RMST 495/520: Long Books

I don’t think its Marie Vieux Chauvet’s fault. However, reading Dance on the Volcano is revealing to me how much I hate an omniscient perspective. As I read about Jasmine and Lise and Minette I just feel unable to connect with them and their specific observations on race and slavery or how to even really navigate their own personal relationships to being free amongst enslaved folks because I only have access to a third person’s awareness of how they are interpreting the people around them! Most importantly, I don’t believe nor connect with this omniscient perspective, there are so many details left unsaid and not in a fun way for me to deduce but in a way that lacks colour and specificity and authenticity that I cannot connect with.

At least with Robert Bolano’s The Savage Detectives I truly felt compelled by the perspective of Juan Garcia Madero. I could see specifically how he was reckoning with Arturo, Quim, Lupe, Maria and Angelica. His detailed descriptions of each left a lasting impression that stuck with me for days after reading, because I was deeply intrigued by his flaws and integrity and the times his integrity became twisted with his circumstance.

However, I just don’t feel anything for any of the characters of Dance on the Volcano, their observations on race feel dull. Nothing of the setting nor circumstance is sticking with me and I just don’t enjoy reading this novel. The way this seems to be manifesting is I have consistently fallen asleep while reading every chapter of this novel.

As the story takes place in Port Au Prince we are made aware of the enslaved folks, freedmen who were once slaves and no longer, Creole folks and mulattos. Lise and Minette are mulattos as their mother was once a slave but is very careful to hide this fact from her daughters and those that know her as it is a shameful truth, not only societally but personally as physical and sexual violence were inextricably experienced by her at the time of being enslaved, a reality she chooses to hide from her daughters.

Marie Vieux Chauvet is clear on her stance when it comes to education and revolution as the book narrates that enslaved peoples were punished for learning to read and those who were able to endow literacy faced persecution. These ideas about education and revolution strike me as being spoonfed as they lack the description that would allow me to draw upon the withholding of education as a tool for immobilization. The account by Joseph, the man educating Lise and Minette, on how he had been sought out and forced into hiding for teaching an enslaved person to read simply stated that because education is what dissolves resignation and prompts one to fight for their freedom, literacy had to be stopped. The novel just spells it out rather than giving me the details to see and feel that for myself.

I just feel frustrated because I want to read about enslaved folks in contrast o freedmen who were once slaves and no longer and mulattos in a deeply hierarchical Creole culture but I am missing all of the personal insight that makes it feel worthwhile.

Hi everyone, this is my first blog post for our self-selected books for the course. I chose to read Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo, and I read up to page 61. I haven’t evenly split my book into four sections based on page numbers, but instead I went off of the parts in the book, which meant I read the first two parts; Smoke and My Father’s Death. 

I will start with a summary of what I have learned from the book in the first sixty pages. The very first page is actually from a character called Dr. S, who we as readers do not know anything about really. She states that she will not be doing any psychoanalysis yet, as the latter part of the book is dedicated to that, and in fact she is publishing these unfinished written memories of Zeno’s as revenge for not participating in his treatment properly and to get him to resume as well. The last sentence of Dr. S reads “If only he knew the countless surprises he might enjoy from discussing the many truths and the many lies he has assembled in here!” Immediately, this shifted the perspective I was going to read this book in. Instead of reading the book as a personal recollection of Zeno’s life, I read with a lens that did not really trust the words and experiences Zeno was recalling, as he as been deemed by a doctor as a liar essentially.

When reading the first part Smoke, I felt there was a humorous undertone in it all. First Zeno recalls how he began his habit of smoking, which stemmed from him stealing cigarettes from his father. However, the humour for me, came from his descriptions of just how much he smoked, but then also how much he hated it. Furthermore, after becoming “violently ill” from all his smoking, he begins a phase where he quits smoking almost every single day. On page 13, Zeno begins to ramble about how the date is imperative to him quitting smoking. In relation to the year 1913, Zeno claims there was no thirteenth month to harmonize the year he would quit smoking. These kinds of excuses seem ridiculous as you read, but the way in which the book is written, Zeno seems very convincing. At first, he does not come off as illogical or unstable. There is a calmness in the way he writes about his illnesses arising from smoking, him seeking a doctor to help him quit smoking. Due to the abruptness and simple way Zeno writes, he also reveals quite a bit about his neuroticisms and his significant character flaws, such as the complete inability to make decisions and take responsibility. For example, on page 19, he randomly decides to bet wit Olivi that he won’t smoke before him, but then decides he cannot stand the fact that he is now a “slave” to Olivi, and smokes to alleviate that reality.

My Father’s Death explored the strange relationship Zeno recalls with his father, and reveals more of Zeno’s strange tendencies and raises the same questions of his reliability. According to Zeno, his father brought up his tendency to laugh even during serious matters, and Zeno’s response (of course very normal, believable and level-headed) was to find the closest doctor and get himself examined so he could receive a clean bill of health. Naturally, Zeno’s father was not very pleased, and this brought him to tears, confirming for him that Zeno was crazy. This is just one of the many odd encounters Zeno had with his father, before he became extremely ill and frail himself, which led to a whole other set of complications of their relationship. When a doctor was called in to take care of Zeno’s father, he almost instantly got the sense that Zeno did not really care and would be happy if he died. From that point, Zeno held great disdain towards the doctor, but never really explicitly tried to deny that either, and instead said this guilt crushed him. It was almost as if he knew that wanting his father to die is wrong, but was not able to get his words, emotions or thoughts to align with this.

I’m excited to keep reading, the next part is the story of his marriage, which I cannot imagine the wife would be too fond of, considering how detached and strange Zeno comes across as. It is clear that Zeno has a very specific worldview of mistrust and general angst, so I would be very surprised if the next 100 pages are about how lucky he is to be married. Thank you for reading my post!

Simi

I chose to read Don quixote. This is a novel written in the 1600’s by Cervantes Saavedra.
The story has a main protagonist as Alonso Quijano who is obsessed with medieval romances and with becoming a knight-errant. He names himself Don Quixote de la Mancha and goes on different adventures with his ” escudero” Sancho-Panza who left his wife and kids to join him on an adventure.

So… what do i think of it?

I have to say the novel is not bad. I am reading a different version (not the extremely long one).
I always find a bit dangerous the idea of submerging too much in fiction. I believe that creates a dimension that is only control by you and disconnects you from your reality. People need fiction to survive or to have a meaning and this is problematic. You cannot let fiction to overpower your own story. But , it is better to leave those ideas for the final blog.

From the first pages , i noticed that there is something wrong . For example ; the narrator does not wish to remember La Mancha and admits that Alonso has already lost his mind before he made the decision of becoming a knight-errant. The description of his armor, he did not have weapons to go on his adventure , and how women do not understand his language and made fun of him which infuriates Quixote.

There are multiple signs that the main character is not sane, but he does want to do something good. As he takes the role of defender of the weak and saves Andres of getting whipped.
The reality that Don quixote lives is completely reshaped by the novels he read ( novels that ended up burnt). His reality is so distorted that he confuses where he is , and the people that live there by characters of the books he read before. Then ,when i saw the picture of him getting fed with his helmet on , i concluded that this man has read way too much fiction.

The addition of Sancho is interesting as it is implied that he is not very smart and also does not have the look of someone who will go on an adventure with a knight like Don Quixote.

In conclusion , The power of fiction is highlighted as a force that can give meaning to your life. Yes , he is crazy but that is just in the surface. He is walking , and wondering around because he wants to makes sense of the world he lives in.

Hi Guys!

The book I have chosen is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

My initial reaction to this book was that I actually think I like it and will enjoy it. I have been reading a lot of literature recently and a lot of it is boring and hard to understand. Therefore, this book was a good change because not only was it significantly easier to understand but it was also quite interesting. The book starts off with the protagonist being taken to the cemetery of forgotten books. At first, I was like what is that even but turns out it’s a secret library and I love books with mystery and this gave off that exact energy. However, I was confused on why it is called the cemetery of forgotten books. 

The part that stood out to me was that Daniel’s dad says, “This is a place of mystery, a sanctuary.” “Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul.” I found this meaningful and it made me think deeply about any book we read. It made me think about how each time I pick up a book from the library its spirit is growing. At the cemetery of forgotten books, Daniel’s dad told him to pick out one book and he ended up picking out “The Shadow of the Wind by Carax.”

The part that further intrigued me was when Barcelo told Daniel that he has the last copy of Carax’s novel. It made me wonder why the rest of the copies were burned and what is so special about this book that Barcelo is treating it like silk. Additionally, Carax going missing and people not knowing if he died or fled kept the storyline more interesting. However, the odd part here was Daniel’s interest in Clara who is Barcelo’s niece. I found this odd because she says she is almost twice his age meaning he is a minor while she is an adult. 

Apart from that, I believe each part of the book kept me hooked and I wanted to keep reading to see what happens next. For instance, the part where Daniel was standing on the balcony and saw a figure out in the dark who was non-chalantly smoking. Then he mentions that this exact scenario took place in the book by Carax; however, the figure in the book was the devil. It made me curious about who that figure could be and made me want to keep reading. Furthermore, when Clara would share with Daniel that a stranger questions her about him it made me question whether it could have been the same figure who was watching him on the balcony. 

Each part contributed to the bigger story and it keeped me hooked to the plot and it was something I really enjoyed reading. I can’t wait to continue reading it.

Discussion Question: What do you think is the significance of the Cemetery of forgotten books and why was Daniel told to keep it a secret?

Going into my reading, all I knew about Les Misérables was the blurb on the back – which promises a “spine-tingling chase” through the sewers of Paris! I chose to read the first chapter, called An Upright Man, (page 1-34) of the first section, called Fantine.

The story begins in a small Alpine town where a new bishop, Monsieur Bienvenu, has just moved in. He is immensely good: he gives up a large manor to exchange with the local hospital, which was too small for the number of patients. As the Alpine day draws to a close, a stranger comes to town, disheveled, dirty and furtive; this is Jean Valjean. He is turned away from the local inn, and spends all evening trying to find a place to stay. Just as he gives up to spend the night outside, a kindly woman points him to the bishop’s house.

Here, he is welcomed, given dinner and a clean bed. Though M. Bienvenu remains unaware, we learn that Jean is a convict. I was interested to learn his crime: he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister and her seven children. This made me think of the question “what if you steal bread to feed your family?” I wonder if its origins come from this book. Part of being a French major has been learning about French bread culture (the French love bread), so it was interesting to see that element strongly in the first chapter.

We see how much suffering Jean endured for this loaf of bread – grueling labour for 19 years. But as he goes to bed, full and in clean sheets for the first time since his incarceration, he cannot get the bishop’s silver plates out of his mind. In the wee hours, he steals them and runs away.

The next morning he is brought back to the bishop by three gendarmes. Instead of an admonishment, the bishop gives him two silver candlesticks and sends him on his way. The silver, he says, “belonged to the poor. And who was that man? A poor man, evidently.” I found this extreme forgiveness and benevolence touching – M. Bienvenu seems almost too good.

Next, we find Jean alone on a mountain road, when Petit Gervais, “One of those pleasant and gay youngsters who go from place to place, with their knees sticking through their trousers” goes by. The boy drops a single coin – 40 sous – and Jean hides it under his shoe. The boy pleads and cries for his coin, but Jean does not budge. Finally, Petit Gervais runs off. Suddenly, as the coin glints up at him, Jean realises what he has done – with a backpack full of silver, he has stolen from a child. He runs after the boy, but to no avail: Gervais has disappeared.

“What a wretch I am!” exclaims Jean, and he falls into tears for the first time in 19 years. The chapter ends with his repentant return to the bishop.

I really enjoyed this first chapter! I found the language level harder than Bolaño, and much slower paced, which I did enjoy. For The Savage Detectives, I found I could read very quickly, while here, I had to plod (“plod” has negative connotations I feel – I plodded happily) through to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I enjoyed the historical distance between 2026 and the mid-1800s – references to carriages and millet seeds were lost on me – while also enjoying the timelessness of forgiveness, self-consciousness, and redemption. I am excited to see what Jean does with his second (maybe third?) chance.

For a question, what do you think about redemption as a theme in literature? Are there other stories that come to mind?

On Saturday I went out with a friend I’ve known for 12 years, with whom I only recently reconnected, after losing touch for 2 years. We ate at the Richmond Center food court. Moon asked me if I drink these days. Yes, but mostly just beer. No wine and cheese for the French major? Haha, no Moon, I guess not. I also like carbonate in my drinks, beer or Coca Cola as an occasional treat, it slows down the drinking, because it physically hurts you.

*Conversation at Iona Beach Park about carbonate

I thought our conversation fitted the general atmosphere of my chosen novel perfectly, so I used it as an incipit for my blog. In Conversation in the Cathedral, the main character Santiago runs into Ambrosio, old servant of his family, and in the Cathedral, a cheap diner where over beers they talk about fragments from Santiago’s youth, filling each other in on the parts the other wouldn’t have been aware of. This conversation makes up the entire book. The style of narration takes a little getting used to. As I parodied in the beginning: no quotation marks, names are inserted abruptly to indicate who is talking to whom. However, after the second chapter, you get the gist of it, and the increasing sincerity of the confessions and begins to draw you in. This rhythm coincides perfectly with a conversation over beers — the more you drink, the more you start to shed your dignity, perhaps trusting the other parties to be too drunk to remember what you say. In Chapter 2, which is about Santiago and his friend almost succeed in drugging and raping their fired maid Amalia, there is noticeably less description of his internal workings than in Chapter 6, about him joining the Marxist study group in university and his secret love for his friend and comerade Aida.

The depth and sincerity of the confession is what makes Santiago likeable, much more so than someone like Garcia Madero. Whereas Garcia Madero lets himself be swallowed by the Visceral Realist movement, Santiago constantly reflects on why he joined the study group, and the impurity of his intentions bothers him deeply: “not just the revolution, he thinks. Lukewarm, hidden, a heart too, and a small brain, alert, quick, calculating.” He did want to break with his family, his senator father, traditional mother, and ignorant violent brother. He did have a crush on Aida too, although he suppressed it until Aida starts to go out with their friend Jacobo. But most of all, he wanted to fill an emptiness in himself, and despite being a firm atheist, he does not consider himself too different from the devout Catholics around him. They just filled their inner emptiness with different things. The fact that he could face his own insincerity makes it easy to identify with him. The fact that he feels troubled by his impurity makes me want to call him an idealist, and I always find myself drawn to the idealist in a story. For this week’s discussion, I would like to ask you to introduce me to a character from your book whom you would call an idealist. What makes them an idealist? Do you like this character? Why or why not?

Drawing a comparison between the emptiness of the Socialist students and the devout Catholics, two polar opposite groups when it comes to politics, Marios Vargas starts to hint at the phenomenons behind why Peru is “fucked up”. I’m waiting for him to elaborate on the emptiness and connect it more directly to the state of the country.

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 it all is: Daniel (age 10, in 1940s Barcelona) is sad because his mom died so his father wakes him up before dawn to meet some guy at a bookstore that he’ll one day inherit. He chooses a book (/the book chooses him) and becomes obsessed with it and its author.

I enjoyed the first section of this novel. It’s rather fast-paced and the tone is to-the-point, but the prose is nice to read and there’s a good mix of dialogue and introspection so far.

One of the first questions that came up for me while reading is the connection between the concept of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (the name of the bookstore) and the relationship between Daniel, his deceased mother, and his father. It was mentioned early on that Daniel woke up one night crying, saying he couldn’t remember his mother’s face. When his father comforts him by saying he’ll remember twice as hard for the both of them, Daniel thinks to himself that his father won’t be around forever. I think we’re meant to connect here cemeteries (final resting places) of forgotten books, forgotten stories, forgotten people.

People make stories, and so I think Daniel forgetting these parts of his mother will come back around to mean something. If each shopkeeper of the Cemetery is called to a specific book to safekeep and remember for the duration of their life, there’s bound to be some metaphor growing here about people and life and death, especially with the book’s war themes. I’ll wait until I’m further into the book, until I have a more comprehensive perspective, before trying to outline this better.

Another idea I thought was worth noting from this first part (I misplaced the page number, but will comment below when I find it) was how it is characteristic of childhood to not understand something but still feel it deeply.  As the novel introduces war in a coming-of-age sort of trajectory, I wanted to highlight this sentiment, of feeling the repercussions of things you don’t yet understand and slowly losing your childhood innocence through the acquisition of knowledge.

I don’t know if anyone remembers the Inkheart series, a set of three children’s/middle-grade books fro the early 2000s, but this novel is giving off a similar vibe (energy) so far (albeit with more advanced/mature themes).

In Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, a grieving father and son set off on a long drive to the home of their wife and mother’s family. Except it’s a lot more complicated than that: the father, Juan, is a medium with a serious heart condition; the son, Gaspar, is beginning to be able to see the dead; and the recently-deceased Rosario’s family is part of the Order, a cult that has made use of Juan’s power for most of his life. The Order hopes to discover whether Gaspar shares his father’s abilities, which they could then exploit after Juan’s (possibly imminent) death. On top of all this, Juan has been unable to “contact” Rosario, and he is beginning to suspect that she was murdered and sent somewhere unreachable.

