Author Archives: jonathan jang

What a Wonderful World – Conclusion on RMST 202 by Jonathan Jang

Can you believe it guys? The end of the school year! Just a week away! The end of the school year is in a week! Wahoo! I am so happy about this information!! The end of the school year! Just a week away, oh wow! Can you believe it? The end of the school year just in a week! It got here so fast!

Okok shit post aside I really did enjoy this course. Although it pushed the boundaries of how fast I could read and summarize books, and how fast I could write a blog post and make two responses to others before the deadline, I think that it was a refreshing break from the content of my other more boring classes. Before writing this blog I took a minute to look back at my week one introduction post and reflect on how the year had went and I think that I am proud of myself for managing to keep up.

Some things that I really enjoyed about this course was the flexibility in my expression of my ideas and the flexibility in the workload. I think that being able to choose how much I wanted to work and having peace of mind in the grade I would be getting for that work was a huge up for this class. But most importantly, I think that the freedom in how I can express what I learned made this course a lot more enjoyable. Usually when I write up my responses for other classes whether it be a literature course or a history or poli sci reading response, I feel like I’m having my soul sucked out of my body because of the rigidity of the assignments that I am doing and the fact that the only person who will be reading my work is the TA who I submit to. In this however, I found myself pretty excited to write my blog post because I could waffle about pretty much whatever aspect of the book that I wanted, and I could do it in a way that was entertaining to me whether that be by trying to make my classmates laugh thru my writing or actually deep diving into a theme in the book that really struck a chord in me. All in all, flexibility was a big theme in this course that had me excited to participate every week.

The second, and I think most important, part of the course that I enjoyed a lot was learning about culture through the literature that I was reading. I found that I could hear a very distinct voice from all of the authors that we read that was inspired by their heritage. I thought that the biggest take-away from Romance Studies as a discipline, was learning things about cultures within the Romance Language Umbrella. After reading the works of these diverse authors, creepy mom complexes and bad boyfriends and all, I couldn’t help but think to my myself: “What a Wonderful World”

BTW: My favourite book was The Hour of the Star

My question for the class: What was your favourite book, and what was your biggest take-away from the course?

Kinda Like the Gag Where There’s a Box Inside of a Box, Inside of a Bigger Box, Except There’s 5 Boxes in the Aforementioned Big Box, and Those Boxes are Broken Into Smaller Pieces of Box, and Scattered Haphazardly Around the Big Box so That It’s Rlly Hard For Your to Figure Out Which Box Pieces Fit Together – Faces In the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli

Confusing is a word I would use to describe this book.

Faces In the Crowd was a pretty experimental story and perspective into storytelling and what is true or not. Even though I can see the appeal in this kind of meta book in a book where you never really know what the author is actually saying and it all makes sense in the end of the book, I personally do not enjoy it and would rather someone tell me a story from start to finish like I am a five year old at library story time.

The one thing that I thought was cool about the fragmented story, however, was how it reflected the main character’s life responsibilities. I read online on a book review that the fragmented storytelling style was meant to represent the main character not being able to consistently write her novel due to her familial responsibilities and having to put down the book and pick it back up again sporadically. There is a quote where the main character mentions her inability to further pursue her work as a writer because of her pregnancy, but I cannot remember where it is off the top of my head, and I am running short on time. I think that this feeling of not being able to fully realize your dreams is a feeling that is very real to me in the sense that it happens so often. My mother often tells me about the things that she had to give up on in order to have a family such as moving to New York or pursuing a career in academia. I find that this is something that scares me a lot about the future and I think that this book touched on that in a very unique way.

When I listened to the lecture, a lot of very abstract phrases were thrown around about the things that this book was trying to accomplish, but the one phrase that stuck out to me and kinda confused me was something along the lines of “to continue a career in writing is to continue a career in folding time” (this is a paraphrase pls don’t report me to the academic dishonesty police). I understand that this makes sense in the context of the book, but I personally think that this is confusing as heck and that it’s taking the act of writing words on a page, and trying to make it sound like you’re using alchemy to turn bread into wine. It might be a hot take, but I do not think that the act of writing novels should be so deep that we transcend the human understanding of truth and time. Sometimes I just wanna read a book that makes sense the first time through and can instantly enjoy and not have to ponder and philosophize about.

