{"id":50,"date":"2026-03-09T00:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T07:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/?p=50"},"modified":"2026-03-15T23:52:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:52:57","slug":"duras-fragmented-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/2026\/03\/09\/duras-fragmented-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Duras \u2013 fragmented everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, this was a book that did not play out as I expected (\u1d55 \u2022 \u1d17 \u2022) It was a bit difficult at first to make sense of what was happening and where each scene fit into a larger timeline, but by the end, I quite liked that! The non-linear storytelling made it feel like I was flipping through the narrator\u2019s diary\/photo album (especially with how often she talks about images) and piecing\u00a0 together that part of her life, which made the whole book feel all the more nostalgic.<\/span><\/p>\n

(It also felt a bit voyeuristic, with how almost nobody was named throughout the book (which also made Helene stand out that much more!). This, in combination with the various switches to third person POV when talking about the relationship, made me feel particularly like an audience(?), watching very intimate moments of the narrator\u2019s life while they stay anonymous)<\/span><\/p>\n

Admittedly, I haven\u2019t encountered many stories about this type of relationship other than having read My Dark Vanessa around 5 years ago, so I began with the preconception that the narrator (the fifteen-and-a-half year old!!) would be written as the one without power. And although she describes herself as the one having power, I disagree with her. No matter how many times the man weeps (too many to count (\u2565\u2038\u2565)), is described as weak, or is shown to be under the pressure of his father, the narrator is still an extremely young, financially troubled girl living in a place where her family is struggling. She insists that she knows what she\u2019s doing, but all I see is a vulnerable child who comes from a fragmented family. There is no reversal of power that the writing sometimes seems to suggest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, sometimes the narrator\u2019s family stood out to me more than the relationship. So much of the scenes revolve around her mother and her brothers. It felt a lot like the narrator processing the things that happened in her home life by writing it all out. Her mother was so emotionally absent, and I felt really uncomfortable when she just\u2026 let her daughter continue to go with the man (\u00b7\u2022\u1dc4_\u2022\u1dc5 ). And the older brother was just unbelievably cruel!!! But at the same time, the mother\u2019s life sounded brutal, having failed at the colony to establish a stable life, being in financial trouble, and having to raise everyone alone. That pressure seemed to have just crushed her and cascaded down to her children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This, which I want to call generational trauma, is what\u2019s really interesting to me in this book. How much does the narrator\u2019s family dynamic impact her relationship? Does it also provide an answer for why she describes herself as the one in control?<\/span><\/p>\n

This is also a book I think I\u2019ll read again in the summer! I\u2019m looking forward to talking more about it with everyone (\u0e51\u2022\u1391\u2022\u0e51)<\/span><\/p>\n

See you tomorrow!<\/span><\/p>\n

Julie \u1555( \u141b )\u1557<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, this was a book that did not play out as I expected (\u1d55 \u2022 \u1d17 \u2022) It was a bit difficult at first to make sense of what was happening and where each scene fit into a larger timeline, but by the end, I quite liked that! The non-linear storytelling made it feel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[5,28],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duras","tag-memory","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}