RMST 495/520: Long Books

First impression: In an attempt to not say that I did not like the book, I will say, what the hell was that?

After a few second thoughts: okay, interesting? Maybe, I get the point?

My first question then is: Who are we blaming?

Are we blaming the poor family? The poor mother? Are we blaming the rich women? The girl herself? The new baby? The old dad (the carabiniere)? The new partner of Adalgisa (Guido)?

It is way easier to understand (at least for me) why the girl (our main character) was kind of taken away from her first family so easily. It reminds me a lot of those international adoptions in Latin America during a conflict, where rich people, usually from the Global North, easily adopt kids from Indigenous or war-torn communities. Under the cover of a “good deed,” rich people get away from the forced displacement that made a kid just go through, the usual lies, the erasure of their past, just for the kid to grow up and find out (most of the time) a tragic/terrible story that could be summarized as “kidnapping.”

But on the other hand, we could ask: what other life would this baby have lived had they weren’t taken away? Poverty? Lack of love? Death? Why are our answers always so negative? Well, because we know the reality of a lot of abandoned kids or orphans that had to face the realities of their communities after war/repression was over. But still, how can we be sure that the future of that kid would have been worse?

I believe it will be unfair to blame the biologial/poor family. Similar to how the girl at the end starts feeling guilt for rejecting some of the gifts from Adalgisa (because then she was denying these privileges to her little sister), I can see the mom thinking this same way when thinking how denying Adalgisa her own daughter would have been an act/decisions out of selfishness.

Can we blame Adalgisa (what a bi*c*)? I think we get at the end the vibes of “actually, if we are more critical of the situation, Adalgisa is just a victim of the horrible/angry/deceiving man.” I don’t buy it.

What about the assh*** of the carabiniere? What a joke that he can’t take care of the girl, why revenge Adalgisa’s affair with that little girl?

Second question: Was the secrecy necessary?

No

Third question: What does Adriana represent in the story?

Here is where the story is saved. The concept of motherhood gets distorted symbolically and textually throughout the novel, ending in maybe the idea that mothering is not an act done by someone who gives birth to you, and that it is unfair to see like that? I don’t know.

Extra general thought:

While I was trying to finish the novel yesterday, I understood why classes like this are necessary. Reading more women makes you more empathetic with other women, and with yourself if you identify as a woman. We tend to read mostly men writing (either literature or more academic writing). We could definitely pin point classes where most of our readings are just men, or even when all readings are just men. Is this the same case with other classes? No, unless they are specifically about feminism or (like this one) about women writers. I do not think enough women have read enough women, and (of course) I do not think enough men have read enough women.

Hi everyone, I am joining the party a bit late. This is my introductory post.

My name is Valeria. I am in my first year of my Master’s program in Hispanic studies. I am originally from El Salvador (Kuskatan) and moved to Vancouver 8 years ago to do my undergraduate studies at UBC (Political Science and Latin American studies).

My interests (I am currently researching) are the intersections between memory, education, family, and gang-violence in the context of new authoritarianisms in Central America (specifically El Salvador). My other non-academic interests include (but are not limited to) sewing (still learning) as a part of multi-media diy projects, cooking, bike riding, swimming (still learning), and writing bad poetry.

I tend to not have that many expectations for any of my classes. I think there is a creative and surprising aspect that is taken away if you have too many expectations. However, for this particular class, what excites me is the fact that I will be forced to only read women’s writings/ideas. In an environment where we unconsciously tend to gravitate to reading only men’s authors (as it was my case in the last RMS 520 class I took, reading Bolaño and Monge), I am curious to see what different themes this space/class will force us to talk about in contrast to other courses.

Can I find more connections between all the books I am reading in this class just because the authors are all women? What do they have in common beyond that? Are the books more emotional? Are the books talking more about men? Are the books talking more about women? How do women portray men? Do they do it the same way men portray women? Is it helpful to focus on gender when reading their novels? Do I change as a reader when I read novels crafted by women?

How discussions of intersectionality or social locations can fit in this space/class?

I do have a lot of questions entering this class. I hope to answer a few once we reach the end.

I am curious to read your blogs and see what are your thoughts on these questions. If you wouldn’t mind I would love to hear some of your ideas regarding one or more of these questions in the comments. What do you think so far?

I guess the other important reflection is that it is not just any women’s writers, it is women’s writers in the 21st century. What themes are women in the 21st century talking about that other women writers in other generations were not able to name? Or how do they name it differently?