My question for the class: Do you enjoy consuming rlly tough to understand media or do you like to read more straight forward types of media?

Jonathan

Do You Really Want to Live Forever? – Death With Interruptions Jose Saramago

Forever Young by Alphaville is a song that comes mind when I think about the subject of this book. The line “Do you really want to live forever young?” kinda sums up the topic that this book explores. Is eternal life really all that? Jose Saramago explores this thought exercise in Death with Interruptions in a way that I have not really seen before. In lecture Professor Beasley-Murray dove into some very interesting things about politics and death that set off a neuron activation in my mind as a political science major that I wanted to talk about in this blog post. Also the Pixar movie Coco is one that I thought of in lecture that I will bring up now. (and also side note young is a relative term here… I know the people who aren’t dying in this book are not young, but if everyone lives til they’re like 100000 then being 97 sounds like you’re a spring chicken.)

Politics is a social construct that is very interesting to me. I think, as a poli sci major, that studying how different people think the world ought to be run based off of their lived experiences is really funny to me because most often than not they are wrong. In this book, there is an interesting intersection between the construct of politics and the very real phenomenon of death. Since many political systems are built around death (like churches and governments), what would happen when we just pulled the rug on the thing that we have built our systems around? One of the questions in the lecture was what does the novel tell us about the role of death in politics and I think that death is inherently necessary to politics. In order to progress the old systems and values that past generations hold need to pass on (die) in order for new values to come in. In this book, we see that because the old people are not dying, new people cannot exist and I think that this speaks to the statement I made above.

The next thing that I thought was funny was also from the lecture, and also about the movie Coco. In Coco, the big theme is memories and how the dead never really die as long as we remember them. In the lecture, Professor Beasley-Murray brings up the idea that art can evade death thru memory and performance. I propose that people can evade death thru memory like in Coco. Like the song from Coco “Remember Me” insinuates, as long as we remember our loved ones, then they never really are apart from us, whether in, distance or in death.

My Question for the Class: What do you guys think the role of memory is in the life after death of people?

This Book Burned My Brain Out – “Money To Burn” Ricardo Piglia

This book was less short and nice this week 🙁

“Money to Burn” was a bit of a hard read for me as I usually don’t enjoy reading action books. I am a bit stupid in the sense that I like seeing action type stories in video form (such as movies) more… But my personal preferences aside, I did find the book a little hard to follow as I found it flip flopped between exposition about the characters’ backstories, sex scenes, and real time events quite frequently and abruptly. One moment I would be reading about types of guns that the cast were using, or their elaborate plans to evade the police, and then the next moment I would be reading an incredibly in detail sex scene. Maybe I was not paying enough attention, but this kind of threw me for a loop.

I wanted to speak on the question in the lecture that Professor Beasley mentioned about the truthfulness of the book. I found it very interesting to find out that this book was inspired by a true story. I say “inspired” and not “is a true story”, because I think that, unlike what The Narrator says at the end of the story, Piglia added some things that made it too fictitious for me to think that it is as completely faithful to the facts as he says his story is. For me, I think that the things that Piglia added to the story enhanced it, but ultimately changed it from a documentary type book about a bank robbery and resulting gang war, into the crime fiction thriller that it is.

Another thing that I wanted to mention was the incredible details of the sex scenes and sexual parts of the book. To me, some of them kinda came out of nowhere and were a bit distracting. When I was reading it kinda seemed like anytime a woman was mentioned they would have to make a comment about how ran through she was or how attractive her “features” were. I am a bit confused at why such detail was included in these kind of one-off moments in the book. Maybe I am too goldfish brained to comprehend the genius of Ricardo Piglia.

All in all, I think that I did not enjoy this book as much as I did other books that we have read. I found it a little hard to follow, but I can see the appeal to the general audience.

My question: How much do you all think that embellishment of stories effects the truthfulness of the story being told. How much is too much and is there sweet spot?

Someone Needs to Put this Girl In Horny Jail – “The Lover” by Margurite Duras

I know I said that “Time of the Doves” was one of the books of all time, but this book is a strong contender for the book of all time. “The Lover” by Margurite Duras was an interesting book to say the least. This book’s subject matter was heavily sexual, which would be eyebrow raising in a normal setting, but completely weird considering that this book is about a 15 year old. I found the very in depth descriptions of her love and love-making to her older lover a unsettling to read as much of the description was about how young and undeveloped and innocent she was, and furthermore, Duras makes sure you know how taboo and messed up the situation is by referring to the protagonist as a child many times…

The first of the themes in this book that I wanted to talk about was, unsurprisingly, love. I thought that this book’s description of love was a lot more depressing in a guttural sense than the rest of the books. While the other books’ depressing was more of an infuriating feeling that makes you want to punch a hole in your wall out of frustration at the relationship, “The Lover” creates a feeling that is akin to chain smoking in the pouring rain after losing your job. Duras makes it very clear that The Protagonist has no feelings of love or is at least trying to repress those feelings while The Lover is deeply infatuated with her. this brought up a very interesting point of the two-sided predatory nature of their relationship. On one hand we have The Lover, who is being predatory in the literal sense as he is literally having sex with a child, and on the other hand we have The Protagonist who is using The Lover for sex and for money. I think that the kind of role reversal here was very perplexing.

One of the other themes that i found interesting was race and its impact on the story. The Protagonist’s whiteness is brought up many times and is a driving force behind many of her actions throughout the story. I found that she had a lot of white privilege, but also encountered a lot of prejudice for it. For example her lover’s father looked down on her for being white, but also she got preferential treatment from her boarding school because she was white. The Lover’s race is also an integral part of his character. The fact that he is Chinese is seen as a detriment to his character by The Protagonist’s family and the protagonist. Through my reading, it seemed as if all his other negative traits like his sickliness all stemmed form him being Chinese which irked me a bit. I also found that the Native Vietnamese population also were kind of looked down upon as lesser than the whites throughout the book which makes me question the ideology of Duras a bit.

All in all, this was a weird book. The sexual nature of it made it a uncomfortable read to say the least, and the age of the characters made it even worse. I found it difficult to find a real underlying meaning behind all the underage sex, but maybe I am too goldfish brained to comprehend the genius that is Margurite Duras.

My Question: Do any of you find that your race effects you ability to find love?

Existing vs. Living? A Take on Poverty and Storytelling from “The Hour of the Star”

What a nice and short book this week :))

“The Hour of The Star” by Clairice Lispector was very interesting for me to read. Although at times I did not understand the experimental writing style of the book, it very quickly became the highlight of this reading for me. It felt a lot like the the Narrator was having a conversation with me and spit-balling his thoughts at me rather than him telling a story. I found this aspect of the book very refreshing and interesting.

One of the things that stood out most to me in the book were the characters. More specifically, the idea of what a character is and how they relate to the author and the reader. This book is written in the perspective of and author writing about a girl, so in a way we have two “layers” of story in the book. I thought that the narrator was the most interesting part of the book and found his dialogues and thoughts about his writing very entertaining to read. From my perspective, he saw the character he was writing as a person who already has a story that has been completed. Rather creating events for the character or creating personality of the character, he was doing something more akin to introducing us to his character and telling us about the life that this person lives. I think that this style of writing comes from the idea that people like Macabea, who live in mundane poverty in Brazil, already exist in The World and rather than creating a character to represent them, The Narrator is merely informing us about the reality that they are living in

Another theme that stuck out to me was poverty. Poverty in this book was described in a way that was very different from the popular discourse in media. When I read things about poverty or hear music that talks about the experience of poverty, they always revolve around “THE GRIND” or the work that needs to be done to get themselves out and live among the bourgeoise class of society. Lispector’s description of poverty is a lot more visceral in my opinion. Rather than having large ambitions break out from the chains of poverty, like her boyfriend Olimpico, Macabea has learned to exist in poverty and has developed an almost eerie indifference to it and it’s effects on her life.

It was interesting to me that the narrator states that she lives for the first time right before she is about to die, which suggests to me that she was not living before, but simply existing. This contrast between living and existing is something that comes to my mind very often as I often find myself falling into the routine of simply existing rather than living and enjoying the life I have. I think that this idea of existing is a commentary from Lispector on how poverty effects people and the reality that people in poverty in Brazil live in. I think that Lispector is shedding light on the fact that the reality for most people in poverty is that they must simply exist until death comes to take them and that they must endure this mundanity because there’s a good chance that nothing else is waiting for them.

This book is a commentary about how one should go about commenting on and telling these delicate stories and how to do justice to the people who live these sad realities.

My question: Do you find that you disassociate from your day to day life often, and what things remind you to live rather than exist?

“Time of the Doves”: One of the Books of All Time

“Time of the Doves” is an oddly peaceful and happy sounding name for this book. From the title, I would have thought this book was about a happy wedding or about a conflict coming to an end where everyone holds hands and sings Kumbaya. This novel, was quite the opposite. I found this novel quite depressing to read as it tugged at heart strings that I did not knew existed until now. Even though I have not experienced, and cannot begin to even imagine experiencing what Rodoreda describes in this book, I still felt that her artistry in her writing made it very easy for me to fall into the story she was telling.

One of the things that I wanted to mention first and foremost was that I found that all the female writers that we have read so far have been really good at making me feel deep emotions. Both Bombal and Rodoreda write about very personal experiences in a way that make me sympathize with the protagonists in a way that I did not think that I could. I also found that these authors both wrote about love and marriage in a way that was very dreadful. In both their novels love and romance seemed to be something that was fleeting in the protagonists’ relationships, and it was interesting to see these similarities in their writing.

Speaking on the content of the book, Rodoreda’s recount of Natalia’s married life was one that made me feel especially depressed. I feel like I talk about love a lot in these blogs posts, but I am going to once again speak to this book’s description of it. As someone who is scared by the idea of marriage and feelings, this book’s description of what married life is like does not make the idea of marriage any more better. To me, Rodoreda’s description of Natalia’s marriage to Quimet makes me think that domestic life will suck the joy out of a relationship; although, I believe that this joy drain that I see in the novel largely stems from how much of a POS Quimet is. Quimet gives Natalia the nickname “Colometa” which has an interesting symbolism to me. Colometa means dove which is usually a symbol of peace and freedom, but much like the doves that Quimet keeps and breeds, Natalia is caged. Unlike the doves however, she is caged by her marriage to him rather than the physical barrier that keeps the doves from the world. After reading these passages about their marriage, I fear that one day I will forget to cherish my significant other and end up plunging her into a pit of despair and unhappiness.

One of the biggest moral dilemmas in this book comes from Natalia’s decision to kill herself and her children. I think that there is a interesting parallel between her and the doves here. Natalia chooses to kill the doves because it is too hard to care for them. For the greater good of the well-being of the house, she would kill the doves so that they no longer cause her to suffer and suffer because of Natalia’s hate for them. With Natalia’s kids, she must face the decision to avert immense suffering and hardship for her and her kids by killing them, or to continue living despite the hardships the face. I think that it is interesting to see that she was capable of making the decision to take a life with the doves and also interesting to see how she decided not to end her and her kid’s lives.

All in all this book was moving. I think that my life was not flipped upside down after reading it, but it none the less left an impact hence the title of this blog. It was definitely one of the books of all time.

QUESTION: If there was a train heading down a track with 5 people on it, would you direct the train to a track with one person on it and kill that one person, or would you leave the track alone and let the 5 people die?

Deep Rivers: Jose Maria Arguedes’ Exploration of Identity and Colonization

I found that this week’s reading was a lot less engaging for me. Maybe it was a result of my busy workload, or the fact that I exclusively read this book before I went to bed, but all in all I found this book a lot harder to follow than the last few we have done. I did however find the themes about identity and colonialism very interesting and I also found how Arguedes linked music into this story’s narrative intriguing.

The fact that Ernesto had Native heritage was not something that I realized until after I had finished the book and was reading some analyses of the book. This revelation opens up a whole new perspective onto his character and the experiences that he goes through. This being said, a big theme in this book was how Ernesto’s Native heritage affected his life and his interactions with other non-native kids. Having grown up in North Vancouver my whole life, I cannot really relate to his experiences of being ostracized by his peers or feeling alienated from the majority of people, but it was an experience that i am glad to have read about in this book. I think that the idea of assimilating into white society is one that is familiar with many Native populations around the world and is one that is important to bring to light. The conclusion of the book ending in the Native’s victory over the Western system also provides interesting commentary to the conversation of assimilation and colonialism.

I also found the way that Arguedes used music in the book interesting although I did not fully grasp the meaning behind the songs that he put into the chapters of the book. To me, the music provided Ernesto with a link to his heritage in the Western world that he is dropped in. Through out the book the music that he sings or hears reminds him of his people and provides a refreshing insight onto the cultural meaning of music and how powerful it is as a binding for cultures.

In conclusion, I found that that I appreciated the style that this book was written in a lot. I think that Arguesdes’ writing style aided in showing how important Ernesto’s identity was to his character and the experiences that he goes through in this book. The commentary on identity and belonging that this book provided engaged me especially after doing last week’s reading “Agostino” which also dealt with the theme of belonging and identity as well.

A bit hard to follow, but an interesting read overall.

My Question: Do you guys find that music is an important mechanism for your memories and cultural identity?

Agostino: A Recount of the Experience of Growing Up With the Wrong Influences and Sexualizing Your Mother

Agostino was an interesting read to say the least… Although at first glance, the Freudian themes make it a bit of an uncomfortable read, once I turned my brain off to the perplexing sexualizations of Agostino’s mother I was able to appreciate the novella for what it was: an excruciatingly detailed recount of the experience of growing up and losing one’s innocence.

The first blaring theme that I think everyone reading noticed in this book was its themes about sexuality and more specifically, Agostino’s sexuality and how it related to his mother. Right out of the gate in the first few pages, Moravia showcases Agostino’s special relationship with his Mother. In my head, whether it is true or not, like to think that his affection for his Mother is spawned out of an innocent parental bond that he has formed as a result of his time spent with her without his father around. I think that the pride he feels in being around his Mother and kind of providing for her in a way shows his innocence and ignorance to how other people in the world like ourselves perceive his feelings. Although there are some descriptions of Agostino thinking of his mother in a sexual manner, at the beginning of the book he is sort of oblivious to what those feelings are and is just happy to be with his Mother and likes the attention that he gets from the other beach goers as a result of being around his Mother. I would like to think that at this point in the story, Agostino enjoys the affection of his Mother purely because she is his parent and kids tend to admire their parents. I think that this relationship is only turned sexual in Agostino’s mind when the other kids force him to see the sexual side of this relationship with his Mother, and it is sad to see him not be able to enjoy his Mother’s company after the fact.

In regard to the other boys that he meets in the story, I think that one of the biggest themes that is highlighted through them and his Mother is the need to belonging and needing a place to belong. From my observation, this story is one that is about Agostino’s search for a community. Once his Mother finds a lover, he is forced to find another place to go to feel at home which is where he finds the gang of boys. The gang of boys that he meets is abusive to say the least, and borderline psychopathic at most. It took me by surprise at how hostile all these boys were towards Agostino for absolutely no reason at all. If this was how mean boys were back in the day it’s no wonder why the fathers and grandfathers of today have so much repressed trauma… Social commentary aside, it is sad to see Agostino stumble through this transitional period with such predatory influences around him. Although I can agree that friend groups of boys are always a little hostile in some ways whether it be through teasing or rough housing, I found that the extremes of bullying Agostino goes through is terrible, and it is sad to witness him be unable to acknowledge that the boys he is hanging around are manipulating and abusing him, and be unable to break free.

All in all, I think that Agostino speaks to a very personal experience of growing up and being jaded by the world around you. The Freudian themes were distracting to say the least, but in the ladder half of the book are kind of necessary to highlight Agostino’s disgust at the gross nature of sexuality that The Boys have introduced him to. A very interesting read indeed!

My question for ya’ll: Have you ever found yourself wanting to belong so bad that you land yourself into an abusive or manipulative relationship?

-Jonathan

The Shrouded Woman: Maria Luisa Bombal’s Exploration of Life, Regret, and Existence Beyond Death

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?