miranda – RMST 202

YUCK

Agostino……… I guess I should be thinking with an open mind and critically or whatever… But I cannot stand these nasty boys! From literally the first few pages I was already uncomfortable. Why are these boys always so obsessed with their moms.? Like okay. From the first page I already knew what I was getting into with all this jealousy and fixation on his mother and her looks. But oh my god bruh.

One moment I HATE is when the novel describes Agostino’s mother as “still in her prime,” which felt so rude and unnecessary. What does that even mean? It just felt instantly misogynistic, like her value is tied to desirability, even though she’s literally just existing as a mother on vacation. Maybe I am just being nitpicky but I’m already in a bad mood, so whatever.

I feel like there is this common but WEIRD trope of a beautiful single mother and her son, where the son is obsessed with the mom and hates her bf because the son lowkey or highkey wants her.. and this trope is often played as like a gag or something… Maybe I’m making this up… But Agostino and his mother’s relationship is basically that… IT’S ALWAYS FREUD. Their relationship isn’t even like entirely unhealthy.. it’s just a bit odd.. Like his mother isn’t doing anything wildly extreme. She’s affectionate, maybe a little self-absorbed, and kind of weirdly drags him along on these boating “dates” with her young bf. I don’t even know if neglectful is the right word, but it’s definitely inappropriate and confusing for a child..

Once Agostino learns about sex I guess. Everything gets worse. The knowledge “destroys the aura of dignity and respect” he had for his mother (p.42), which is such a gross idea in itself. Like, women can’t be respected once they’re sexual? OMG leave her alone! Why are we watching our mother half naked? Why are we hoping to catch her naked!? Obviously, I understand there are deeper psychological and symbolic readings here, and I’m probably engaging with this at a surface level… but I still hated it.

ALSO. I hated reading about the group of boys. They’re cruel, violent, misogynistic, and constantly humiliating Agostino. The way they talk about women, especially Agostino’s mother is disgusting. LEAVE HER ALONE… And I can’t deal with Saro. This 50-ish-year-old lifeguard hanging around these kids. Why is he here? Why is he so nasty? And what exactly is being implied about what happens on those boat rides? Like. Just control your WILD gang of children. NASTY.

I think I get that the novel is about the loss of innocence, class difference, and masculinity. But I really disliked how that innocence was contrasted against “savage,” poor boys and sexualized women. Like. Of course these poorer boys are nasty, love sex, are evil and animals! Oh but this rich, sheltered, boy is sooo innocent and loves his mom! But now he is “TAINTED” by these BROKE ANIMALS!! WHATEVER…….. Yes I should try to look back on this novel with a more open and mature lens but I really don’t want to think about this 13 yr old boy being attracted to his mother anymore. Sorry. This book made me uncomfortable from start to finish and maybe that is the point, but still. YUCKK.

Also, sorry this may have been my most poorly written blog so far! I promise I know proper grammar and have a university level vocabulary…

My question: Do you think Moravia uses discomfort, especially around class, sexuality, and Agostino’s relationship to his mother, to critique these dynamics, or does it end up reinforcing the same misogynistic and classist ideas it exposes?

bombal

Wow… Writing this immediately after finishing the book, all I can feel is overwhelmed and a bit amused. This has been my favourite read so far, which is not too surprising! I knew I would enjoy this novel more than Proust and Breton just because its written from a woman’s perspective… but still, wow! Ana María… what a woman!

What really struck me is how full her life feels, even though we only see it through memory and death. She has lived through so much. Her first love with Ricardo, complicated romantic and sexual desire with Antonio and Fernando, familial bonds with her father and her children, and intense friendship with Sofía… There are so many different forms of love explored, and none of them feel shallow. The painful ones feel especially real.

My favourite sections were the ones describing her experiences with Sofía and María Griselda. The relationship with Sofía really stood out to me because of how intense it was despite being so brief. They only knew each other for six weeks, but their curiosity toward each other was so deep and immediate.. There’s so much intimacy and then the betrayal! And it all feels so devastating even though it’s so quick. Just thinking back on it… Sofía was the wife of Ana María’s first love… her husband cheated on her with Sofía… and their overall intense affection for each other… just messy!!!

María Griselda’s section was also unforgettable. Her beauty is described as almost violent, like it traps her instead of freeing her. The line about her loneliness, “any expression that could have made her recognize herself as a link in a human chain… Oh what loneliness was hers!” (p. 203), honestly hurt to read. She’s admired, desired, envied, and completely isolated. Her beauty turns her into an object rather than a person, trapping her in a kind of emotional prison. The entire scene, inadvertently caused by Marías beauty and ending in Silvia’s death, was so fascinating and vivid.

As I kept reading, I found myself becoming more and more curious about Ana María’s life. I wanted to know more about what she didn’t choose, what she regrets, what she didn’t understood while she was alive. I found it interesting that these were the moments that surfaced at her death. Out of her entire life, these relationships and experiences are what define her final reflections. It made me think about memory and how we don’t remember our lives evenly some moments just carry more emotional weight than others.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. Maybe because I am so nosey and love reading about all of this drama! All of the relationships and experiences felt so real, intimate, and human. I found myself genuinely invested in Ana María’s life, wanting to understand her choices, her regrets, and the emotions she never fully resolved while she was alive. Reading the novel from the perspective of death made everything feel reflective and so brutally honest. I was forced to see Ana María’s life and feel everything she had ever felt. It was so fun.

My discussion question: Why do you think these relationships and moments specifically resurface for Ana María at her death and how did they impact her?

breton…

While reading Nadja, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Nadja is such a “manic pixie dream girl.” Maybe she was like the first one… But after making that comparison, the rest whole novel feel even more uncomfortable for me… Breton seems fascinated by her spontaneity, her intuition, her drawings, and the way she experiences the world so differently from everyone else. But at the same time, it feels like he’s constantly watching her and not actually caring for her. I think he observes her like a case study and not a real person..

One thing that really bothered me was the fact that Breton has a wife, but he’s spending all this time wandering around Paris with Nadja, emotionally entangled with her. It made me question his moral position from the start. I think, if he already has a wife, why insert himself into the life of a clearly vulnerable woman? Like, Nadja is low-income, unstable, and struggling with her mental health, and Breton seems fully aware of this. That awareness makes his behaviour feel even more weird. He knows she’s fragile, but he continues to stay around her, wanting her presence while refusing full emotional responsibility.

Also, he is aware of his odd behaviour and admits even: “I suppose I observe her too much, but how can I help it? … It is unforgivable of me to go on seeing her if I do not love her. Don’t I love her?” (p. 90). What stood out to me here is how self-focused this reflection is. He’s worried about his feelings, his confusion, his moral dilemma and not about how Nadja might feel. Like this is some situationship between this artsy, mature, capable man and this “quirky,” mentally ill girl. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Breton is such a man (negatively).

I really dislike this kind of dynamic and especially when Breton is describing it: “I have Nadja, from the first day to the last, for a free genius, something like one of those spirits of the air… As for her, I know that in every sense of the word, she takes me for a god, she thinks of me as the sun” (p. 111) Like, okay he sees her as a genius and she’s so wonderful, OKAY. But then he says the god and sun part… Whatever.

ANYWAYS. I do think Breton shows some awareness when it comes to institutionalization and class… I agree a bit with his critique of psychiatric asylums, especially at that time: “Unless you have been inside a sanitarium you do not know that madmen are made there” (p. 139). He also connects what eventually happened to Nadja to poverty: “Nadja was poor, which in our time is enough to condemn her” (p. 142). These moments show that he understands how social systems destroy people in similar situations but he still did all that crap from before. Like, leave her alone. Whatever.

Something I enjoyed was the inclusion of the images, especially Nadja’s drawings. They felt intimate and raw, like a glimpse into her inner world that Breton’s narration never fully gives us. I felt like I could really see her and it made me think like Wow, she was a girl and she drew these.

In the end, I think I enjoyed the novel… but also I’m not sure. I also think the negativity in my thoughts might stem from my prejudice against this trope of a mature man with a whimsical women and I couldn’t get over it while reading and reflecting. So. My bad André..

My discussion question: Breton is clearly aware of Nadja’s mental health struggles, poverty, and the violence of institutionalization. Do you think this awareness make his treatment of her more forgivable, or more disturbing?

proust

Hi everyone,

My immediate reaction post-Proust reading is that I’m confused but I think I understand the gist of it. Throughout the text, I found myself lost at many points and when I thought I was getting into a flow, I would realize I was completely misinterpreting or missing details. So I ended up circling back and re-reading sections quite a bit… I thought some of the wording and description was a bit lengthy and muddled, but a lot of this is probably due to my inexperience with this genre of literature. As I mentioned in my intro post, I’m more used to the straight-to-the-point and more grounded scientific or historical articles (which can also be wordy but in a less artistic way?) I’ve studied in previous classes.

Anyways, despite all this, I think I enjoyed the reading. I was really interested in the beginning where the narrator was describing his experience at Combray as a child wanting his mother’s affection and his father’s disapproval. The description of how important the ritual of just his mother’s goodnight kiss was and the lengths he was going to get this when M. Swann’s visit denied it is embedded in my mind. It reminded me of something that’s been mentioned in many of my classes and even at work: the significance of parental affection for childhood development and how such a small gesture can have such a profound impact on a child. The scene of him sobbing with his mother when she stays with him for the night instead of punishing him for staying up just for a kiss really struck me. When she begins to read to him, the text just laments on how beautiful and gentle her voice is, as well as how much care she takes in speaking… Wow! I found it sooo sweet. I think maybe I am just emotional or really appreciate themes about mothers and their children…

Moving on, I also found the way Proust connects memory, place, and emotion quite compelling, even if it was confusing to follow sometimes. I can really relate to the idea that certain rooms, smells, or foods (like the narrator’s madeleine cookie and tea) and can carry such emotional weight and bring us back to specific moments. It made me think about how a lot of our lives are shaped by seemingly unimportant details and associations.

In all, although I was, at times, a bit lost in the language, I found what I could understand visually stunning and absorbing. Hopefully reading the literature will get easier with more practice throughout the semester, but I’m so far enjoying it either way!

My question is how do you think the narrator’s lack of parental affection affected him and his emotions (especially around love/attachment) later in life? Also, how could this connect to research in real-world studies on childhood development?

Thank you for reading!

RMST 202 Intro

Hello,

My name is Miranda and I’m a 3rd-year psych major. I’ve lived in East Van my whole life and I have a dog, older sister, and younger brother. Post-grad, I’m aiming towards a career caring for children whether that’s through child psychology or teaching. Coming into this course, I’m very grateful for the flexibility offered that I often don’t experience with the rigidity of my recent classes. I don’t have much experience in literature so far but I’m hoping to change that.

To start off strong, I don’t know much about the Romances. When I see Romance studies or literature, the only things I can think of are the Latin languages, Europe, sophisticated writing, and not much else… so I found the discussion on the Romantic World quite interesting in the first lecture video. Actually, I found everything up to now to be really fascinating, probably because I’m starting from scratch here. Something that was particularly striking was the conversation in class about what literature is and its connection to society. It’s a topic I’ve felt strongly about especially around how exclusionary literature can be and how it’s been weaponized against certain demographics. As well, as someone looking to work in education and just a person on my phone nowadays, the ongoing literacy crisis and overall lack of awareness in the power of literature concerns me.

Contradicting what I just wrote, outside of school, I haven’t willingly read a book in years. Maybe a better way to phrase this is my reading has been quite limited recently so I guess I’m challenging myself this semester! I’m not sure what to expect in this course yet since I don’t really have a solid grasp on romance literature… yet. Despite this, I’m excited for the literature in this class since all I’ve done in my university life so far is analyze or write historical and scientific articles. I’m a bit nervous about keeping up with the amount of reading, but looking forward to the change of scenery! This is a pretty universal experience, but I used to be very into reading when I was younger and it tapered off sometime around high school, so I’m excited to maybe forcibly reignite that in this course.

Regardless of my lack of recreational reading, I’m very excited to begin this course and welcome this change of pace from my usual schedule.

Thanks for reading. Can’t wait to meet everyone!