RMST 495/520: Long Books

Back to Les Misérables for this week! Here’s a quick summary of the book so far:

Jean Valjean was convicted for a crime in his youth. He repented and became a beloved mayor, but then tenacious police officer Inspector Javert found out about his criminal past and started hunting him down. Along the way Jean rescued a little girl named Cosette, whose mother he knew. Last we left off, Jean and Cosette were living on a farm, Javert still hunting to no avail (yet anyway).

The next section of the book is called “Marius,” which is what I read for class today. Marius Pontmercy is a new character, though linked to the story so far: Thénardier, the barkeeper who raised (read, abused) little Cosette, fought in the Battle of Waterloo alongside Marius’s father. Thénardier scavenged a medal off of almost dead Monsieur Pontmercy, who mistook his actions as trying to save him. Thénardier really is no good, and contrasts through with Jean as a man who appears noble yet is cruel behind closed doors.

Marius is a young man raised by his royalist grandfather and his unmarried aunt. After his estranged father’s death, Marius learns that his grandfather had intentionally kept the two separated; he then rejects his grandfather in memory of his father, leaving home for Paris. With this rejection we see a return to the ideals of the French Revolution: where his grandfather represents the royalists, Marius turns away to embrace a more Napoleonic stance. Marius meets new friends along the way, which brings me to my next discussion point.

I would like to discuss the relationship that I see between Les Misérables and The Savage Detectives. Though as we discussed in class, it seems that long books are long for many different reasons, in this section I found that these two long books anyway share a few similarities. First of all, Marius reminded me a lot of Juan García Madero: orphans raised by family members, now young men, pushed to be lawyers but reject this path in favour of wandering, and then leaving home to look for answers in other people and ideals.

Additionally are the expansive lineups of characters, as well as portraits of them, Victor Hugo stating explicitly, “This is the history of many minds of our time” (206) to justify these lists. Marius, his grandfather, father, and aunt, down to the parakeet that she owns, are described in detail as each are introduced, which is different to the first-person snippets that we get of characters in The Savage Detectives, but still provides an equivalent portait of characters.

Here is one (abbreviated here – it lasted a page!) portrait that cracked me up: “Monsieur Mabeuf’s political opinion was a passionate fondness for plants, and an even greater one for books…he had the appearance of an old sheep” (231).

Marius meets a host of like-minded friends in Paris, “The legitimate sons of the French Révolution” (a very visceral realist-esque), and they discuss, instead of poetry, revolutionary ideals at the Café Musain. Here, visceral realism and the Revolution reach a similar status of the young folks, Enjolras, a friend of Marius, declaring that “Citoyens: my mother is the Republic” (222)

Marius, living nearby where we last saw Jean Valjean and Cosette, observes in the Luxembourg gardens a father and daughter – the father is nicknamed Leblanc and the daughter Lanoire. Though they have new names now, we have met Jean and Cosette once again. At first, he finds Cosette homely, but six months later he is beguiled, and falls in love with her beauty. This novel was written in 1862, so some of the ways that Hugo describes girls is disturbing from a modern standpoint: “that pure and fleeting moment which can only be described with these two words: sweet fifteen” (237). Marius then proceeds to what we might interpret today as staking Cossette/Lanoire, following her around the park and to her home, though here it is presented as innocent and genuine love. Eventually, freaked out by this persistant follower, father and adopted daughter move.

For a discussion question building off of this relationship, what do you think about navigating past standards that do not live up to modern expectations?

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 fault, but I am looking forward to seeing where the ending goes. I mentioned in last week’s blog post how I wondered whether authors of long books owe their readers something in their ending that differs from short books, but now I’m wondering whether/how that changes when the long book is not a standalone but rather the first of a series.

This short part that I read included a twenty page experimental(?) interlude, when the characters were interviewing the elderly Jacinta about Penelope and Carax and how they came about deciding to get engaged.

This was only the second (I thought there was a third but couldn’t find it) time the author has used this interlude style of prose, the first being back when they were asking the priest about Nuria Monfort (209).

The way it’s written feels like a flashback scene in a movie (quite dramatic). It’s all italics and is supposed to be the narrative of the person being interviewed (eg. the priest’s section gets interrupted and they mention that he paused in his narrative) but it’s told in third person and doesn’t sound like it’s being told the characters’ voices: “As a child, María Jacinta Coronado was convinced that the world ended on the outskirts of Toledo and that beyond the town limits there was nothing but darkness and oceans of fire” (268). Following Jacinta’s interlude, she continues her narrative for two half-pages in her own voice.

