After multiple months of reading every week, finally “Faces in the Crowd” by Valeria Luiselli was the last book read by me. This was a really complicated and rather difficult-to-follow book, probably one of the hardest if not the hardest book I read all year. I felt that I was not as engaged with the book as I had anticipated to be, wasn’t too interested in it just like a lot of my fellow classmates. Also, I kept re-reading lines just to be engaged. As I was reading the book there were times I didn’t even know who was narrating or if we were in New York or somewhere else. It did take me a few readings to get it in the end. It eventually became simpler to understand the plot when I discovered that the only way to tell who was narrating was to pay attention to who was being referred. In the book, a young mother and writer struggles to strike a balance between her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and writer. I enjoyed how the novel examined the idea of belonging. It was no longer hers to own. She lost herself and gave it to her family every time she chose to care for her children overwriting.

I felt like In order to explore themes of identity, loneliness, and the transient nature of interpersonal connections, Luiselli investigates structure and form in the novel. Her life in Mexico, her memories of New York, and her obsession with Owen’s life and poetry become entwined, forcing the reader to piece together the story from what sounds like a meandering, reflective, and sometimes contradicting conversation with a close friend. This wasn’t really easy for me to comprehend initially as I had difficulties reading this book. What makes Luiselli’s “Faces in the Crowd” unique is her strategic word choice. The poetry and accuracy perfectly convey the brief moments of beauty found in the routine aspects of daily existence.

A fascinating part of the novel is when the mother finds a postcard from a person she believes to be her husband’s mistress. She describes how her spouse supposedly departs for Philadelphia to spend time with his lover. However, it is revealed that he hasn’t departed, and the narrative turns. It is challenging for me as a reader to discern what is actually happening in the novel because of Luiselli’s use of narration in this instance, which blurs the border between fiction and reality. The blending of fictional and factual elements creates uncertainty and makes it harder for me to determine what the characters’ actual experiences were like. In addition, the young woman is obsessed with Gilberto Owen’s perspective in a third narration that takes place concurrently with the mother and woman’s. 

Question for the class:

“Note: The NY subway was constructed in 1904, the year of Owen’s birth” page 36

What was the significance of noting this?