The first part of the book mainly gives us Juan’s perspective. Juan is a fascinating mess of contradictions: he is very powerful and very sick; he can be extremely gentle and patient with six-year-old Gaspar, and he can be manipulative and physically abusive; he is shattered by Rosario’s death, and he is able to enjoy a sort of romantic involvement with her half-sister, Tali; he is determined to ensure that Gaspar will be protected from the Order after he is gone, and at the same time, he does not want to die — and he knows that he could use Gaspar’s body to keep his own consciousness alive.

On another note, I’m curious about how this English translation compares to the Spanish version. Although I am enjoying the writing over all, there are moments that feel a little clumsy to me, stylistically, and it’s hard to tell how much of that comes from Enriquez herself and how much comes from the translator, Megan McDowell. Perhaps our little Enriquez book club can discuss.

One last thing: I feel sort of silly writing this now, but I expected to find a stronger sense of hope behind all the horror of this story. And maybe there is hopefulness to come in the later sections. Or maybe it’s already there, and I’m just having trouble perceiving it. Have you ever picked up a book that you hoped/imagined/wanted to believe would be “the answer”? That it would be the exact thing you needed or wanted at that particular point in time? Have you ever been right? I realize that’s a lot to ask of a book.

I will begin with a short summary of what has happened so far in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The story begins in an interesting way, saying that the narrator’s father brought him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (in Barcelona, where they live) and already I am wondering what this is. Is it a literal cemetery? The first line spoken by one of the characters is the father, telling the narrator, Daniel, that he “musn’t tell anyone what [he’s] about to see today” (Ruiz Zafón 3). We find out that Daniel is only 10-years-old and this “cemetery” is actually a bookstore. Daniel is allowed to choose, or “adopt”, one book, but Daniel says that he feels the book has actually adopted him. That book is called The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. As the story begins in the summer of 1945, we know that the Spanish civil war is over (1936-1939) and they have entered the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Daniel wants to read more of Carax’s books but finds out through his father’s friend, Barceló, and Barceló’s daughter, Clara, that Daniel holds the last of any of Carax’s books because all the rest have been burned. Daniel ends up falling in love with Clara, who is almost 10 years older than him, so he puts aside many of his interests for a few years and spends most of his time with her. Around the same time that he realizes Clara will never love him, he is visited by the man who has been burning Carax’s books because he wants the final copy to burn. This brings Daniel back into the mystery of Carax. All he (and we) know so far is that Carax was also from Barcelona, fled to Spain during the war, but apparently died in Barcelona. I stopped at page 77, right as Daniel finds out that Isaac’s (book keeper of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books) daughter had a love affair with Carax. 

It was extremely difficult for me to put the book down after that. I felt hooked from the very beginning and just as I was getting into more of this mystery I had to put it down. I am already looking forward to picking it back up, though I have to admit that even though Savage Detectives didn’t pull me in in the same way, I am curious to know what’s going to happen next (and if it will pull me in more!)

As they mentioned in the book, it was quite common for Spaniards to flee the country during that time and try to create a new life for themselves in France. I believe more people left during the dictatorship (though I would have to research whether that was true or not) and I found it curious that it was mentioned that Carax knew what was coming: he knew Spain would be worse after the war than it already was and so he got a headstart, trying to create a better life for himself. So why did he go back to Spain? It seems his stay in France was quite short-lived. 

I was reminded of my own family, reading about the war and the escape into France, however they did not take this headstart, like Carax had. They fled Spain (by walking hundreds of kilometers) to find a better life in France (and eventually Canada), after they witnessed how Franco was ruling the country. 

It isn’t just the historical part that feels most interesting to me, it’s also Ruiz Zafón’s style of writing that I enjoy. It seems that he is also using a lot of foreshadowing, such as, “I felt sure that The Shadow of the Wind had been waiting for me there for years, probably since before I was born, (Ruiz Zafón 7). That tells us that there is going to be some reason why this book chose to “adopt” Daniel. There must be something that the book wants Daniel to learn, or perhaps grow into, in his life. 

I feel I can go on and on, sharing all my thoughts and things I loved about these first several chapters, but I will end with a paragraph that I really loved: “I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later – no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget – we will return, (Ruiz Zafón 8). I absolutely loved this and believe that it’s true. Even if we do not re-read books that we once loved, there is something about those books that have left imprints on our lives, and I think we return back to the themes of those books, because they speak to our souls.

PS I also found the Spanish edition of The Shadow of the Wind as I was wandering through Indigo the other day so I also took this as a sign of being adopted by it and will continue the rest of the semester reading the Spanish edition, as a nice challenge for me.