I thought that this flashback writing style choice was kind of weird in its inconsistency, especially since it’s only happened twice (again, maybe) and not every time the characters interview someone about Carax. Now I’m sitting here wondering if it has a structural purpose or if it is just a neat little writing quirk.

My questions for this week come back to ideas of pacing (from our class discussions) and endings. I would say that The Shadow of the Wind (for all I complain about slogging through it) (and it isn’t just me, here is the top review on Storygraph from when I went to make sure people agreed with me that it was medium-paced) is a medium to fast paced book.

I guess when we’re talking about pacing for a long book, should we have longer beginnings and more drawn-out endings? Would this help our middle sections (which has too many pages to be entirely fast-paced without tiring the reader out) to feel like they can cut out some of the excess that takes away from the main story arc?

I am at the part where Bea came home late after hanging out with Daniel. During this part, the line that stood out to me was: “You really don’t understand women, Daniel. I bet you my Christmas bonus that the little chick is in her house right now, looking languidly out the window like the lady of the Camellias, waiting for you to come and rescue her from that idiot father of hers and drag her into an unstoppable spiral of lust and sin” page 190-191. The first part that stood out to me is the word “chick” and the language being used not only in this sentence but throughout the book to refer to women. Secondly, it exposes how the characters really view women and only think of them in a lustful manner. Similar to the Savage Detectives even in the Shadow of the Wind Daniel only views women in a sexualized manner because he was the same way with Clara as well. It shows that they reduce women to this idea of being lustful and waiting to be pulled into “sin.” It’s just really weird. It also shows the patriarchal world we live in because even though this book’s setting is so long ago I still see a lot of it in today’s time as well. 

It’s so much weirder considering Bea is Tomas’s sister and Tomas is Daniel’s best friend. I just do not understand how you can risk your friendship with your so-called best friend for his sister who is already engaged. Even though he told Tomas after it was still just weird and odd to me. And me personally I would not like it if someone was trash talking my best friend’s family yet Daniel seems to have no problem with Fermin calling Daniel’s dad an idiot. 

I like how the book turns to Carax though because Daniel and his personal life is honestly just so boring to me that I could care less. I only enjoy reading about Carax as that is actually interesting. For example, when they were talking about his whereabouts during the early outbreak of the civil war or when they go into father Fernando’s office that is where I actually enjoy reading but anytime it flips to Daniel’s personal life I feel like never picking the book up again. I do think though I am not as excited about continuing reading this book as I was in the beginning. 

Discussion Question: How do you feel about the way women are described and talked about in most Latin literature?

Hello guys!!

I cannot believe I went this far with Don Quixote , but this has been a good experience.
One aspect of the novel that I find very interesting is the relationship between Sancho and Don Quixote. I talked about this before but now I am noticing that their conversations reveal new patterns as their adventures progress.
While Don Quixote continues to talk about chivlary and his idealism , Sancho is more attached to reality which represents the ongoing clash between reality and illusion.
I find that Sancho (despite of not being as brave/ honourable) is no longer a passive servant. Their bond has multiple layers such as friendship , but also a co-dependency ( even at times a bit philosophical).
“Once or twice, as well as I remember,” replied Sancho, “I have begged of
your worship not to mend my words, if so be as you understand what I mean by
them; and if you don’t understand them to say ‘Sancho,’ or ‘devil,’ ‘I don’t understand thee; and if I don’t make my meaning plain, then you may correct me, for I
am so focile” (863).
Sancho is showing that his confidence is growing and tells his master that communication is more important thatn precise grammar.Sancho does not have the intention to be like him as long as he is understood.
In another scene , we see how Sancho goes along with his master’s illusions but he gives it a little twist ( maybe to make some sense on him).
“Well, to tell the truth, senor,” said Sancho, “when I saw that sun of the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, it was not bright enough to throw out beams at all; it must
have been, that as her grace was sifting that wheat I told you of, the thick dust she
raised came before her face like a cloud and dimmed it” (874).
This momment shows not only how Don Quixote sees the world through literature and not by facts. Sancho is trying to modify his truth for a second but Don quixote goes back to his inner world.
The friendship of these two is formed through mutual dependence , humour but the understanding of their individual ideologies.
Another exchange of words that i liek was this one:
“Tell me, senor,” Sancho went on to say, “those Julys or Augusts, and all
those venturous knights that you say are now dead- where are they now?”
“The heathens,” replied Don Quixote, “are, no doubt, in hell; the Christians, if
they were good Christians, are either in purgatory or in heaven” (877).
Sancho is not passive. He demands for answersfrom this opposite logic.The characters connect with each other even though they are in opposite realms ( reality and fiction).
Discussion question :

