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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s constantly explaining why he\u2019s telling Macab\u00e9a\u2019s 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<\/p>\n
On the other hand… Macab\u00e9a herself made me deeply sad.. She is so passive it almost hurt to read. The way Ol\u00edmpico and just the world treats her is so upsetting.. Ol\u00edmpico 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\u2019t even register cruelty properly.<\/p>\n
But at the same time.. some of the dialogue is just so funny to me. When she tells Ol\u00edmpico her name and he goes, \u201cSorry but that sounds like a disease\u201d (p.35)??? or when he randomly responds, \u201cNobody looks at a girl like you\u201d (p.44)\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
About Rodrigo specifically, I thought his relationship to Macab\u00e9a 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\u2026 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.<\/p>\n
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…..<\/p>\n
Question: Since Rodrigo is literally a made-up male narrator created by Lispector, how should we read the way he both \u201ccares\u201d about and lowkey objectifies Macab\u00e9a? Do you think Lispector is intentionally using him to expose how men narrate women\u2019s lives, or does his voice still end up feeling uncomfortable like what it intends to critique?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading ??? star<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,6],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-gender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mshiu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}