That’s right. This is the end. But when certain things come to an end, I like to think about how it can lead to new beginnings. For me, one of those new beginnings is a growing appreciation and desire to read more Latin American literature. As a French Studies student who also did a major in French as an undergrad, this course served as my introduction to the world of Latin American literature. Of course, the course didn’t focus solely on that. After all, the theme of the course was “long books”—a topic we explored from multiple angles, including through the lens of students’ blogs, which was honestly one of my favourite parts of the course. I LOVED reading my classmates’ blog posts. I can’t say blog-writing is something I will continue, as I am a very private person. But perhaps that will change…perhaps, after being obliged to share my thoughts and ideas with others, I will learn to open up more. This can be another new beginning for me. As an undergrad, I was always one of the quietest students. When I would finally work up the courage to raise my hand, I would tremble in fear, which was usually followed by an immense worry that I would sound stupid in front of others. One aspect of this course that I appreciated was the fact that I felt a lot more comfortable and less nervous than I usually do in class. For that, I give credit to our professor Jon, as well as my wonderful classmates. As a grad student, there are many instances in which I feel inadequate. Unfortunately, I tend to compare myself to others far too often. So I want to say thank you to everyone for setting a tone and creating a classroom atmosphere that was welcoming—an environment full of open-minded individuals, from different backgrounds and fields of study, who invited thought-provoking discussion, without judgment.

So, has my opinion of long books changed since the beginning of the course? The Savage Detectives was the second longest book that I’ve read in my life (the books we read in my other courses are usually less than 300 pages). I didn’t love it, but I did like several aspects of the book (if you’re wondering what those aspects are, you can read my previous blog posts). Les guerriers de l’hiver was significantly shorter in length (459 pages) and overall, I did prefer this novel over The Savage Detectives. Norek’s novel was definitely more conventional and less experimental than Bolaño’s. However, I appreciated Bolaño’s unique (and sometimes bizarre) writing style. In fact, I’d say that I preferred his writing style more than Norek’s. But, I would say that I preferred the story of Les guerriers de l’hiver. On the other hand, Amulet was the real gem of this course. Reading the short novel put me in a bit of a trance-like state, as I embarked on a surreal journey through memories of the past and visions of the future, while constantly being reminded of the present situation of our narrator (I loved her), who faced incredible challenges as she survived through a week or so of absolute chaos. It was beautiful. And I’m looking forward to reading it all over again. I probably won’t be rereading the other two books, at least not for a while. And it’s not because they’re much longer books. I’d say that I now have a greater appreciation for longer books after taking this course. Perhaps that was one of the goals of the course? Well if it was, then it worked on me. I haven’t figured out which books I’ll be reading this summer, but I already plan on looking into books that are lengthier than those that I usually choose to read. In the past, I’ve often chosen shorter books over longer books, simply because I figured that I would be more likely to finish those books. I’m the kind of person that usually gravitates towards books that are less than 400 pages long. If I’m in a bookstore, I will pick up books that look like they’re 400 pages or less, then proceed to read the back in order to see whether it might be something I’d enjoy reading. They say that one should not judge a book by its cover (I’m also guilty of this), but I’d say that one should not judge a book by its size either. Sure, it might take a lot longer to read, especially for a slow reader like me. However, that extra time and effort might just be worth it. Not every book is worth reading. But I don’t want to miss out on those that are worth reading, simply because of their length. This course has helped me gain the patience and focus to read through longer books. And for that, I am incredibly grateful.

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer :)

Question for the class: If you were to recommend a book for me to read this summer, what would it be?

I am late with this. It’s been increasingly hard to do anything. Fuck depression.

I hope I do not come off trying to find pity in this post, but if I have to write something this is the only thing I have in my mind and I might as well use this obligation to write a blog post as some kind of shout to the void.

I do not know why did I think I could be a graduate student. I do not know why did I think I could be in academia. Two out of two times I’ve hit a big, painful, life threatening depressive episode at the end of a term. I’ll survive, maybe, but will I finish my masters? Increasingly I think it is not for me. Even though it seems that having an imposter syndrome is a necessary qualification for academia it seems no one does anything to address it. I’ve been told several times, by different professors that “it never goes away”, but haven’t been offered a real solution. I do not know how to write an essay. I do not know how to engage with a class. You would think that after a whole degree in literature I would feel capable to have a thought. The anxiety I’ve been trying to manage this week has made getting out of bed one of the hardest challenges. And now I have two essays in the horizon, no idea what I am going to write about, no idea how am I going to write them, wondering if I should just drop out, go back to Colombia, get in a call center and either die of burn out or depression. Since we are talking about endings that seems the one my life keeps foreshadowing to.