If you get the chance to read this novel , what arguments would you make in support that Sancho is the real protagonist?

Hi everyone, I can’t believe we are approaching the end of the course so fast, which means all of us will have read both The Savage Detectives and our self-selected book. I am really happy with my choice, as I have enjoyed most of the book, and am anticipating a very funny and ironic psycho-analysis from the doctor for my last chunk of reading.

The part I read in the book for this blog post is titled “The Story of a Business Partnership”. This part of the book delves into the relationship Zeno has with a man Guido, who can be understood as a business rival, but there is more to it than that. Around 150 or so pages ago when Zeno was still pining over Ada (who is not his wife) and was determined to marry her, Ada met another suitor, who was much more charming and charismatic. Therefore, Guido is not just a business rival, Zeno is very envious of Guido because he also married the woman he intended to marry. Then why do I call them best frenemies… well because Zeno acts like his friend. Of course he does. In fact, Zeno goes as far to seek Guido out to become his business partner, which was a doomed idea from the start, but he agrees. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer I guess. The business partnership is flawed and doomed because even though Guido has more charisma and is more likeable, he is disorganized, and spends excessively. You would think that Zeno would see this and intervene, or try to get out of the arrangement, but he does not. Instead, he quietly observes, constantly noting throughout the book that he believes he is more capable, yet does not do much to change what is happening. Yet another example of Zeno’s crippling passivity. Zeno would likely not see it as crippling or destructive, but it certainly is for the average person. Zeno lets things happen to him and then restructures events and realities to fit what he believes to be true, as I have mentioned in previous blog posts. I have to question the degree of his awareness. Does he know he is doing this, is he extremely mentally ill and has no sense of his actions, or a bit of both. Either way, it is kind of fascinating to read because I feel like I am getting one of the most different perspectives I have ever gotten from a book.

That was quite a long blurb, but I found the nature of their relationship to be very interesting. I will summarize a couple other key events that happened during this chapter. Guido begins to experience financial ruin and simultaneously, Ada’s appearances begin to change due to illness, and she is described to become less attractive. You can imagine Zeno is sitting back and enjoying this, there is sense of revenge being served in his eyes, which is quite cruel. Guido, becoming more distraught decides to stage suicide to make Ada feel sorry for him, and it works. So Guido thinks, “hm that was great let me do it again” and does, but dies trying to fake his suicide. It was a big misunderstanding, one that Ada blames on Zeno because he is the one who explained the difference between sodium veronal (fatal) and veronal (not fatal). It seems like anyone who enters Zeno’s life is worse off because of it, but that is a general observation. His death being accidental is very on brand with Zeno’s life and the rest of the book; that being that apparently us humans do not have much volition to do as we please and instead we are almost victims of the rest of the world.

Thank you for reading, I can’t imagine what type of diagnosis a doctor would give Zeno.

This week I read parts four and five of Our Share of Night. These two sections cover events that take place before and after the events of previous sections.

There were some interesting reveals related to the “empty house” episode from part three: in part four (1960-76, Rosario’s perspective) we learn how Juan Peterson discovered that he could open doors to a bone- and body part-littered realm that he, Rosario and their friends called the Other Place; and in part five (1993, perspective of a journalist named Olga Gallardo), we learn that Juan was responsible for the disappearance of Gaspar’s friend (and cousin) Adela inside the house — that he “sacrificed” her in order to protect Gaspar. I still don’t see what’s wrong with empty houses in general; I think the only thing wrong with this one was the door to skeleton hell that Juan must have opened.

