Categories
Cervantes

Everybody Is Becoming Don Quixote

So last week I wrote about how funny Don Quixote’s ability to turn everything into whatever he wants is. The windmills becoming giants and inns becoming castles and what not. Going into the second half of Part I, I expected more of the same: Don Quixote misunderstands something, Sancho tells him he’s wrong, Don Quixote ignores him, and somehow both of them end up getting beaten up lol.

And to be fair, there is still alot of that.

But what I found more interesting this time is that Don Quixote isn’t the only person creating stories anymore. Everyone around him has started doing it too.

The priest and barber know that simply telling Don Quixote to go home isn’t going to work, so instead of trying to bring him back into reality, they enter his reality themselves. Dorotea becomes a princess whose kingdom has been stolen by an evil giant, and suddenly Don Quixote is completely willing to follow them. At that point I started wondering who was actually being ridiculous. Obviously Don Quixote believes the story, but everyone else is now dressing up and inventing kingdoms and giants just to communicate with him.

Even Sancho is getting more pulled into it, he knows Don Quixote is crazy and always tries to point out when things aren’t what Don Quixote says it is. Yet he sometimes starts thinking about the island he’s supposedly going to govern and the rewards he’ll receive when Don Quixote becomes an emperor. Maybe spending enough time around someone else’s reality eventually makes it feel a little more believable.

There’s something that caught my attention that relates to to the point i made in the last paragraph, When Sancho describes the actual Aldonza Lorenzo and she clearly doesn’t resemble the princess Don Quixote talks about, Don Quixote basically admits that it doesn’t matter. He says, “I depict her in my imagination as I wish her to be.” I feel like this is one of the first times where his madness seemed almost intentional to me. He isn’t always incapable of seeing reality, sometimes he just seems to prefer his version of it.

And honestly, is that completely different from what everyone else is doing? Dorotea becomes a princess. The priest and barber become characters in an adventure. Sancho starts imagining himself as a governor. Everyone knows these things aren’t real, but they participate because the story gives them something they want.

Question: At what point does playing along with Don Quixote’s imaginary world stop helping him and start making his madness worse?

 

 

Categories
Don Quixote

POOR ROCINANTE

I will start by saying that i still have 30 pages to read but do not fret, i will finish them tonight before class.  That being said, I feel like I already have a pretty good understanding of Don Quixote as a person , and more importantly, I feel incredibly bad for Rocinante.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most so far is just how crazy Don Quixote is. I knew about the windmill scene from class, but I didn’t realize that basically his entire life works like that. These chivalry books really got to him, he literally starts interpreting real life situations as if he is in one of these books. An inn becomes a castle, ordinary people become knights and characters in his adventures, and obviously windmills become giants. What makes it even funnier is how completely confident he is. When reality proves him wrong, he doesn’t really reconsider anything. He just finds another explanation that allows his version of reality to continue.

While I was reading, Don Quixote actually reminded me a lot of Arthur from the anime Fire Force. Arthur is also completely obsessed with the idea that he is a knight, and one of the funniest things about his character is that his abilities basically become stronger depending on how deeply he believes in his own fantasy. The closer he feels to being a real knight, the more powerful he becomes. Don Quixote obviously doesn’t suddenly gain superpowers, but I feel like his brain works in a very similar way. His belief that he is a knight is so strong that reality almost becomes secondary. If something doesn’t fit his story, he just changes his explanation of what happened instead of admitting that he might be wrong.

And then there’s poor Rocinante.

Rocinante is basically dragged along for all of Don Quixote’s adventures and has absolutely no idea why any of this is happening. Don Quixote’s imagination can turn an inn into a castle and windmills into giants, so of course his horse also has to become some legendary knight’s horse. I think that contrast between what Don Quixote sees and what is actually happening is probably my favorite part of the book so far.

The weird thing is that even though Don Quixote is clearly delusional, I actually find him pretty likeable. He gets beaten up, embarrassed, and proven wrong constantly, but none of it really destroys his enthusiasm. There’s something almost admirable about how committed he is to the person he wants to be, even if everyone around him can see that his version of reality makes absolutely no sense.

Arthur would definitely understand him.

Rocinante, on the other hand, deserves a vacation or perhaps a new owner.

Question: If you could convince Don Quixote that only one thing from his imagined world wasn’t real, what would you choose, and do you think he would actually believe you?

 

Categories
Columbus

Columbus

I guess, I’ll start by admitting that I didn’t manage to finish the entire reading this week. I was a little short on time, but I read as much of Columbus’s journal as I could, and even from what I did read, there were a few things that really stood out to me. Going into this reading i though it would just be about the exploration, discovering the americas and documenting what he found. I found what interested me most was how Columbus interpreted everything he encountered.

Something I found almost funny at times was how determined Columbus was to make everything fit what he already believed. He leaves Spain expecting to reach the Indies, and even when he encounters places and people that don’t necessarily match those expectations, he doesn’t really question it. Like when he reached Cuba and continues to search for the great khan. It made me think, was columbus actually trying to discover a “new” world or just shape what he saw into what he already understood.

The communication between Columbus and the Indigenous people made this even more interesting. He repeatedly admits that they communicate mostly through signs and that he has difficulty understanding them, yet he still draws some pretty huge conclusions from these interactions. Whenever someone seems to gesture toward another island or ruler, Columbus somehow ends up connecting it back to gold, spices, or the places he already expects to find. It made me question how much of what we are reading reflects what the Indigenous people were actually communicating and how much is simply Columbus hearing what he wants to hear.

The way Columbus describes the Indigenous people, He seems genuinely impressed by their generosity and friendliness. At the same time, he notices their lack of European weapons and quickly begins thinking about how easily they could be controlled. At one point, he even claims, the Spanish could “keep the whole population in subjection and make them do whatever one wanted.” I found that shift pretty disturbing. The same peacefulness and generosity that Columbus admires also become reasons, in his mind, that these people could be exploited.

That contradiction is probably what I’ll remember most from what I read. Columbus seem genuinely wondering at the people and places around him, but he is also evaluating them at the same time: Can they be converted? Where is the gold? What can this land provide? How easily could these people be controlled? It made the journal feel like more than just a record of exploration. In a way, it also becomes a record of how Columbus sees the world, and sometimes that tells us just as much as the things he is actually describing.

Question: Do you think Columbus sees the places and people he encounters for what they are, or is he always seeing them through what he already expects and wants to find?

Categories
Introduction

Somehow, I’m Back

Hi everyone! My name is Muhtadi, and I’m a fifth year studying an interdisciplinary combination of Computer Science, Economics, and Commerce at UBC. As you can probably tell from that combination, literature isn’t exactly the most obvious place you would expect to find me, yet somehow I am back for another RMST course.

I took RMST202 previously, and going into it I really didn’t know what to expect. I definitely wouldn’t have described myself as someone who regularly sits down and reads novels, and the idea of getting through a new book every week was a little intimidating. Some weeks were definitely easier than others (I’m still recovering from Combray), but by the end of the course I realized I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I expected.

I think a huge part of it was also coming to class and and discussing it with other people, there were books I finished thinking I completely understood, only to come to class and hear an interpretation I never would have considered myself.

Outside of school, a lot of my interests are pretty far removed from literature. I’m really interested in technology and business, and I enjoy working on different projects. When I’m not doing something school-related, I’m usually hanging out with friends, going to the gym, playing different sports, or gaming. That being said, RMST 202 actually got me into reading a lot more. Since finishing the course, I’ve started reading quite a bit of Dostoevsky, which is something I definitely wouldn’t have expected myself to say before taking the class.

I guess I’m excited to see how this course compares to RMST 202, especially now that I know a little more about what to expect. One of the biggest things I took away from 202 was becoming more comfortable with books that I didn’t immediately understand or even enjoy at first. Some of the readings I struggled with the most actually led to the best discussions, because hearing everyone else’s interpretations made me notice things I completely missed while reading on my own.

Hopefully RMST 201 introduces me to some more books and authors I wouldn’t have picked up on my own, and maybe adds a few more names to my reading list along the way.

Question: What kind of books or stories do you normally enjoy?

Categories
Conclusion Uncategorized

Conclusion; what stayed with me

I can’t believe its the end of the semester already. Coming to the end of this course, I keep thinking about how every book we’ve read felt so different on the surface, yet somehow kept circling back to the same questions. At the beginning, I thought I would be reading a series of unrelated novels. Instead, it feels like I’ve been reading variations of the same idea: how people understand their lives, and how those lives are remembered, told, or even distorted over time.

If I think back to Combray, everything started with memory. The way something as small as a taste or a sensation could unlock entire worlds made me realize how much of our lives exists in fragments rather than in clear, structured narratives. That idea kept showing up again and again. In The Shrouded Woman, memory becomes something almost final, a last reflection on a life that can no longer be changed. In Nada, it feels quieter, more observational, like simply surviving a period of time and only later understanding what it meant.

As the course went on, I started noticing a shift from internal reflection to something more external. In The Time of the Doves, survival takes center stage. Natalia doesn’t get a crazy transformative moment she just endures slowly. And that idea stayed with me, especially when we later read The Hour of the Star, where Macabea’s life feels almost invisible until the very end. Both novels made me question what it means to “matter,” and whether being seen or remembered is something everyone even gets.

In Money to Burn, the story is built through fragments, reports, testimonies, and different versions of events; making it impossible to settle on one clear truth. By the time we reached Soldiers of Salamis, it felt like the course had come full circle. The novel isn’t just about history, but about who gets remembered in history and why. The most important figure in that story isn’t the one who survives or becomes famous, but the one who disappears.

Looking back, I think what changed most for me is how I read. At the beginning, I was looking for clear plots, strong character development, or even something like a resolution. Now, I feel more comfortable sitting with uncertainty. Many of these novels don’t give clear answers, and I don’t think they’re meant to. They just leave you with lingering questions long after you are done reading them.

If there’s one thing I’m taking away from this course, it’s that stories are not just about what happens, but about how and why they are told. Memory is selective, narration is subjective, and meaning is something we often construct after the fact. In that sense, every story is incomplete but maybe that’s what makes it worth returning to.

And maybe that’s also what connects all of these books: not the events themselves, but the quiet realization that what stays with us isn’t always the biggest moment, but the ones we keep coming back to, trying to understand.

My question this time is, If every story is shaped by memory and perspective, do you think it’s ever possible to truly understand a life solely through storytelling?

And with that i end my final blog in this course, its been a great and enjoyable course. Huge shoutout to professor Murray,    Daniel and Julian for making this course such a pleasant experience.

Categories
Cercas

Who gets to be remembered?

This book has been quite a good read, in the beginning i thought it would be straightforward story about the Spanish civil war (which is knew nothing of). Not only does the book tell us about what happened during war, but it also shows us how difficult it is to know what happened in the first place.

It was quite interesting that the book revolved around one single moment; when a Republican soldier finds Rafael Sánchez Mazas hiding in the forest and chooses not to kill him. It’s such a simple decision, but it ends up carrying more weight than the war itself. Mazas survives, goes on to live his life, and becomes a known historical figure. But the soldier, the one who made the moral choice, completely disappears from history. That contrast really got me thinking about the history we know and how many influential figures we probably don’t even know about.

As Cercas begins investigating the story, I found myself getting pulled into his process. He interviews people, reads accounts, and tries to piece everything together, but the more he searches, the less clear things become. Everyone remembers things differently, and certain details feel exaggerated or incomplete. Even in the beginning with his interview with Ferlosio he says”I finally managed to salvage it, or perhaps I made it up”(17). It made me realize how much history depends on who is telling the story and how it’s told.

At first, Cercas seems focused on Mazas, but over time it becomes clear that Mazas isn’t really the point. He survives mostly by chance, not because of any heroic action. The real question becomes: who was the soldier who spared him, and why did he do it? This shift made me rethink what heroism actually looks like. Instead of something dramatic or widely recognized, it might just be a quiet decision that no one else ever sees.

I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into it, but when Miralles says, “The real heroes are born out of war and die in war”(197), it seems to explain why Cercas never gets a clear answer. If true heroes disappear within war itself, then they aren’t meant to be found or remembered in the way Cercas is searching for them. It almost suggests that the act of trying to identify a single “hero” misses the point entirely.

By the end, I didn’t feel like I had a clear conclusion, but I did learn about the Spanish civil war and my perspective had shifted. It made me think less about who becomes famous in history and more about the quiet, everyday decisions that never get recorded. It left me wondering how many important stories are lost simply because no one was there to tell them.

Discussion Question: Do you think the novel is more interested in finding the “truth” of what happened, or in questioning whether the truth can ever really be known?

 

 

Categories
Piglia

Money and Madness ahh book

Money to Burn was different compared to many of the other books we’ve read in this course. A lot of the earlier novels focused heavily on memory, reflection, and long internal thoughts, but this one moves through crime, police investigations, and action. It actually feels like a story unfolding rather than just a series of reflections. At times it almost reads like a true crime report rather than a traditional novel. The narrative shifts between different perspectives, police accounts, and conversations, which can be a little confusing at first, but it also makes the whole event feel much more real.

What stood out to me most was the strange mix of chaos and intimacy within the group of criminals. The gang escapes to Montevideo after the robbery and as the police begin to close in on them, they hide out in an apartment where most of the tension in the story unfolds. Even though the robbery is what drives the plot, the novel seems much more interested in the psychology of the characters than the crime itself.

The relationship between Dorda and Brignone was an interesting one to me. Their connection feels deeper and more emotional than the typical partnership you might expect between criminals. While the group is falling apart under pressure, the loyalty between them remains strong. At the same time, Dorda’s mental instability makes everything more unpredictable. His paranoia and violent outbursts create a sense that things are inevitably heading toward disaster. It felt like the novel was constantly building tension not just through the police closing in, but through the characters slowly losing control of the situation.

One of the most memorable moments in the book is when the gang begins burning the stolen money while they are trapped in the apartment. That scene really stuck with me because it completely changes the meaning of the robbery. They risked everything to steal the money, yet in the end they destroy it themselves. It almost feels like an act of defiance, as if they would rather burn the money than let the authorities take it back. In that moment the story stops being just about crime and becomes something more symbolic about power, rebellion, and the absurdity of risking lives for wealth.

Reading this also reminded me of when Pablo Escobar was on the run, and burned about 2 million dollar simply to keep his daughter warm . While the situations are obviously very different, the image of money being treated as something disposable felt strangely similar. In both cases, something that normally represents power and wealth becomes meaningless in a moment of desperation.

Overall, Money to Burn felt messy and intense but also real. None of the characters really come across as clear heroes or villains. Instead, it feels like you’re watching a group of people slowly spiral deeper into a situation they can’t escape. By the end, it didn’t feel like the story was just about a robbery anymore, but more about desperation, loyalty, and how quickly things can fall apart once everything starts going south.

Discussion Question:
Do you think the gang burning the money was an act of rebellion against the system, or was it simply the final sign that everything had spiraled out of control?

Categories
Duras

Trying to understand The Lover, i guess

To be honest, when I finished The Lover, my first reaction was something like… what exactly did I just read? Not in a bad way, but in the sense that the novel feels strange and difficult to pin down. The story doesn’t unfold in a clean, chronological way, and the characters themselves are hard to place into clear categories. Everyone feels morally complicated, and by the end I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to sympathize with them, question them, or both.

One thing I kept noticing while reading was how blurry the power dynamics in the novel are. At first, it seems obvious that the Chinese lover holds the power. He’s older, wealthy, and able to provide things the narrator’s family desperately needs. But the more the story continues, the less clear that dynamic becomes. In many scenes he actually appears nervous and emotionally fragile, while the narrator seems calm and detached. She knows exactly what the relationship means and doesn’t really try to hide the fact that she benefits from it financially. At the same time, she’s only fifteen, which constantly reminded me that she’s also in a vulnerable position herself. Because of that, it became hard for me to place either of them neatly into the role of “victim” or “perpetrator.” Both seem to exist somewhere in the middle i guess.

Another thing to point out was how easy it is to forget how young the narrator actually is. The voice of the story feels much older and reflective, which makes her sound more mature than a fifteen year old girl normally would. I caught myself thinking about her decisions as if she were an adult, and then suddenly remembering that she’s still technically a child navigating a complicated world.

If there’s one character I found much easier to judge, though, it was the older brother. Compared to the rest of the characters, he doesn’t seem to have the same kind of ambiguity. His cruelty toward the rest of the family feel constant, and the way the mother continues to protect him despite everything makes the household even more chaotic. You could argue that the family environment helped create him, but it still felt like he was one of the few characters who consistently caused harm without much reflection, unless i missed something about him when reading.

Overall, what stayed with me most about The Lover is how it refuses to give simple answers. The characters aren’t clearly good or bad, and the relationship at the center of the story never settles into one clear interpretation. Instead, it forces the reader to sit with the discomfort of those blurred lines. In a strange way, that might be the point. Real relationships and power dynamics are often messy, and this novel doesn’t try to simplify them.

