Week 13: The Taiga Syndrome
by kenwardt
Well, what a way to end the course! With its mentions of fairytales, while also stating it wasn’t a fairytale in the book (17), Cristina Rivera Garza’s “The Taiga Syndrome” was an interesting, but often times confusing read due to the theme of time and what was real or not. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and was first drawn in from the fact it was a quest novel, in which the narrator has to find a man’s wife who has disappeared with another man.
Just like in many novels we have explored this term, we never get to know the name of the narrator. Before taking this course, I probably would not have thought much about not knowing the names of the narrator, but I have learned that names are indeed important and can be a central theme to the book, as names carry a lot of weight.
The novel reminded me of “Papi” by Rita Indiana, in the sense that there are certain parts of the book where reality is blurred and it’s hard to differentiate the real from the fake. Past memories of Lupe haunt her, and she frequently questions whether they’re real or not. And in”Papi” the narrator’s innocence and view of her father as a superhero cloud her judgement, and we are unable to know if some of the things she is saying in the novel are true, or are a figment of imagination through the lens of an 8-year old child.
I found the conversation video with Rivera Garza to be very captivating. I enjoyed how she explored the theme of distance, and how far she can take it, through the location of the novel in the boreal forest. Her use of “que” or “that” in the novel really caught my attention, as she explored the use of its repetition and importance in the novel to get her point across. I also found it interesting that the novel was translated to English many years after being first published in Spanish. I wonder how translation affects the power of the words seen in Spanish, and then translated into English. I am also looking forward for her new book that just came out in February, “Liliana’s Invincible Summer” will definitely be in my future reading list!
My question to you all this week is, how does the taiga landscape function as a metaphor or symbol in the novel? And what themes do you think it represents?
I am glad to know that you liked Rivera Garza’s literature. She is also a very accessible and open person. There are some common characteristics among various contemporary female writers. Do you know other novels in English that have similar characteristics? For example, who seek to introduce female perspectives into narratives of a fantastic nature. It would be interesting to see why these types of stories appear in Latin America, don’t you think?
I think the Taiga landscape allowed the characters to be trapped in a kind of purgatory, a place where they could easily be lost or become overwhelmed with the elements. Usually, extreme environments – those with no conveniences on hand – force people to prioritize exactly what they need. There’s no luxury to get people to live in the taiga, so why do people stay?