Tag Archives: Family

Word of the day: phantasmagoria (Faces in the Crowd)

Hello everybody- the book this week was Luiselli’s “Faces in a crowd”, which I don’t even really know how to describe the plot…think ghosts but not really, a wife with a husband and 2 children but not really, and a girl working in a publishing firm as a translator that’s a bit obsessed with this dead author.

Im not exactly sure how this came to be but for every week I can sort of mentally imagine the story, and it was always tinged in yellow a, bid faded and fuzzy like how old TV was. But this weeks reading was finally in colour, and also above 840p resolution wise. Maybe it has to do with the electronic copy of the book being a super crisp white, but I think it mostly has to do with the tone of the writing now, as we are at the last book of the semester, meaning it’s a lot more recent. But even then, with the choppiness of the book and jumps between first person narration, none of the mental images I have count as “coherent” either.

The husband and wife of this book is quite interesting to me because I find that building a house (architect-ing it, like designing it) feels quite similar to writing a book in some ways- to design the foundation of the story, its progression, overarching themes and writing styles; each of it is an element to build a coherent story just like you would build a house with its foundations, walls, stairs etc. But at one point, the narrator compared her work to her husbands (an architect) and says “I can’t make spaces from nothing. I can’t invent. I only manage to emulate my ghosts, write the way they used to speak, not make noise, narrate out phantasmagoria” (to save you the Google, it means a constant shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined- which also applies to faces you would see in a crowd wink wink). I would think that any sort of writing is invention in a way, but given the shifting perspectives and stories with this book I sort of get where the author is coming from as stories seem as if they are from ghosts both real and not real at once.

This book is one of the few books from this class that I would’ve picked up for myself to read (the other is probably The Lover) and I actually quite enjoyed it- both the book itself and the experience reading it. Also as a complete side note, from the GLIMPSES into the wife’s familial life, I finally realized that I really just want to read a normal book in this class for once ???????????? I forgot how much I missed reading a book where the ordinary things happen (although this book is only 1/3 that; normal and not normal at the same time).

my question for all this week is: if you were to write your own book somewhat based on yourself and somewhat fictionalize it, what would you choose to write about?

I too, would cry if I was sleeping with children (The Lover)

“very early in my life it was too late”.

I feel like that quote in itself really encapsulates the tone of the book very well- the moodiness of the book, to the writing style being a sort of recollections of instances in her life past but sort of looking at it sometimes as if from a third person kind of view? Either way, this writing style was very Lana del Rey of her. This book heavily emanates a sense of melancholic nostalgia to me.

My feelings for this book is a warped one to some degree. I have first heard of this book from another source in a book review- as I believe for one reason or another its been quite popular recently and sort of exists in the same literary canon as Lolita, Norwegian Wood, Breasts and eggs, as “modern classics” to read. So I did choose to read this book with some knowledge of what it would be about, and I sort of came to see this book outside the more academic context and saw it through the lens of “personal enjoyment” like a book you would pick up to read as a pass time. Which I feel like I can say now that this book does not suit those circumstances- pedophilia does not work as light reading.

On another note, this weeks shitty man award goes to the older brother of the book. I think that there’s enough shitty men in every single book so far that its probably worthwhile to hold a shitty man award by the end of the semester to see who can duke it out and win the title for the shittiest man of all. I wanted to beat the shit out of the older brother in this book really bad so I probably would vote for him as being the worst. And I feel like that says a lot when theres a literal pedophile in this book.

Now that I think about it, titling this book The Lover kind of feels like one sick joke. She states in the book that she doesn’t love him, and that his feelings of fear are too great to be love. So where exactly is the love in this book? Her family dynamics is also a big oof; I kept on sighing whenever they were mentioned. However, I guess I see more love in her relationship with her mother- she is after all just a girl obsessed with her own mothers unhappiness- as I would argue is often the case with eldest daughters in immigrant families.

