All posts by nier zhang

Conclusions

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After the experience of reading 13 books this semester, I feel that I have a new understanding of reading. This semester is a process. For the first few weeks, I was excited about the articles I was about to read and felt a constant ability to support myself towards them, but when the interest became an obligatory thing, I started to get a little tired. But luckily, I persevered. So much so that in the end, despite the tight schedule at the end of the semester, I enjoyed the motivation that reading gave me to think, to think about the characters in these books, to think about how these stories made me feel. Although I don’t fully understand what’s in it, I’m still quite shocked that JON recommended it to us because they are really wonderful.

Most of the literary works are from the 18th and 19th centuries, especially the works on the theme of war, which are in the majority. War, a product of politics and history, may bring to the world not only the scars, but also the ideas that are inspired by these tragedies. For example, the changes brought about by the war to the city, the changes in people’s living patterns, the breakdown of families, and the violence caused by the poverty brought about by the war, have all appeared in novels of different eras to some extent.

 About women, about relationships between people, these are some sensitive topics that cannot be easily summarized. I think I have grown in this semester because of the power of reading. It has a subtle influence, even if as a reader it’s just a quick glance, it can still promote the way we think through words, which is really very precious.

For me, I prefer the two books “Bonjour Tristesse” and “My brilliant Friend” that I need to read this week, maybe because their language is easier for me to understand, maybe because I have had girls like that troubles.

Jon and the two TAs Jennifer and Patricio’s class mode is also very interesting and does not give me a very boring feeling. Every time I come to the classroom, I follow their rhythm to further think about the novel, and I can communicate with others to gain new insights.

I am very glad that I signed up for this course. Although the pressure is a bit heavy later on, I hope that I can keep this reading habit, which will be of great help to my future life.

Review of The Society of Reluctant Dreamers

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This is another surreal novel，which are often associated with those ethereal things, just like the theme of this novel-dream or a dreamer. Under Jose’s pen, his articles are very beautiful and colorful. You can see rainbows, blue houses, blue whales in the sky, avocado trees and more. We found a reunion of four different type of personality. Daniel who always dream about strange people is a really kind man. He doesn’t like to hunt animals like his father, but a man who can let go of frogs. “I only remember the sea “ Hossi and Danial father both said about sea when they dead. When he saw the women from the camera, the Cotton-Candy Hair Woman, he had a weired dream about a crow. He found the camera in the hotel named Rainbow Hotel. Everything seems to start here. And the rainbow is just the product of the mapping of light, like the foreshadowing of the dreamer, but it is not real existence. The artist with Cotton-candy-Hair-Woman vivid shown Infront of the reader who filmed about her dream. The owner of that hotel who experience horrible memory but given his hotel a lovely name” Rainbow hotel” Together, these people are both ironic and realistic.

I like the words in this book very much. Although it feels logically contradictory, it can express the author’s meaning very directly. for example, Killing isn’t the same as dying just like Hitler and Gandhi both vegetarian, but they are not same. (The funny thing is that everyone is different, vegetarian or not, so I think it’s logical to say that, but I know what the author is trying to say.)

What they choose to do is unbelievable, to realize the dream, to study the machine of the dream, even in modern times, this seems to be an unbelievable behavior. But these people are working on it. However, reality is unavoidable. Daniel and his party were involved in politics, and their dreams and reality could not overlap, and could only have a rough ending. The Dreamer in the title of this novel seems to refer to people who love to dream, or to people who have dreams. I don’t know if they are the same. There are so many storylines in here that I get confused. Beyond the dream, readers saw the tragic reality of several young people going on hunger strike for their own ideas, and also saw different political ideas about Angola. I agree with finding that on page 66, Daniel’s view of the dream narrative “maybe nightmares help people to deal with traumatic memories besides, it does seem as though dreams help to make memories stick. Finally, they can help us find solutions to problems that are troubling us”

So do you think being a dreamer can really help?

Review of My Brilliant Friend

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The stories of these girls growing up are both familiar and unfamiliar. Maybe I haven’t experienced what happened to them, but the little thoughts of their girls seem to be the ones we’ve had. Girls feel anxious about their body changes during puberty and share secrets with their friends. Elana has a fatal attraction to the “me” in this book because she has a maverick personality. If she wants to do it, including learning, she can do it well. If she doesn’t want to do it, no one seems to be able to force her. This book is like “Old Gringo” in a way, from the point of view of one’s memory. This book is like “Old Gringo” in a way, from the point of view of one’s memory. The disappearance and concealment of Lila became the beginning of this book, taking us back to their girlhood, an era full of “violence” and “chaos”. Lila’s love of Little Women’s books seems to reflect her character. She emphasises her dignity and standards and changes her life through her own efforts. She does not think that she is unsuitable for her father’s job. She loves making shoes, dares to resist teachers, and expresses her own ideas. Lina stepped forward and put a knife to Marcheno’s neck, starting a friendship between the two girls. This also makes Elena’s feelings for Lina both worshipful and appreciative. Her father would throw her out the window to the point of breaking a bone, and her mother would use physical violence against her. Her life is gray; her father would throw her out of the window to the point of breaking a bone; her mother would use physical violence against her; she married early but also met a violent husband; she is still so strong, she chooses to live alone. Although this book describes the parallel lives of a pair of girlfriends, the energy it brings seems not only to reflect on the life experiences of the two women, but also to arouse the women’s self-awareness. When girls are still young and ignorant, they will criticise people and things around them, especially violence and injustice, and then gradually become the disdainful people they used to be when they grew up. But it also tells us that even if life is unsatisfactory, girls should not give up on themselves, give up hope, and give up their dreams. Lila’s aura was not only alluring, but dangerous. Do you wish you had a friend like Lina by your side? Or do you think you are Lina or Elena?

