Reaching the end of this course, I am filled with an appreciation for the Romance World. Beginning with “Combray” and spanning eleven other great works, I was exposed to authors I would normally glance over on the shelves of libraries or bookstores in my native country; through the guidance of lectures and my peers, my […]
For my penultimate blog post, I found myself reading Agualusa’s text closely to find overlap on the various themes found across the course readings. Memory is something which we looked closely at in all the readings—the certainty of events, and the unreliable narration which so often leads to the label of fiction for the stories. […]
Javier Cercas’s “Soldiers of Salamis” is a story which examines the human condition in wartime. From his own experience, he places the study in the context of the Spanish Civil War. A sparring match between fascist and socialist sides, it was a battle which was ultimately viewed as a precursor to World War […]
Roberto Bolano’s “Amulet” is a unique tale which, in its focus on character development in a time of political violence, makes a more potent statement about human perseverance. The perspective is the student Lacouture hiding in the bathroom of UNAM from the army coming to crush the student protest movement. On the surface, it appears […]
“W, or The Memory of Childhood” by Georges Perec is a unique tale, for it really presents two intertwined. Half autobiography, half boyhood fantasy, the author utilizes this interesting dynamic as a kind of symbiotic storytelling—as without one, the other cannot exist. In this he reveals the importance of imagination for the development of the […]
Introspection, dread and existentialism: these were the primary themes which came to mind while reading Lispector’s “The Passion According to G.H.” The story itself is a strange piece of fiction. It reads more as a frenzied confession from a madwoman—or if not mad, recently informed of life’s secrets through some traumatic event and left unable […]
In the context of French history, Black Shack Alley is a remarkable time piece. With the unique perspective of the French-Caribbean, Zobel analyzes the effects of revolts: the aftermath of the French Revolution which changed the world in regards to viewing dynasties and absolutism as negatives; the subsequent slave revolts in Haiti which […]
While reading “Agostino,” I was struck by a distinct tone of the Freudian; the ways in which maturing from the child to the teenager–and various ventures into adulthood in-between–are contrasted with a love, innocent or otherwise, of a maternal figure central to one’s life. Although one may be tempted to refer to the relationship between […]
“The Shrouded Woman,” for all its experiments in structure and style, is perhaps most notable for its show of just how far perspective can go by providing the most unorthodox viewpoint: that of a body in a coffin, briefly suspended between life and death. The piece is comprised of social commentary, including but not limited […]
Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, at first glance, presents a deceiving title. On the surface it rings true: the main character is a middle class Parisian, a wanderer who is afforded the luxury to observe social institutions, characters and machinations, rarely without comment. Yet when peeling back the many layered onion that is the surrealist novel, […]