Month: January 2026

Categories
BOMBAL

Reflections on The Shrouded Woman

This week’s reading, The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal, felt very different from the texts we’ve read so far in this course. Compared to Proust especially, I found this much easier to read and follow. Even though the novel deals with heavy themes like death, regret, and unhappy relationships, the writing itself feels fluid and almost dreamlike. It’s the kind of text where the mood carries you through more than the plot does.

What stood out to me most was Bombal’s choice to begin the novel with Ana María already dead. From there, the story moves through different memories from her life as she lies in her coffin, waiting to be buried. This structure made the memories feel fragmented and emotional rather than orderly, which I think makes sense given her state. Time doesn’t feel linear in the novel, and the repeated calls that pull her into different moments give the sense that these reflections are happening in her final moments of consciousness.

Many of Ana María’s memories are centered on love and relationships, but love in this novel is rarely comforting. Her marriage to Antonio is especially unsettling, and it made me think about how romance is often shown as something that limits her rather than fulfills her. Even relationships that begin with affection seem to turn into sources of pain, disappointment, or control. This made the novel feel less like a romantic story and more like a critique of the expectations placed on women in relationships.

Another thing I noticed was how much importance is placed on women’s appearances. From the opening scene, where Ana María is carefully prepared to look beautiful in death, to the way women are constantly compared to one another, beauty seems to be tied directly to worth. Even in death, Ana María takes comfort in knowing she looks lovely. This suggests how deeply she has internalized these expectations, which feels both sad and telling of the social world she lived in.

There’s also a strong sense of loneliness throughout the novel. Ana María longs for connection, but many of her relationships feel incomplete or fragile. Even friendships between women are shaped by jealousy, betrayal, or competition, which makes genuine connection feel rare. Looking back on her life from this in-between state highlights how much of it was shaped by longing rather than fulfillment.

Overall, The Shrouded Woman feels like a quiet but powerful reflection on love, memory, and loss. Instead of idealizing romance, Bombal seems more interested in showing how love can be shaped by social pressure, trauma, and regret.

Why do you think Ana María’s memories focus so heavily on painful or unresolved moments rather than happier ones, is Bombal suggesting that these are what define a life in the end?

Categories
Nadja

Nadja: Love, Madness, or just a Muse?

To be honest, Nadja is definitely not the typical “romance”. Instead of a love story, it feels more like a surrealist experiment or a diary where Breton uses a woman as a mirror to figure out his own identity. It’s a messy mix of philosophy, Paris street life, and random photographs, which makes the whole thing feel less like a novel and more like a “case history” that we’re supposed to solve.

The thing that stood out to me most was the opening question: “Who am I?” It feels like Breton isn’t actually interested in Nadja as a person, but as a key to answering that question. He’s drawn to her because she’s “pure” and “free of earthly ties,” basically floating through Paris and ignoring all the rules of normal life. To him, she’s not just a girl he met; she’s the “furthest determinant” of everything the Surrealists were trying to achieve. She lives her life like a story, and Breton is totally obsessed with that at least at first.

But things get uncomfortable when Nadja’s behavior shifts from “quirky” to actually scary. She starts seeing “heads upside down” and talking about secret underground tunnels. I found the inclusion of her drawings really helpful for immersion, but also kind of disturbing. It makes you wonder: is she actually tapped into some higher reality, or is she just losing her grip?

What really bothered me is how Breton reacts when things get real. As soon as Nadja becomes vulnerable and messy, he starts backing away. He talks about how he and his friends have “minimal common sense” that keeps them from going over the edge, but Nadja doesn’t have that safety net. It’s pretty unsettling that he calls her his “sun,” yet he doesn’t even bother to visit her once she’s locked up in an asylum. It feels like he loved the idea of her madness, but as soon as she became a “patient” instead of a “muse,” he was done with her.

Ultimately, I think the book is a bit of a cautionary tale about turning people into symbols. Breton got his book out of the deal, but Nadja (or Léona) lost her freedom. It makes me wonder if Breton’s “search for meaning” was really just a way to avoid the responsibility of actually caring for another human being.

Is Nadja actually a “character” in this book, or is she just a projection of Breton’s desire to live a life beyond reason?