On another note, I’ve been trying to formulate something that feels like a real answer to the question of what this book is about. In a back-cover blurb sense, Our Share of Night is the story of members of a wealthy family that worships a destructive otherworldly force and engages in horrifying cult activities with the goal of achieving a form of immortality. It’s also a story that deals with the military dictatorship and the mark it left on Argentina. But I’m not satisfied with the back-cover blurb answer, and I’m not too convinced that Mariana Enriquez wrote a 600-page work of fiction solely for the purpose of emphasizing how bad the dictatorship was. I want to be able to explain in a good sentence or two that there’s something deeper here.

One thing I’ve been reflecting on is how Our Share of Night doesn’t present the main Darkness-worshipping cult family as particularly different from the “regular” capitalists of 1960s-90s Argentina. The Bradfords own a yerba plantation; they torture babies; they threaten journalists; they offer up their land when the military needs to dispose of the corpses of the disappeared; they are brutal parasites, preoccupied with legacy and inheritance, concerned only with their own self-preservation. I think I would have to say that legacy and inheritance are the key elements in this story. More on that next time, perhaps.

My question(s) of the week: Have you found it difficult to define what your chosen book is really about? Has your understanding of its themes changed at all?

While I still have about 90 pages left to read, I can tell that the book is starting to wrap up. I had a feeling that the famous author Julián Carax was not dead, and while this hasn’t actually been confirmed yet, we did find out that on the night that everyone thought Carax died, his best friend (Miquel Moliner) switched identities with him and died that night instead. We will find out shortly if Carax is still alive, or died in another way at a later point. 

I have to say that I’m a little disappointed with the grand mystery of Julián Carax. I was expecting some bigger (and maybe more credible?) reason for why someone would want to kill him. Inspector Fumero is clearly evil, so the fact that he wanted to kill Carax just because Carax and Penélope were lovers (and Fumero loved her too, even though he never told anyone about this) could make sense but the fact that Jorge Aldaya (Penélope’s brother) wanted to kill Carax just because his father asked him years ago to do so? And that he blamed Carax for the reason why his family fell into poverty? It just seems too dramatic and unrealistic to me. Also that Nuria Monfort fell in love with Carax before she even met him? She loved him just because of stories she had heard about him? I don’t know about all of that. 

Having said all of that though, it is still a very engaging story. I was hooked from the beginning and have found it difficult to put down at every moment. I am still interested to find out if Carax is still alive and if Daniel (our main character and narrator) will get to meet him. What is the connection between Daniel and Carax? And what about what I read back on page 373, that Daniel would be dead in seven days? There are still some questions left unanswered so I hope they will be answered before the book ends. 

 You can feel the darkness of the Spanish Civil War, and the following dictatorship, throughout the book (especially in the second half of it). They do mention some things happening in the country but you can mostly feel it throughout the stories of the characters. It’s hard to read sometimes, especially because my family would have lived through some of it (they came to Canada in the 40s/50s). It’s impossible not to think of them, wherever I read about this time period, however it always surprises me that it somehow helps me understand myself better. It seems that each time I gather information about my family (including who they were, what they lived through, etc), it’s like I gain another piece of my very own puzzle of identity. 

A question for the class: Off the top of your head, are there any books you’ve read that led you to a deep reflection about life, and therefore felt like it changed your life as a result of it? Please share the name of the title and why, if you can think of any!  

This week’s section of my self selected book was really short, like 30 pages short. I read it in like 40 minutes by a friend’s fireplace. It was very pleasant; made me happy. This contrasts a lot with my frantic, “i might not finish reading this before class” experience of reading last Bolaño’s section. Following a little bit on my question about reading last blog I think that the context and experience of reading also affect how that section is percived. But I digress.

