Author Archives: julienne aguinaldo

Conclusion

This course was definitely something different for me. During the winter break, or even honestly in my entire academic life, I never saw myself signing up for a class that was all about reading as 1) I am a slow reader, and 2) i think I’ve mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts that I am a fan of reading just romance type of stuff. However, I’m happy I took the leap and conquered that fear as I’ve had more enjoyable moments in this course than in a lot of other courses I’ve taken.

To answer the question from the lecture, one of the most common patterns I’ve seen throughout this course is probably struggle. It can manifest in a personal or individual struggle (as seen in Papi, struggling to know her own father), a collective struggle (such as in I, Rigoberta Menchu), a generational struggle (in 100 Years of Solitude), or even a lack of struggle (in Mama Blanca’s Memoirs, for she lived a very comfortable life). I would even go so far as to include of the struggle to read a text, such as what I’ve experienced while reading Labyrinths. We can also see that each book that we read and each author that wrote it was in their own little world, their own magic circle as we called it in the beginning of the course, where their own rules apply.

I also loved the structure of the course – the contract grading, writing blog posts and commenting on them, and talking about the material with different people each week. On top of that, I’m glad that I branched out of my comfort zone and learned a lot of new things, and be introduced to a genre I probably would have never entered. I don’t think I was ever anxious in entering this class (aside from the first day), as I know it will always be a great time. I hope there would be more classes structured this way, as I think it would be a nice change in “scenery” (for the lack of a better term) for students. I also really appreciate not having a fixed group in class to chat with during discussion days as I loved hearing each person’s perspective and thoughts about the topics we tackle.

For my last and final question, if you were to help plan this course, is there a book that you would remove from the roster, or would you change the order that it was in?

Thank you for the fruitful term and best of luck to everyone!

Papi

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I was excited throughout reading this book that it was probably one of the easier and lighter reads of the semester, and given that this is the last book I’ll be reading, that I guess I can say I’m ending it on a good note.

Other than the title itself (and maybe the summary, but I didn’t read it), a couple of pages into the book, I can tell that this was written by a young, innocent, naive girl. She would keep rambling on and repeating things in different sentences, kind of how kids would do to follow their train of thought. It also shows the “i am better than you” mentality that kids would tend to have, as she brags about how her father is the best, has a different car for each time of the day, and a million different Polo-branded shirts to wear, and how she always has the best toys and dresses.

I think all the extravagance in this story definitely tries to mask the lack of emotion and effort papi has towards his daughter, that he would rather shower her with these fancy things in crazy amounts, and show the things she can brag about to her peers. It is definitely quite sad that this is how he would try to soothe her longingness to be with her father. I think this also shows the purity of a child, that no matter how many girlfriends papi has, a different one signing her cards each year or birthing her new sibling, she still doesn’t really take it against papi and pushes it to the side and just thinks of him with all love and admiration at how awesome he is, at least at first.

I admire the writing style of Indiana, and how she so seamlessly put this piece together. She effortlessly made it seem that it was a child writing, in all enthusiasm, without giving any doubt. This also hit close to home due to an fairly less active relationship with my own father, which got me thinking if it would be written the same way, with the same type of enthusiasm, or with the same things to brag about had it been about her and her mother being away.

My question for this week would be: Say you were the narrator of this book, and you were given a chance to rewrite it 20 or 30 years down, would you change anything about it?

I, Rigoberta Menchu

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After enduring some pretty difficult reads for the last couple of weeks (sorry Jon), reading this book by Rigoberta Menchu was like a breath of fresh air I was waiting to taste. It’s such an eye-opening read that I almost couldn’t put it down once I started. Her story hits a bit of familiarity, not personally, but because this is also a struggle that a lot of Filipino people experience, so reading it made me feel a bit closer to home.

To start off with Burgos-Debray’s note in the beginning, she stated that she stayed true to Menchu’s words as much as possible and refrained from editing despite some errors she may have found. One part of it that struck me the most was how Rigoberta mentioned that she learned Spanish, the language of her people’s oppressors, to be able to use it against them. We see how she is abused and maltreated, especially when she was working as a maid, and had a hard time negotiating her rights because she couldn’t speak their language. It was also evident when her dad and her people were tricked into signing agreements that they couldn’t even understand because of the barrier in language and literacy.

I appreciate that she walked us through the customs, traditions, and beliefs that the Quiché community held and practices, as I think it gave more substance to the story as a whole. I felt like if we just jumped straight from her being young to the oppression they experienced, it would not have left the same impact, or to me at least.

