This week’s reading “The Shrouded Woman” by Maria Luisa Bombal was one that I found quite captivating and enjoyable.
One of the themes in this reading that I found most captivating was the theme of regret, and how regret and death interact with the souls of dying people. Bombal described Ana-Maria’s grievances with the people in her life in a way that made me feel a great deal of sadness, but also a bitter sweet feeling of closure at the end of reach chapter when the worries of the loose ends of her life were some what resolved. For me reading, I took away a feeling of great regret and resentment from Ana-Maria’s recount of her life. Whether it be from the love that could never be in Ricardo, or the betrayal she felt from her only friend Sofia, Ana-Maria’s life is one characterized by a great deal of unhappiness. Reading about these failed relationships and how Ana-Maria died before she could make amends with these people in the realm of the living filled me with a sense of pity and sadness for the regrets and pent up feelings that Ana-Maria held, but I found a bitter sweetness in how Ana-Maria came to let go by the end of the book and was able to rest peacefully. The way that Bombal describes the process of letting go and resting eternally gave me a sort of comfort. As someone who knows many people who have dreams and aspirations that they had to forgo in this life and someone worries that I will one day die with unfinished business, this description of death put me at ease.
Another thing related to death that I found interesting in this book was how death itself was described at the end of the book. I thought that Bombal’s use of imagery made me feel as though I understood what death could feel like. Ana-Maria’s final departure from the world made me feel oddly warm in the end.
The last thing that I noticed and found sad in this book was how love and marriage was presented in this book. Ana-Maria never seemed to be able to find happiness in love in the book. I found it very sad that because she could not be with the man she truly loved, she settled into a marriage with a man she did not love whole heartedly, and that by the time that she realized the value of her marriage, the relationship was too far gone to salvage. I often find myself worried that I will land myself into a loveless marriage and lay awake at night in fear of the volatility of my own feelings, so reading about something that hits so close to the home of my fears and anxieties was very interesting and frightening.
To conclude, I really enjoyed this book. it made me think about death in a way that I had not thought about before. I found Bombal’s description of it to be very beautiful, and I found her presentation of love and marriage to be very depressing 🙂
My Question: Do you believe in souls?
“Bitter sweetness” is also the taste that the novel leaves me with after having finished reading it, with a mixture of warmth and strangeness at the same time. In this sense, is there any other novel – or movie – that has left you with the same taste? It doesn’t seem like a very common combination to me.
I also really loved this book and your description is so spot on. The way Bombal was able to effectively communicate closure is beautiful. To answer your question, I think I do believe in souls. I like the idea of something getting left behind of a person and the possibility of rebirth.
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for your post! I think your analysis was spot on and I really enjoyed seeing your perspective. To answer your question, I do believe in souls. When thinking about everyone we love, our loved ones who have passed, and eventually ourselves, I want to believe that there is something more for us than this materialistic world.
To answer your question, I do believe in ‘soul’ in terms of the perception of people who are still living. Although they are dead physically, we are still remembering them, and I think they are the “soul” we believe in. In the book , people come to her bed, and mourning her death is evidence of a soul in their hearts in any form.