Discussion Question: Do you think the relationship between the narrator and the lover is meant to be read primarily as exploitation, or something more emotionally genuine? Or is the novel intentionally refusing to let us settle on one answer?

Categories
Lispector

Invisible until the end

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like The Hour of the Star. It’s not just the story itself that feels different, it’s the way it’s told. Half the time I forgot about the plot because Rodrigo, the narrator, keeps interrupting to talk about writing, about poverty, about whether he even has the right to tell Macabea’s story. It almost felt like I was watching someone wrestle with their own conscience while trying to write a novel.

And then there’s Macabea.

She was just so weird, like she doesn’t demand anything of the world. She doesn’t question her poverty. She doesn’t question Olimpico when he insults her. She doesn’t even seem fully aware that her life is small and fragile. She just… exists. Eating hot dogs. Listening to the radio. It made me uncomfortable because we’re generally used to protagonists who fight back or at least reflect deeply on their suffering. I guess at this point in the course i should’ve expected something like this.

At first, I found that frustrating. I kept waiting for her to have a moment of realization or rebellion. But that moment never comes. And maybe that’s the point. Not everyone gets a dramatic awakening. Some people move through life without ever being told they matter.

The fortune teller scene honestly broke me. For the first time, someone speaks to Macabea as if she has a future. She leaves glowing, believing she will marry a rich foreign man and finally be happy. That tiny spark of hope feels almost cruel in hindsight. Because right after that, she’s hit by a car.

And suddenly, that’s her “hour of the star.” The moment she becomes visible is the moment she dies.

Coming from a third world country that’s very poor, I couldn’t stop thinking about how society works like that. How many people live unnoticed until something tragic makes others pause? Lispector doesn’t give Macabea transformation, redemption, or even awareness. She gives her attention only in death. It’s devastating in a quiet way.

I also keep thinking about Rodrigo. Is he honoring her story, or exploiting it? He constantly reminds us that she’s insignificant, and yet he’s the one who decides to write about her. It made me wonder whether telling someone’s story is an act of compassion or control.

Discussion Question:
Do you think Macabea’s lack of self-awareness protects her from suffering, or does it make her even more tragic?

Categories
Rodoreda

The weight of survival again??

I’m seeing a pattern here with all these novels, the protaganists are just surviving every single god damn time and it’s always so emotionally heavy. The Time of the Doves left me feeling that emotional heaviness. Not because it was confusing or structurally difficult, but because of how quietly devastating it is. Everything happens slowly, there isn’t a clear turning point where everything shifts. Instead, we follow Natalia’s life as it slowly narrows under the weight of marriage, war, poverty, and expectation.

What struck me most was how gradual everything feels. Natalia doesn’t dramatically resist Quimet when he renames her Colometa. She doesn’t protest when the doves take over her home. She doesn’t declare her suffering when hunger nearly destroys her and her children. She absorbs it. And that absorption felt painfully realistic. Her life doesn’t collapse in one moment it kinda like slowly erodes.

The doves especially stayed with me. At first, they almost seem harmless, just one of Quimet’s strange obsessions. But as they multiply and invade every room, they start to feel suffocating. The smell, the noise, the constant presence, it’s like Natalia’s own identity is being crowded out. By the time the war begins, the apartment already feels like a cage to her.

Quimet’s death is another important moment to me.It isn’t written as a grand tragedy. It’s abrupt, almost muted. And what’s even more unsettling is that alongside grief, there’s relief. That complexity made the novel feel honest. Natalia doesn’t suddenly transform or become empowered. She just survives, just like all our protagonists in this course. Her second marriage to Antoni isn’t romantic or passionate, it’s stable. And in a world that has taken so much from her, stability becomes a form of mercy.

The final scene in the Placa del Diamant really felt like the emotional release the entire novel had been building toward. That scream she lets out, the one she seems to have been carrying for years, felt less like anger and more like the sound of finally letting something go. It’s not victory. It’s not freedom in a dramatic sense. It’s just release.

What I keep thinking about is how this novel centers survival rather than transformation. Natalia doesn’t become a radically different person. She doesn’t “find herself.” She endures. And maybe that’s Rodoreda’s point: for many ordinary women living through war and patriarchy, survival itself is an achievement.

 

When you finished the novel, did you feel like Natalia had gained something by the end, or mostly lost something?

 

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