Her story is so moving and it made me think that it’s really sad how people like her and their community just want to live a simple and quiet life, providing for their families in multiple ways such as farming and fishing, working fairly and as hard as they can, yet they are being taken advantage of and end up not having enough food to eat at the end of the day.

However, I was surprised by the revelation in the lecture stating that some of her stories such as the passing of her brother and her own level of education might not have been all true. I wonder now, if this was indeed the case, if she did it out of trying to conceal and keep hidden the ‘secrets’ that she would keep teasing everyone about.

Some blog posts mention Mama Blanca’s Memoirs when trying to digest this week’s blog post. Are there similarities and/or differences that you noticed, and is there one you prefer over theother?

One Hundred More Years of Solitude

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Hi everyone! Hope this week is starting off well with warmer weather and more sunshine! 🙂

To start off my blog, I can say that the second half of the book was fairly interesting, maybe more interesting than the first, I would argue. A lot has definitely unfolded, a lot has changed, and has come and gone, but the idea of solitude and loneliness is still tied to the town of Macondo and its inhabitants. The magic that the town once possessed has vanished into thin air, bringing in despair, aggression, and grief in return.

The events happening in the book still seemed repetitive and cyclical to me, just varying in gravity and magnitude. Things start to get more chaotic with the war and having more people enter the once-secluded town. Last Thursday, we were talking about technology and how it manifests in this book, and while reading the second half, I was thinking of how war and the strikes of the workers are also forms of technology if defined as something that is being channeled energy into, and in this case, I see it as the workers exerting energy into what they think is just, and people in power are exerting energy into showing more power and ending them all with guns just because they can. This situation is unfortunately still evident in different places around the world, so I don’t know if I would already consider it history myself.

And then afterward, more chaos unfolds between the members of the family and of the town of Macondo. The rest of the story revolves around love, incest, and then the characters dying off one by one.

I highly agree with what Professor Jon said that this book is about repetition, and that no matter how much you want to escape the past, it will still haunt you. I know that in the beginning, Ursula was afraid to marry Jose Arcadio Buendia and bear a child with a pig’s tail due to practicing incest, and now it has happened, bringing the story to a close.

Sooner than later, Macondo is erased from existence by a hurricane, as if it had never existed.

My question, or probably just a personal thought, is that the presence of the rocking chair seems to be there all throughout the book. I relate it to solitude and loneliness since it’s usually a symbol of being old, or sitting down and having a though or two, and no two people can be on it at the same time (unless maybe it’s someone holding an infant). Do you think there was any symbolism or relation of it to the story?

One Hundred Years of Solitude

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This book, similar to some of my peers in this class, has gotten me confused and anxious at first. Having family members of the same names definitely did not help, but the family tree made available in the early pages of the book was a bit of a helpful guide to navigate my way through. One Hundred Years of Solitude has been regarded to be one of the best reads of all time, so it got me really excited to know why it was given such a title, and let myself take on that experience.

As mentioned when Professor Jon was hinting at it in previous meetings, this book plays along the theme of magic realism. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a book with such a theme, not that I read a lot anyway, but it was definitely a journey to remember. I think it was hard to grasp in my head at first, given that whatever was mentioned in the book wasn’t necessarily something that I thought to experience or an opposite experience to what I had.

It was definitely an interesting plot, and I think Macondo was the entire family’s own magic circle, where the seclusion and exclusivity allowed them to play, or rather live, by the rules and circumstances set by Jose Arcadio Buendia, all while being enveloped into this cycle of mysterious and unexplainable events. Although it ended up being that he was just cooped up in a room, creating experiments on end.

Given its title, highlighting that it was a century of solitude, I kind of imagined solitude would be a state of peace in isolation, not necessarily loneliness but nothing about chaos and noise as well, which is what this story, or the first half of the story depicts. Events such as tying a family member to a tree until their death, or having gypsies pay a visit from time to time to indulge the family into new discoveries and leaving them again. Their community also grew quite large over a span of time so it made question if all of that still fell into their definition of solitude. Maybe Ursula also felt alone in trying to keep her family together, but that could also be her own definition of solitude.

To answer the question posed in the lecture video, I did find myself lost in the process of reading this text, however it was more notable to be lost in the story and the journey of the play in this book than anything else.

My question for this week is: Do you think it would have been easier had the family members have different names, or do you think this contributes to the theme of magic realism?

