peru in the 1920s. The novel allowed me to see from the eyes of a small boy into maturity, facing various challenges from witnessing social marginalization to experiencing the cultural ‘identity crisis’ himself, while illustrating his young curious mind like the talking Inca walls, or his fascination with the Pachachaca river and its bridge. This reminded me of the previous novel we read about Agostino, and it almost felt precious to be reading from the perspective of a young, naive mind. We can see both childhood elements like him and the boys playing with the zumballyu and more ‘adult’ problems like the chicheras’ uprising. Ernesto goes through this phase of growing up which involves the feelings of isolation, problems of identity and belonging especially as a mixed person, with each people treating him differently, and having to live in a catholic boarding school without his father. He is exposed to injustices in the world as a young child and has to deal with the feelings of sorrow and sympathy but also unending curiosity, which is shown when he follows the women’s protest to the next city. I almost saw myself in him – I find myself often observing more than participating, fascinated with nature and sometimes a bit isolated in society.

Back to the Andean culture, one thing I really liked was the idea of opposites in the book. The narrator compares the Inca stones to the never-stationary, unstoppable rivers, and moreover mentions the meaning of the word illa for describing kinds of lights but also monsters with birth defects. I think this could also be shown by the way society was illustrated in the novel: the owner of the haciendas, the white people and the indigenous people, the oppressor and the oppressed. Moreover, the idea of movement also seemed significant. Just like the river, Ernesto was always moving, always transforming, whether it was travelling from one city to other or growing as a person.

“The wall was stationary, but all its lines were seething and its surface was as changeable as that of the flooding summer rivers which have similar crests near the center, where the current flows the swiftest and is the most terrifying.”

“Illa is the name used for a certain kind of light, also for monsters with birth defects caused by moonbeams.”

I found all the descriptions and introductions of the Andean culture extremely interesting, especially their language and their meanings. It made me wonder about the different languages other cultures have. My question is:

Are there any words or elements in your culture that hold a significant meaning?

02/6/24

Agostino – Freud wins once again

Sometimes I wonder why literature writers (or is it just the romance ones?) get so obsessed with the Oedipus complex and overall Freud’s theory. There must be something poetic or beautiful within the layers of uncomfortable incestuous relationships for these many writers to focus on it. Even though I started reading the book without any ideas in mind, the first paragraph almost gave it out that it was a book filled with Freudian ideologies. In fact, this was my first note in the online book.

Agostino by Alberto Moravia was by far the easiest read so far. And perhaps because it was an easy read, I enjoyed it a lot. Imagining the warm Italian summer in the beach tinted with a nostalgic yellow, I played the movie inside my mind while reading it. Among the themes portrayed in the novel, including the Oedipus complex, class differences, sexuality, adolescence, and even racism, I found myself more interested with the loss of innocence happening throughout. From a sheltered middle class life with his loving mother, to experiencing different situations like the brutality of the boys, the nauseating boat trip with the disgusting man with six fingers (I don’t know why I had to point that out, but it was an interesting concept!), and most significantly, the brothel, shaped his growth like none other. I wonder what would happen if he didn’t follow Berto that day, if he wasn’t exposed to the lives of the gang of boys. Would it just be another summer on the beach? Would his image of his mother stay the same or change from the relationship between her and the young man? We can already see the shift from seeing her mother as some sort of a godly creature to disgusting with ‘acrid, violent, animal warmth’ right after she spends more time with the man.

It is intriguing to read about adolescence in men, about the formation or ‘gang’ of boys and their vicious ways and the sensual yet uncomfortable relationship with his mom, inside his mind, as a woman who had the complete opposite experience growing up. All the literature I’m reading makes me question the thoughts men (the writers) have sometimes. One part of the boy’s innocence that stood out to me was his thoughts on prostitutes and sex work in general – the way he questions the idea of it with such innocence felt bittersweet to me, because we all know that as he ages, his mindset will be molded to be just like the others, changing from empathy to the workers to seeing them as objects, from going to the brothels out of curiosity to out of lust.

“The idea of the money he would pay in exchange for that shameful, forbidden sweetness seemed strange and cruel, like an insult, which might be pleasurable to the person who delivers it but is painful to the one who receives it.”

I mean, I think we can see it happening when he starts calling his mother ‘nothing more than a woman’, confusing with the idea of a maternal figure and a woman capable of desire and lust. It doesn’t help that his mother is such an attractive, single woman, carefree with her choice of clothing like see-through negligees. The way he describes his mother’s seemingly normal activities like taking her earrings off into slow, sensual activities makes it even more uncomfortable to read. The innocent love for his mother turned into a confusing mess of repulsion and attraction, which evidently shows his loss of childlike purity.

Let me open up the questions I had to you. My question is:

What do you think would’ve happened if he didn’t encounter the boys? Would there be another event like this, something that makes him lose his innocence nonetheless?

Moreover, did you have any experiences that was a start to your shell of innocence breaking apart during your childhood? It doesn’t have to be sexual. Mine was when my older cousin would force me to watch horror videos with jumpscares on Youtube, not to add to the unrestricted internet access I had. I turned out great!