Categories
Proust

Reflections on the Magic of “Combray”

Reading Marcel Proust’s “Combray” was a very different experience than I expected. The first thing that stood out to me was the style of the writing. The sentences are famously long and detailed, which can be a bit overwhelming at times. However, once I got into the flow, I realized that this “dreamy” way of writing is exactly how our minds work when we are trying to remember the past.

The Childhood Need for Connection

One of the most memorable parts of the text is the narrator’s intense focus on his mother’s goodnight kiss. It sounds like such a small thing, but Proust describes the wait for that kiss as if it’s the most important event in the world. I found the scene where he waits in the dark hallway for her knowing he might get in trouble with his father to be really moving. It perfectly captures how dramatic and high-stakes everything feels when you are a child. For the narrator, that kiss isn’t just a habit; it’s his source of peace for the entire night.

The Social Mystery of M. Swann

I also enjoyed the way Proust introduces M. Swann. It was interesting to see the gap between how the family perceives him and who he actually is. To the narrator’s grandparents, he’s just a neighbor from a modest background. They have no idea that in Paris, he is a “celebrity” who hangs out with royalty. It made me think about how we often put the people in our lives into “boxes” and rarely see the full picture of who they are outside of our relationship with them.

Memory in a Cup of Tea

The most iconic part of the reading is definitely the madeleine episode. The idea that a simple taste of a cake dipped in tea can bring back years of forgotten memories is a very powerful concept.

Proust calls this “involuntary memory.” It’s a reminder that we can’t always force ourselves to remember things; sometimes, our past is just waiting for a specific smell or taste to trigger it. Even though the narrator had forgotten Combray for years, that one bite of the madeleine made his entire childhood home reappear in his mind.

Final Thoughts

Overall, while the language is dense, the themes of nostalgia and childhood sensitivity are very relatable. Proust shows us that nothing is truly lost as long as we have our senses to bring those moments back to life.

Proust suggests that “involuntary memory” (like the taste of the tea) is more powerful than trying to remember things on purpose. Have you ever had a specific smell or taste suddenly bring back a memory you hadn’t thought about in years?

Categories
Initial Thoughts and Course Expectations Introduction

Introduction: Entering the Love Labyrinth

Introducing Myself
I’m writing this blog under a pseudonym, but I’m excited to be part of this class and to use this space to think through the ideas we’ll be encountering this semester. I’m especially looking forward to the discussion-based nature of the course and the chance to engage with both the texts and my classmates’ perspectives through these weekly posts.

Initial Thoughts and Expectations
I wanted to take this course honestly because I was very intrigued when I first learned about Romance Studies. My initial assumption, not going to lie, was that RMST was closely tied to the romance genre in the way it’s commonly understood, such as love stories, novels, or films focused on romantic relationships. However, after talking to friends who had taken RMST courses before, I realized that the field is something much broader and more complex than that first impression.

That shift in understanding is what ultimately drew me to the course. I became curious and I’m hoping this class will help me challenge the simplified idea I originally had of what “romance” means.

My main expectation is to develop a deeper understanding of how literature functions across languages, cultures, and historical moments, especially when those languages share a distant but complicated ancestry. I want to pay attention to what literature includes, what it leaves out, and what kinds of values or expectations it reinforces or questions. I also hope to become more comfortable engaging with unfamiliar material, something I haven’t always done and to use the blog as a space to articulate my ideas clearly and respond thoughtfully to others’ interpretations.

Response to the Lecture and Conversation Video
The first lecture and conversation video presented Romance Studies in a way that was both surprising and refreshing. Instead of defining the field through geography or heritage, the lecture emphasized its lack of a fixed “Romance World.” The idea that Romance Studies is deterritorialized – that it “belongs nowhere and finds a place everywhere”, challenged my assumptions about how academic disciplines are organized. I was particularly struck by the description of Romance languages as Latin’s “bastard offspring.” They are shaped not by purity, but by miscegenation, fragmentation, and the collapse of empire. This framing positions the field as inherently hybrid and resistant to authority.

Overall, the lecture set an open, exploratory tone for the semester – one that invites curiosity rather than certainty. I’m fascinated by how Romance Studies embraces hybridity, translation as both betrayal and homage, and the creation of new forms of expression. As we begin the readings, I look forward to seeing how these ideas develop and to engaging with the discussions that emerge from them.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet