gender – RMST 202

??? star

I’m confused… I’m always confused but I think I’m genuinely lost this time… I think I enjoyed this one… again, I am confused so I’m not sure… I found the narration really interesting, but a bit hard to follow! I felt like I was sitting beside someone who just kept talking and talking and spiralling in real time.

The made-up narrator Rodrigo was kind of entertaining. I thought he was so dramatic, so self-aware, and SO SASSY!! It was like he sat down and started writing whatever crossed his mind. What really stood out to me early on is how much Rodrigo keeps interrupting himself. He’s constantly explaining why he’s telling Macabéa’s story, doubting his own authority, and making weird little philosophical detours. It was actually really funny like when he called her so “dumb she smiles at other people on the street” (p.7) LOL

On the other hand… Macabéa herself made me deeply sad.. She is so passive it almost hurt to read. The way Olímpico and just the world treats her is so upsetting.. Olímpico is actually on a different level though. Every time he opened his mouth I got more irritated. The insults about her face, her body, and her intellect…. Please leave her alone…. The scene where he drops her in the mud (p.44) and she immediately apologizes and minimizes it… She is not even real. She’s in a story being told by a fake narrator and I am still so sad for her. This poor girl has been so worn down by life that she doesn’t even register cruelty properly.

But at the same time.. some of the dialogue is just so funny to me. When she tells Olímpico her name and he goes, “Sorry but that sounds like a disease” (p.35)??? or when he randomly responds, “Nobody looks at a girl like you” (p.44) like HELLO?? The bluntness is so wild and UNPROVOKED.. I felt a bit guilty for laughing because her life is objectively tragic. But I do think the humour is intentional.

About Rodrigo specifically, I thought his relationship to Macabéa was a bit odd.. He claims to love her, even saying he wants to give her soup and tuck her into bed (p.50)???? but the way he describes her body, her stupidity, her emptiness… is a bit uncomfortable. I’m not sure to how feel about it since he’s not even real? And I know Lispector is a woman so I felt conflicted… Sometimes I would forget Rodrigo wasn’t real and be confused on why this man knows so many “womanly” details, but I remember it’s because this is a woman.

Overall, I think I enjoyed the dialogue and narration more than the story aspect of this novel. I was confused, uncomfortable, amused, and sad all at the same time… Very tragic. Very strange…..

Question: Since Rodrigo is literally a made-up male narrator created by Lispector, how should we read the way he both “cares” about and lowkey objectifies Macabéa? Do you think Lispector is intentionally using him to expose how men narrate women’s lives, or does his voice still end up feeling uncomfortable like what it intends to critique?

DOVES

Hello…. Usually when writing my blogs I go back and look at my notes from while I was reading. This time… I see there is a LOT of anger. Which is actually pretty normal for me, but wow. So this blog is basically a running list of all the times Quimet pissed me off. plus a few extra thoughts…

First of all: I did not like this man from the start. SWEATY? AND STINKY and pushy, does not take rejection, immediately starts calling her Colometa (PIGEON GIRL??). The way he just decides they’re getting married after basically five seconds is already a RED FLAG. And Natalia girl…… If you are already running from a man the first night after meeting him… you need to keep running…

What really pissed me off is how early the control starts. He shows up late and doesn’t apologize, and she immediately assumes it’s her fault (“maybe I hadn’t heard him right…”). That moment on page 20 hurt because you can literally see her shrinking herself in real time. Then the neck grabbing (p.25)? The pinching (p.27)???? The constant jealousy over her boss?? It just escalates and escalates. He is CRAZY and ABUSIVE.

And the Maria thing… oh my god. The way he keeps bringing up this mysterious Maria had me SO suspicious. It really reads like psychological manipulation… keeping Natalia insecure so she’s always trying to prove herself. When we later find out he probably never even knew a Maria (p.121), I was like… yeah. Exactly. Control tactic. #manipulation….

What makes the novel especially painful is how Natalia internalizes everything. She keeps doubting herself and keeps adjusting herself for him. His Dumb Ass Motorcycle scenes stressed me out he KNOWS she’s terrified and still speeds around. ANOTHER way he makes her feel small. Also why the hell are you taking a pregnant woman on a motorcycle? or a baby???? YOU ARE STUPID.

The doves I think feel symbolic of Natalia herself. She is trapped, with multiplying problems, the house filling with suffocating noise and growing mess that she has to manage alone. Her exhaustion, weight loss, and constant fear make it very clear how domestic life and these dumb ass birds she didn’t even want are slowly consuming her.

And then the war hits and somehow things get even worse. Lowkey when Quimet went off to war I thought that maybe she’ll get some peace?? But of course Natalie cannot catch a break. Now there is poverty, starving children, just war… The scene when she has to leave Toni at the camp and he’s begging for her to not (p.136-137) and then when she’s literally contemplating ending it all (p.146) were so heartbreaking. I really struggled to keep reading.

There are so many moments I have written in my notes about this BUM. Quimet. But it’s actually making me upset thinking about this man again. The way he laughed at her during their “wedding night” when she expressed her fear (p.51) made me so angry for her. And how she still fears him after his death (p.171)!! I’m just thinking about Antoni Sr. AND I just remembered PERE woww (just p.55-56 I can’t). I had to stop taking note of everything that was upsetting me because it was taking too long for me to get through the novel…

Overall, I really did enjoy this book, even though it was emotionally brutal. It felt painfully realistic in its portrayal of marriage, gender power, and war. I was constantly angry, constantly stressed for Natalia, and honestly just sad at how real her situation still feels.. Just wondering when will I get to read a novel where there is not a man for me to hate on….

Question: Do you think Natalia is ever truly free from Quimet by the end of the novel, or has his control and treatment of her permanently shaped how she sees herself and her life?

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?