Author Archives: parden

Bolaño 6: The finale

Posted on March 26, 2026 by parden

I think I’ve been trying to sit with the why of it all. Why is this the ending Bolaño chose? What does ending on a short flashback section achieve for the story? Is it to sandwich the book between two Garcia Madero sections for symmetry? Did he want a chance to play around with the […] Continue reading →

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Self-Selected 4: A trip down memory lane

Posted on March 18, 2026 by parden

I only read five chapters of The Shadow of the Wind this week (maybeeee 65 pages), which means I have about 190 pages to read next time to finish off the book (hoping for some nice weather so I can read outside). I did read some spoilers on another blog post, which was my own […] Continue reading →

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Bolaño 5: learning to enjoy it for what it is

Posted on March 11, 2026 by parden

I’m running out of things to write about. This is our fifth blog post on Bolaño, which will make about 2000 words by the end of this, and I’m struggling to come up with likes or dislikes that I haven’t already harped on about. I’m liking the book well enough by now, which is more to […] Continue reading →

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Self-Selected 3: Am I having fun anymore?

Posted on March 4, 2026 by parden

I am ready to be finished this book. I know at the beginning of the semester, I commented on the fact that The Shadow of the Wind is the first book in the series and that I was optimistic about being able to continue with the following books. Maybe one day I’ll love picking them […] Continue reading →

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Bolaño 4: Trucking Along

Posted on February 26, 2026 by parden

I took a break from reading during reading break, for better or worse, which has made for an interesting re-entry into the world of our novel. I caught up on reality tv and scrolled through way more Instagram reels than I should have, consuming all sorts of media that was not written by our beloved […] Continue reading →

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Bolaño 3: Amulet interlude

Posted on February 11, 2026 by parden

I find myself struggling to know what to write about this week’s reading. This was one of those books that I’ll finish and probably not really think about again (besides our incoming class discussion). I neither loved nor hated it. I don’t really feel any particular way about Amulet, I just read it and now […] Continue reading →

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Self-Selected 2: His soul is in his stories.

Posted on February 4, 2026 by parden

I have now reached the twenty-first chapter in The Shadow of the Wind, where Daniel (main character) has just left his meeting with Nuria (who knew Julián Carax personally) after discussing Julián and his books. I had hoped to finish chapter 24 in this section, but I’ll just have to pick up some slack with […] Continue reading →

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Bolaño 2: Not My Favourite Style of Prose

Posted on January 28, 2026 by parden

I kind of feel like I cheated a little this week, when I downloaded an .epub copy of The Savage Detectives onto my laptop to read virtually while I was out and about. The whole reading-a-big-book vibe was ruined because I had no real way of conceptualizing how much of the book I had read or […] Continue reading →

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Self-Selected 1: Choosing and Searching

Posted on January 21, 2026 by parden

My long book is Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Firstly, I would like to shoutout Amanda, who has done such a good summary of this first section of the book that I’m going to refer you all to that blog post instead of repeating the same thing here. Otherwise, the TLDR of […] Continue reading →

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Bolaño 1: Waiting for Better

Posted on January 14, 2026 by parden

I have definitely read worse books than The Savage Detectives. In one sense, I’m glad that the book is mandatory because otherwise I probably would have either DNF’d it, or at least put it back on the shelf for “later” (a later that would never come because it would be included in my annual Facebook […] Continue reading →

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