After reflecting on each chapter, I either felt a sense of loss or weight. I believe the author wanted the reader to not have an easy time reading the novel.<\/p>\n
Ernesto observed his surroundings like a curious child. He saw things that one may perceive to be insignificant; however, in the end, they ended up being everything. For example, stones weren’t just stones, walls weren\u2019t just walls, and rivers weren\u2019t just rivers, but rather they were living things that have memories of their own. There were times where I almost didn\u2019t know how to feel about this. But then again, I thought to myself, what a good way to portray how children see the world as long as they lack the verbal abilities and power to describe what they see. The world is alive with energy and larger than life.<\/p>\n
I was surprised by the parts involving the pongo. Not in an entertaining way (that\u2019s not the best way to explain it), but because they dragged on for so long. The treatment of the pongo is humiliating; the even more unsettling part is that no one is disturbed by the treatment of the pongo, they appear to be all in agreement with how the pongo is being treated. Also, it made me think that Ernesto is observing this action, but does not have the words to describe what\u2019s going on. However, he knows something is wrong. This made sense to me because I know when something is wrong even if I can’t articulate why yet.<\/p>\n
Cuzco felt overwhelming to me. Although it\u2019s beautiful, it still feels a bit heavy. To me, the sound of Maria Angola\u2019s bell wasn’t relaxing, but rather it sounded sad and judgmental, like it carries the weight of everyone\u2019s suffering rather than bringing comfort. I wondered why there was so much emphasis on religion throughout the novel, and why religion does not seem to provide any relief to anyone.<\/p>\n
At times, I hoped that Ernesto would be more proactive in expressing his thoughts. However, sometimes I thought this is not entirely fair considering he is a young boy who has been forced to move many times and is used to seeing adults abuse one another as if there’s nothing wrong with it. Silence may be the only thing he knows. Overall, this book wasn’t a sudden emotional hit, but rather more of a slow build-up of sadness that stayed as I continued to read. I noticed that the book is full of bells, churches, and religious imagery, but everyone is still suffering. One question I\u2019d like to discuss is, What do you think religion is actually doing there? Is it helping people, controlling them, or just distracting them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After reflecting on each chapter, I either felt a sense of loss or weight. I believe the author wanted the reader to not have an easy time reading the novel. Ernesto observed his surroundings like a curious child. He saw things that one may perceive to be insignificant; however, in the end, they ended up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107695,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107695"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jasminermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}