Labyrinths

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This week’s reading of Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges was not the most pleasant experience for me. Out of all the pieces of literature we have read so far, this has got to be the least favorite. I would say 80% of the time, I honestly did not know what Borges was necessarily talking about. In my head, his stories are little labyrinths themselves, trying to grasp the stories and messages he was trying to relay was a puzzle I had a hard time solving already. I think the first story of ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ set me off in the wrong foot because I genuinely struggled with that a lot, if not the most. My mind was wandering while reading this specific story due to the fact that I just couldn’t grasp the thought of it. Some parts were cool here and there, but not entirely as the other stories were.

However, I do appreciate how he writes. He explains the scenes nicely, and what a brain he has to come up with stories such as the ones in this book! Though sometimes I feel like he was too intelligent of a man for me to be reading his work. I admired how like Cartucho, his stories weren’t continuous to page 1 to whatever. It was a collection of different stories, so I didn’t feel much pressure trying to remember what happened in page 29 and thinking if it would be anything significant to the story being told in page 98. His stories were very mysterious to me, it gave me science-fiction vibes at one point and having an existential crisis in some others.

I did enjoy reading some stories such as ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’. This story was intriguing to me, especially with the unexpected ending it entailed. For some reason, while reading it, it made me think of Dr. Strange, maybe because of his ability to control and weave through time. ‘The Lottery in Babylon’ was also another story that I appreciated. It kind of resonated with me that some people just get to be lucky in life, and some are left to be losers for the rest of theirs.

The question I leave with you all today is, was there a particular story in this collection that caught your eye? If so, what about it was so intriguing to you? Otherwise, why don’t you think none of these resonated with you?

Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair

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In my head, poems are pieces of writing that rhyme, otherwise, it won’t be considered poetry at all. I know this piece of writing can take many different forms, such as a haiku given its 5-7-5 pattern, or now during the more modern world of poetry is spoken poetry. I don’t necessarily enjoy reading poetry, I think I stopped digesting it when I left my childhood. However, upon reading Neruda’s work, it made me feel some type of way, emotions that I feel like only poems and can unravel, and his work is those combined.

I admire the way he writes — you can definitely feel his passion and emotion toward this woman he is writing for. He also mentions of a lot of nature, comparing and contrasting it to the physique of the woman, and whatever he is feeling deep inside. As in “White Bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey, and your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke” (10), and “You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid” (15). In my eyes, this reminds me that loving is part of nature and it is something that everyone will feel throughout their life. It also reflects the intensity of his passions which is why he can compare the body of a woman to hills, and her breasts to goblets.

Pardon me as I cannot help but compare this piece to Mama Blanca’s Memoirs, given that this work of Neruda uses a lot of words as well, descriptive words such as what Teresa de La Parra used. I think the form in which the writing is done ultimately makes a difference as I did not feel overwhelmed at all while reading this, versus when I was reading Mama Blanca’s Memoirs thinking that words two to eight were definitely not necessary in describing how big their plantation was.

This book reminds us, with how it ends, that love doesn’t always come with a happy ending. He takes us with him in his mourning in losing his love. I wonder, if this piece was written or produced in a different form, maybe a movie, a short story, or a play, if it would evoke the same intensity of emotions felt in consuming this.

My question for this blog post is, would you consider a song a poem? Why or why not?

Cartucho

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This is not my first time reading this piece and I am still in awe the second time around. First, the way Campobello is encapsulating these narratives (assuming they are longer than presented) and summarizing it into somewhere between 1-2 pages is something I haven’t really encountered aside from this work of hers. I guess it would also make sense to say that given that it is her narrating from her youth, keeping it short and sweet would be coherent enough for a child to read and understand fairly quickly. Despite her youth being in a chaotic warfare environment, she never seemed to reveal harm, or sadness, or being afraid of her surroundings as well.

Campobello also tells so much in such short essays – to how the characters look like, what their hobbies were, how they would act if someone did them wrong, to how they died. In this book of hers, the way she would narrate the death of a character seemed so mundane and normalized, like she knew it was coming already. Given that war was happening around her, she probably got used to it as well. While that was happening around her, she still portrayed the innocence of a child.

Thinking of this book as a book about war, fighting, and revolting is a fact, however, Campobello writes about it so lightly that it almost feels like the opposite. I would say, basing on my own preference, that I highly enjoyed this more than Mama Blanca’s Memoirs as it felt more raw, more real, and more engaging. Though they both had aspects of childhood and conflict sprinkled throughout, it was both used in very different ways. If I had a diary growing up, it would definitely not amount to this one.

