Tag Archives: storytelling

Calvino; I too got vertigo while reading this book

I’ll start off by saying that without a doubt I LOVED Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler. It felt new, it felt refreshing, it felt different. In one of my other classes, we have been discussing the concepts of tropes and how they are effective mechanisms in writing. Essentially, what makes a story good is that it uses these tropes to its advantage as providing a resolution or reaction to some form of a climax. However, as we have so evidently seen in this book, there is no such thing as a resolution to a climax for the reader. I think that’s what makes this such an interesting read because it uses the concepts of tropes to its advantage to build a climax, but yet the reader is constantly faced with a sense of dissatisfaction. The protagonist does eventually get some form of a resolution at the end (although one that can be debated to continue), but I found the constant frustration of yearning for that satisfaction to be highly entertaining.

 

I think if I were to pick a favourite story that if I was the reader I would also hunt down Ermes Marana and demand answers, it would definitely be Looks down in the gathering shadow. I really want to know more about the drama between the protagonist and Jojo and simply just read more about Bernadette being a girlboss who I think betrays him at the end. I also particularly liked how that story was narrated because there was almost this sort of nonchalance with the protagonist yet you could still feel how his character was driven by the need for revenge due to his past with Jojo. (However the mention of the tapeworm in this chapter gave me ptsd from the time of the doves).

 

This line is particular I loved from Looks down in the gathering shadow

“Because even remembering evil can be a pleasure when the evil is mixed with I won’t say good, but with variety, the volatile, the changeable, in other words with what I can also call good, which is the pleasure of seeing things from a distance and narrating them as what is past.” (94).

 

In reference to the title of my blog, I think that I actually enjoyed the dizziness and the jumping around from climax to climax more than I thought I would. This is because I was equally invested in the reader’s endeavors and found his story equally as interesting as the stories he would read. I found the whole theme of the boundaries between the reader, the text, and the audience to be extremely intriguing. I think this was reiterated throughout the book with the emphasis of using the form of tu instead of usted. From my understanding, you would typically use the usted form when addressing someone you don’t know or as a form of respect to an elder or authority figure as a more formal conjugation whereas the use of tu would be used in more informal terms. I feel like the use of tu created a more intimate and personal experience and engaged my role as the reader in this novel even though technically I was not meant to be Calvino’s target audience as the reader. I know this novel was originally published in Italian so that also makes me wonder if this distinction is recognized in Italian as well?

My question for this week would be: Which story in the book would you consider continuing to read and why?

3 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Black Shack Alley; a story about struggle and resilience

Joseph Zobel’s Black Shack Alley was an incredibly moving and eye-opening story that I thoroughly enjoyed. Zobel does a really good job at eliciting emotions throughout the book as I felt myself becoming more and more attached to the story as it actually felt like watching a documentary about José’s life. This book was written in quite a bit of detail which I think is reflective of José’s constant curiosity about narratives and the experiences of others. 

One of the themes that I enjoyed about this book, was the idea of storytelling. José has such a fondness for the stories told by others and the imaginations that come along with them. In Part One, it is evident that he loves the daytime and the sun because that’s when he can play with his friends freely, however, the night also brought him enjoyment because that was when Mr. Médouze’s stories were told. This theme carries on throughout the rest of the book however José himself is not the one telling the stories because he always felt like his stories were inferior to tell when compared to the ones of Jojo’s or Carmen’s. However, I think upon reading José’s story throughout this novel, I beg to differ.

“And in his tragic position there, on the cross, seemed to me as incomprehensible as Mr. Médouze’s. And yet, he wasn’t black…” (88)

One of the more obvious themes of this book is racism and classism and we see it portrayed from the very beginning to the very end of the book. This quote specifically stood out to me because José is seeing Jesus’ suffering on the cross, and attributing this pain to being black, something he inherently grew up with and sees as the norm. He becomes more aware of this segregation as he grows older however I think that this childhood innocence of questioning why someone outside his own race has to be in pain was incredibly impactful. You see this slow realization span throughout the whole book until near the end of Part Three where he is questioning Adréa at the bar about her prejudice towards his race and the roots of where it derives from. I found this moment extremely interesting because you can see the progression from him being younger and simply understanding racism as the way the world works, to him being older and questioning why these prejudices exist.

The question I would ask this week would be the following; How does Jose’s journey from the Black Shack Alley to the Lycée help form his understanding of racism and oppression?

 

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized