Tag Archives: Death

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?

“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?

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?