My question to everyone this week is: out of all the shitty men this class has seen so far, which one do you think is the worst and why?

The Time of The Doves

From only the first few pages in, I already felt the effect of Rodoreda’s writing style- many instances seem like a whirlwind or a snapshot of events, with the narration of someone who sort of seems like they’re always rushing to a get to their point yet they also seem to be constantly rambling about something. Particularly for Natalia’s point of view, a lot of times it almost seems as if life is just happening TO her- like all these events, even the more mundane ones, are like cards that are just being dealt to her and she just happened to be there. I mean once the war starts this is obviously the case but even before this, in the most normal day to day occurrences, she speaks as if things were sort of being done “to” her, and I guess it really does translate a certain sense of vulnerability and I guess helplessness in a lot of situations she is in. I think this feeling is both relevant in the context of gender as well as class.

To be honest, I accidentally confused this novel to be another where the quick summary was about a female character being constantly physically abused by their husband (I think it might’ve been an old novel for the last RMST class or something) so that sort of impacted my view of Quimet from the get go (as in I hated tf outta him whenever he showed up even when he didn’t really do anything yet), but after I read the part where he died I got really confused and went back to check and realized my mistake. So all this is to sort of preface that I might’ve have a warped opinion on him. But between Natalia and Quimet’s relationship, I found that this helpless tone of the narration really highlighted the gender roles within their relationship, and to some degree I feel that it is because of the position Natalia was in that in a lot of ways shapes her voice in the novel. Like she isn’t able to just tell her husband “I don’t want those damn birds in the house anymore”, she has to go and secretly get rid of them in her own ways. So the emotional tone of this story I think conveyed really well the positions that Natalia was in, wrestling with one horrible thing after another.

My question to all this week is: Do you think this was the saddest story we have read by far? if yes why, and if no which one was it for you?

The Shrouded Woman – The Feminine Perspective

The Shrouded Woman by Bombal was this weeks required reading, which is sort like a series of vignettes inspired one by one by different people who have come to visit this dead woman at her funeral, and is then told from her perspective. I think just the premise of this kind of novel seems to be a pretty popular choice somewhat by writers, as popular books even nowadays seem to feature that sort of exploration, such as The Midnight Library. One thing that is different though is that the intention behind recounting your life and I guess the overarching message as different authorial intents kind of leads the readers to different conclusions. For examples, a lot of the times authors sort of loom the question of “what would you have done differently?” or “What are your regrets?” or “What are the final lessons you actually learn looking at your life to gain peace?” over our heads as the main character sort of gets this revelation in the face of death. However, for this book, I sort of feel like this books focus was about honesty. I think in many ways it works to capture the authenticity in Ana Maria’s thoughts, beliefs, and most importantly emotions, even though at time they may be immature, immoral or whatever that might be. Point is that I don’t think she is trying to curate this image of herself, or what she “means” to be to prove a point. I think the portrayal of her authentic experience sort of utilizes this structure in a different way, sort of like an answer to the question: what was a woman’s life like during this time and place? What could she possibly be thinking about? How would she feel about this topic? It sort of works to answer this question about identity more.

One thing that particularly stood out to me is that the construction of the novel is about delving into moments of her life again, but the centre of the narrative is very very concentrated on this sort of nuclear family and their family business. I think a lot of times it is true that female authors put a much heavier emphasis on the relationships of those around them and I found this book to be the same way. I imagine that if I were to write down my own life story or recount what recall at the time of my death, I probably would do the same too. But I guess I also recognize that in the time and place of where Ana Maria lived, women likely were conditioned to primarily focus on their family and manage the family etc. so in some sense, they are primed to place much more significance on this topic. By just considering the focus of her recalling the events of her life, it sort of gives rise to a broader conversation about the positions and roles of women at that time and place.

Question: Which character in the novel stood out to you the most and why was it Maria Griselda? Just kidding please let me know who it is and why.