While I have read quite a handful of stories and narratives about the revolution, I’ve never encountered any that portrayed war in this light. Others are usually specific, very timebound. In 1836, Team A defeated Team in the Battle of the Spaceships, but Campobello took us on a journey through a different lens.

My question for this week would be: As Jon mentioned in his lecture, there is a discrepancy in Campobello’s reported date of birth, some being a decade or so apart (which puts quite a big gap). Do you think it would have mattered if she wrote it when she was younger or older given how her memory would be affected by her age as well?

Mama Blanca’s Memoirs

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I would say that this piece by Teresa De la Parra is a nice way to start off the course for a couple of reasons. First, it is a piece that shows varying waves of emotions, from the expression of Mama Blanca all seemingly lovable and jolly, to the stressful and potentially frustrating situation Blanca Nieves faces at home with her mother being unaccepting of her hair, and fighting with Violeta. This took me on a rollercoaster ride not being able to predict what would happen next.

Another thing is how the main theme of it is about family. When I think of Latin American literature, heavily influenced by another Spanish class (Span 280) I took a couple years ago, I think of bloodshed, war, separation, and death. Having this read was a breath of fresh air from all of that. I mentioned in my previous blog post that my Filipino culture has a lot in common with the Latin American culture due to the colonization, and having close family ties is definitely one of them.

In the beginning, I found the read to be overwhelming as it used a lot of words, and more highfalutin words at that, to describe such a simple thing. It reminded me of what one of our classmates mentioned of how literature can be somehow pretentious and unnecessarily complex. And in true fashion of how my group did in the first day activity, I was overwhelmed and confused by it. However, I guess we could say that it grew on me as I thoroughly enjoyed being able to imagine the events that were happening as the scenery it was paired with.

Lastly, it was also nice to note how despite this book being published almost 100 years ago (though please correct me if I am wrong), it was already evident how a person, in this case Violeta, was deep inside a man who is the supposed son of her father. Juan Manuel the Desired is who she would name Violeta instead. Although this understanding of gender and sexuality is something quite shallow compared to what we are having now, it is still nice to see that it was already present during that time.

All in all, I enjoyed the story and it took me to places I only could have imagined. It was nice and light, however I’m looking forward to seeing how the themes progress and differ throughout the course.

For my question for this blog post: What is your favorite childhood memory that you think still has a great impact on you to this day?

Week 1 Blog Post

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Hi everyone!

My name is Julienne and I’m a 3rd year Psychology major. I was born and raised in the Philippines, and moved here in 2019. I have been working since, and got back into university in 2021. I already did my undergrad back home, majoring in Organizational Communication. My hobbies include watching movies, trying out new food spots, discovering new music, and having time alone. Some of my interests lie in language, communication, gender, inequalities, and the environment.

Like others, I am registered in this program as I am hoping to fulfill my literature requirement, and also because I took Spanish 280 a couple semesters back and really enjoyed it. I’m also very interested in the structure of the course, that we’re able to choose our own path, and having full transparency on how you can reach your intended grade is something that caught my eye as well. Though I’m not that big of a fan of reading books similar to what we tackle in this course, I’m excited to embark on this journey.

I ‘d ike to think that my culture has quite some similarities to Latin America’s, given that we were colonized by Spaniards for more than 3 centuries. Our struggles, conflicts, and fight for freedom are some of the things I recognize to be similar. Our language is also heavily influenced by the Spanish language, and we often use similar words to describe the same things.

Based on our first lecture and upon reading, I believe our readings will be pretty rigorous, fast-paced, and will produce meaningful discussions amongst our peers. Having already read Cartucho by Nellie Campobello, I have a feeling that our text for the course will reveal and expose what was happening during the times that it was written, without having to use any fancy words to cover or sugarcoat these events.

For me, the play in literature involves trying to decode a puzzle, like how you would in a mystery game. Having to read between the lines of what you are trying to figure out from a text – what the theme is, what the conflict and resolution would be, what the villain is trying to do, etc. It can also be in a sense, having the opportunity to start all over again if you “fail” at trying to get at your destined goal, like how a game would just restart and it’s not an ultimate end that you can’t change. Lastly, I find that literature can be enjoyed alone, or with good company such as a friend, or a margarita instead.

The question I’d like to leave everyone is: Is there any impact literature has had in your life that you think wouldn’t have happened otherwise?