I’ve been told several times by Jon to actually talk about the book in these blogs. So I wanted to explore a little the idea of horror in Mariana Enriquez’s book. This question has been in my mind since the start, as is quite common that Latin American horror takes the position where the really horrific things are not the supernatural happenings or the gorey descriptions of cults and magic, but the real, tremendously violent events that stain our history crimson. This section, a little chronicle by a journalist, is a “entremés”, a break in the “main plot” of the book. She is investigating a newly revealed “fosa común”, a mass grave used during the military dictatorship. Here she meets with a person linked to one of the previous chapter, a mother of a child we saw disappearing in a non-natural horrific incident. The descriptions to the very real bones and violence does not stray for previous writing from the author, with the scenes being raw, direct, without anything covered by euphemisms. The bones, scattered, tangled, as they are uncovered are the real terrors the character suffer, those that exist in the world outside the book, in our very real, fleshy world. The journalist reflects on what horrors do we chose to focus on, implying heavily that the (in her eyes) fantastical horrors can be a cover, somehow, to the real world: “La imaginación del público se enamora de ciertos horrores y es indiferente a otros” [The public’s imagination falls for certain horrors and doesn’t care for others] (501). Even when the conversation turns supernatural, the journalist thinks that these are just metaphors used to process the very real trauma experienced: “Las metáforas que usaba para comprender la tragedia de su vida me conmovían, pero también me estremecían, especialmente esa especie de delirio místico sobre los poderes de la selva” [The metaphors she used to process her life’s tragedy moved me, but they also shook me, specially that mystical delirium on the jungle’s powers] (505). Empathy, however, is still present. The journalist doesn’t see this as a crazy woman. The journalist sees trauma and is able to relate to the horrors experienced by the interviewee being able to imagine the pain and terror that rules the land:

Aunque podía entender por qué podía enloquecer en ese sentido. Si uno viaja en auto por un camino que atraviesa la espesura, en Misiones, la selva es una prisión con muros a ambos lados, la tierra roja es un río de lava. Ahí, cerca de la laguna, la selva parecía más alejada. A lo mejor por eso elegían el pueblo los familiares, por su apertura. Imaginé los cuerpos en camiones, atravesando caminos embarrados, arroajdos a un pozo, los pájaros [506] nocturnos callados por el ruido de los motores. Había visto, más temprano, un altar a San la Muerte. Y el primer día, cuando llegábamos con el auto desde Posadas, el de San Güesito, un niño muerto y venerado, un animita, como los llaman en Chile. Pensé en los huesos secos que deja el calor, el calor que come la carne hasta que no queda nada.

[Though I could understand how she could go insane in that sense. If one is to drive a path that goes through the thicket, in Misiones, the jungle is a prison with walls on both sides, the red dirt is a river made of lava. There, near the lagoon, the jungle seemed to back up. Perhaps that’s why the families chose that town, for its openness. I imagined the corpses in trucks, traversing mud-ridden dirt roads, thrown into a pit, the nocturnal birds silenced by the motors. I had seen, earlier in the day, an altar to San la Muerte. And the first day, as we arrived by car from San Posadas, San Güesito’s, a dead and worshiped child, an animita, as they are called in Chile. I thought of the dry bones that the heat produces, the heat that eats the flesh until nothing is left] (505,6)

Anyways, what do you think of horror in a world that everyday seems more horrific than the stories we used to fear?

What “counts” as reading a book? I wonder if I did really read part 2 of Bolaño’s book. I have absolutely no idea what happened, what was the story. Somewhat. I actually went into the book’s Wikipedia page and read the summary for part 2 to try and make sense of what happened. I realized that I get lost too easily while reading something that has not caught my interest. Turns out my eyes and my arms and hand and my body keeps going through the motions of reading, while my brain is somewhere else, perhaps rethinking my life choices and wondering if I can still go back to a classical music career (spoiler: i can’t). The issue is that, when this happens in normal circumstances, I go back a reread the passage my brain decided to delete. But Bolaño’s book is so long. Maybe if there wasn’t a time limit, if I could read a page a day and take two or three years to read this book, I would enjoy it, but reading 400 or so pages in a week of something that feels like quick sand (not in the pulling you in and can’t stop kind of way, but in the “there’s sand in my lungs and can’t breathe” kind of way, feels like an impossible task.

Why is reading for school so different than reading for yourself? Is reading for school for yourself? I know that the lines can get blurry, my other book is somewhat an example of that (though the length of it and how slow we have been getting through it is getting annoying), but why is it that Bolaño feels like such an extreme to this? I remember when I had to read Flauebrt, both Madame Bobary and Sentimental Education, or La Maria, or Martín Fierro and the pain (yes, pain, both emotional and physical) was similar. I don’t have answers for this, I have no idea on how to change this, how to change my perspective. I hope part 3 can be a bit of fresh air, knowing is almost over. I think that’s actually the best way to get through these kinds of books: like torture it comes to a point where you just have to endure and hope the suffering, through mercy of life or mercy of death, ends soon.

I am a bit dramatic. I am going through some stuff lately and thinking about Bolaño makes me grumpy. But at least I can say

PART 2 IS OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!