I have no idea how the next weeks will look like.

I am 90 words short.

Well, around 8000 words short.

How am I to survive this degree let alone the academic career that seems to be the only option left for me?

Another ending.

As we conclude this term, I can notice a difference in me. I started noticing this, when I finished The Savage Detectives. My urge to keep reading got really intense, almost to the point where it felt a bit excessive. It was not until I finished the other book that I realized what was actually going on.

It is not just that I want to read more, but that I have gotten used to staying with a text for longer. I keep thinking about it after I finish, going back to certain parts, trying to make sense of things that did not fully click the first time. The ending does not feel as final anymore.

When I finished Justo Antes del Final, the sadness that took over me almost pushed me to start a new novel right away. However, I stopped myself to think about whether that was really necessary, or if starting something new was just a way of avoiding that uncomfortable feeling.

I realized that I am not used to just sitting with what a book leaves behind. I usually feel this need to move on quickly, to fill that space with something else. But this time i held onto that bittersweet feeling a bit longer. The sadness did not go away, and starting another book would not have changed it, it would have only distracted me from it.

How long should one mourn a story? How long should one mourn a book?

If the book is longer, is the mourning harder? I guess now I understand one of the conversations we had in class about endings, and how maybe humans just hate them as much as they hate death.

Maybe that is the beauty of collective reading. You do not have to confront the ending in isolation.

I think that could be one of the reasons why finishing The Savage Detectives did not feel as difficult as finishing my individual book. We were constantly in conversation, sharing thoughts about Bolaño and the events we were reading, engaging with each other’s posts. That made the ending feel less heavy.

Maybe that is also why it did not feel as overwhelming.

Do you feel like that too? Did it feel easier to finish The Savage Detectives than your individual book?

I remember mentioning the page count set in class for a book to be considered “long” in front of students who were not in our class, and a lot of them disagreed. I’m curious to see if my standard for what counts as a long book changes after this class, and actually pushes further.

Do you know what you are reading next?

Finishing a long book feels like a small death. A forever goodbye.

Do authors cry when they finish their books? out of sadness, satisfaction, frustration?

Monge finishes the book really similarly to how I expected everything to end. You would expect that if an author is writing about the history of his mother throughout the different years she lived, he would end the book with the last year she was alive. and of course as a reader, I had to witness the death of Monje’s mother. Thus, I not only went through the death of the story, of the book, but also the deeath of the main character that made this book possible.

2014

That’s the year Monge’s moms dies. But the book doesnt end there but two years after. These last two chapters/two years are particularly small, in comparison to others (a great way to denote the absence of our main character).

2015

“Recordarás, entenderás o leerás —aquí, en esta página— que aquel año tu madre fue un torbellino de auroras boreales.”

“You will remember, you will understand, or you will read—here, on this page—that that year your mother was a whirlwind of northern lights.”

2016

“Empezarás, en el silencio de tu mente, a estar con ella otra vez. A sentir, en realidad, cómo se descompone el monopolo, cómo se disemina su energía, cómo zurcen, esos vectores, el caos y los afectos.”

“You will begin, in the silence of your mind, to be with her again. To feel, in reality, how the monopole breaks down, how its energy disperses, how those vectors stitch together chaos and affection.”

These chapters are so short, less than half a page each, and that contrast with the rest of the book feels intentional. It’s like the structure itself changes once she’s gone.

For me, this shift really reads as “the silence of the mind” that Monge mentions in 2016. Not just empty space, but the kind of silence that comes after someone dies. The absence of her, of tu madre’s voice becomes part of the narrative. And it’s uncomfortable, but also necessary because, in some way, that’s what grief feels like. You’re left with fragments, with less to hold onto, and you have to figure out how to exist in that new reality. To a weird extent, it is the same way we have to deal with the end of a book (a book that you care for).

It also changes how we read. The book kind of forces you to slow down, to sit with that absence, and to recognize that the story can’t continue in the same way anymore. In that sense, grief doesn’t just happen in the content, it reshapes the entire form of the book.

Looking back at my first blog post about this book, I’m starting to better understand the two worlds that each chapter holds: the intimate world of the family, especially tu madre, and the broader world of global events (scientific discoveries, political tensions, the rise of narco violence in Mexico, etc.). You can’t take a person out of their context. The mother is not just an individual with her own emotions, memories, and behaviors, she is also shaped by everything happening around her, even things that seem distant or unrelated. In that sense, the book feels like an attempt to map an impossible network of connections: between history and intimacy, between large-scale events and the smallest, most personal experiences.

It’s almost as if Monge is searching for an explanation, not in a reductive way, but in a desperate, expansive way. Like trying to understand: why did she become who she was? Why does trauma take the shape it does?. You can’t understand a person in a vacuum, because their life is entangled with political violence, scientific paradigms, cultural shifts, and historical moments that exceed them.

So instead of offering a clean explanation, the book builds this dense web of references and timelines, where everything seems connected, even if those connections are not always clear or fully comprehensible.

Woah, I cannot believe we’ve reached the end of the semester! Thinking of endings: this is always an ending I don’t mind reaching. If we think about each week as a chapter and the whole semester as a book, I’ve enjoyed this one. In this comparison am I writing the chapters or reading them? I guess that depends if we think of the future as determined or variable. Okay well, that’s enough of that, I am getting annoyed with myself.

A takeaway for me is how long books can be helpful. Going into this class, two of my favourite pieces of literature were Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck (about 100 pages) and “Desirée’s Baby” by Kate Chopin (about 8 pages). While I do definitely like long books, I like how short texts are so concise, precise, (when done well) every piece fitting just so. I feel it is harder to argue that longer books achieve the same precision: one of my challenges with The Savage Detectives was whole parts could have been taken out or switched or changed, and the whole story would not have come out much different. In another way, I like how the super short stories we read – like the dinosaur in the bedroom – had a similar effect of causing an amplification of our imagination imbued into the reading.

But there are things only long books can do. Bolaño held us in suspense for some-500 pages and several decades to conclude a story that all started with García Madero joining the visceral realists. That is certainly not a tool shorter books can use – but I don’t think I would have the patience for another book like this.

Reflecting on the long book format, I see another interest in long books: as antidotes. Increasingly, attention spans are shortening as content is shortening to meet them, creating a back and forth that seemingly leaves long books as out of style. Perhaps we can think of long books as solution: to require readers to commit for a longer period of time, to require closer reading than trendy BookTok favourites and commitment to putting away other distractions if we are either to get to the end or to get something out of it. 

Towards the end of the semester, as I find myself increasingly stressed and without a moment to spare, I find myself increasingly tiring to Instagram feels for respite: a quick scroll really puts my mind at ease (lol!). But then of course, like any other vice, it doesn’t meaningfully  help me. Turning to long books, or books in general, might just. And so, I find myself turning to my next read…

I have the amazing opportunity to visit my good friend Sofia in Chile for three weeks in May! To prepare, I’ve done a VPL spree and I’ve put a bunch of Chilean books – fiction and non-fiction (and also a photography book from 1954? I’m going to try to find the same streets to compare!) on hold – including Isabelle Allende’s House of Spirits, which we’ve talked about in class…not favourably! Haha! Also a book Lily recommended to me, called I Lived on Butterfly Hill, which makes me reflect on the social aspect of books. I love the social aspects of books – how a usually solitary activity can create community and conversations…hmm sounds like I need to join a book club!

Which, now that I think about it, RMST 495 felt like to me. It was a space to share findings, learning, interpretations in an open way that promoted discussion and deeper readings. In not having to worry about writing essays, I found myself doing a different kind of learning: how to read to share. I’ve enjoyed hearing from everyone else’s interpretations and own books, as well as the atmosphere in class! It’s been so fun to be in a class where everyone contributes and is not on their phones the whole time. Thanks guys! I was a pretty quiet student – but I always enjoyed listening to what others had to say.

Well, that’s all from me folks. I am both excited and sad about our final class tomorrow – it’s my final class for the semester, which always feels both exhilarating and daunting! For my final question for you all, do you have a favourite end of year song? I can think back clearly to the song I put in my headphones at the end of each semester (it had to be the perfect song to capture the weight lifted off of my shoulders of course!). So do you have any songs you like to listen to at the end of the year?