Review of Soldiers of Salamis

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When our original beliefs are defeated by reality, is it that we have changed, or is the society that is the way it is, it is only when we grow up that we realize the most primitive self. “Soldiers of Salamis” is a classic war novel. I like this book very much. Although I am against war, we can still learn a lot from war. It tells stories about Sanchez Mazasn in the Spanish Civil War and how he survived after being captured by the enemy (Republican), people believe he is a hero. After the war, he became a minister in the first Franco government. However, he soon felt despair about his government and politics, so he left and became a writer. How is a hero made? This is one of the questions that has been on my mind since I read this book. Is Sanchez Mazasn truly a hero? He supported violence when it came with glory. But he never really fought for his glory. He was talking at the top of his voice to let people know the necessity of regime change, but he didn’t do anything when he got great political power. Who is the real hero? The author uses long paragraphs to track who set Mazasn free and tries to ask the reader who is the true hero. Answers vary from person to person. I personally think neither of them is a true hero. I hate what Mazasn did. He is a coward. He has great ambition but small resolve, with great power comes great responsibility. He could have done a bunch of great things to achieve his ambition, but he escaped. His behavior reminds me of the words, “What he talks about is ism, what he thinks about is business.” The soldier who let Mazasn free is not a hero either; he is a traitor. He lied to his comrades and failed his mission intentionally. Even with a dash of wartime adventure, a book about a minor fascist would be uninteresting on its own, but the tale of its creation adds depth, emphasizing the complexity and ambiguities of history made me think a lot about heroes. What is a hero? I have no clear answer, but what I believe is that a hero is a sign, a lighthouse, or a conviction that inspires and guides generation after generation of people. Let us believe that, despite the seemingly endless darkness, we can and do seek the light. My question is, what is the definition of a hero?

Review of Amulet

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When I was sitting there reading Amulet, it felt like someone was sitting in front of me, quietly reading her story, a story like a poem, but the content of this book is about violence. This is like a combination of violence and cause, showing the sad atmosphere to the reader bit by bit. From page 6, she talked about a vase. When she looked into the darkness inside the vase. I couldn’t help but think of what Nietzsche once said, “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” It’s like some people are always attracted to the unknown but forget about the potential harm it can bring.

It seems that before September 18, 1968, she still claimed to be the mother of poets, wandering among various scholars, and her life seemed to be full of chaotic stories about poets. A life like this doesn’t seem real, and when poetry and violence meet, everything seems to be waking up. What’s interesting about this book is that Don Quixote is also mentioned. When she saw herself in the mirror, she felt like a female Don Quixote. I think she seems to be saying that what she did in this city, what she went through, was like Don Quixote, against oppression, out of reality, and finally having to return to reality.

The fate of young poets seems to be tragic in this movement against students in Mexican towns, and their lives have lost enthusiasm and are full of confusion and panic. So, some turned into corpses that stink and turn black and lay in the river, and some went to prison and gradually became a member of the secular world. The literature and poetry mentioned throughout this book are like amulets. She described her perception, her hearing, as if she heard their singing, barely rustling, where there were young people, there were children, side by side in the abyss. They cry out in this abyss, hoping someone will come to save them. Even in such an environment, they want to use literature to redeem the world, and literature is like that dust, which is omnipresent and inexhaustible. Like a thin barrier protecting them from the precarious ones. The brutal crackdown that took place in 1968, the history written in blood by the students, set the novel’s brutal, dark tone, as it stated at the outset.

Why did the author name the virtual protagonist he constructed as the “mother of poets”, and what does this show?

Review of Old Gringo from Carlos Fuentes

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I think the historical background of this novel is a bit difficult to understand for readers who do not know the history of the United States and Mexico, so I also read the events of that period while reading the book. Carlos Fuentes’ depiction of the desert is almost treasured, as if I, too, am referring to the place where no grass grows, watching vultures circle, flying sand, and a dying old man travelling alone to his death.

Old Gringo doesn’t even have a name. In the eyes of those commenters, “old gringos” are a group of people who cross the border with indistinguishable faces. “I’m afraid that each of us carries the real frontier inside.” In the first part of the article, I thought that the core vocabulary was still the frontier. In order not to cause too much trouble, the old man went to Mexico with a simple heart and a Don Quixote novel. And he himself, like Don Quixote, is a contradiction, just like his pursuit of death is a very absurd behavior, so that he has a very good performance after joining the army because he is not afraid of death.

From the old man’s conversation with General Tomas Arroyo, we know that the old man fought in the Civil War fifty years ago. And when this old man shows up in Mexico, it’s rotten, just like in Chapter 5. He complains that Mexico makes him sick and his diet is full of rotting worms, just like the people of Mexico are going through.

Ironically, the protagonist’s identity is not revealed until the end of the novel, which is by the American writer Bierce. His end is sad, but it can still be told by Harriet Winslow’s recollection of his experience. I like the author’s description of the experiences of different characters; as if General Arroyo is like a newspaper and the old man is history, they exist in different ways. It’s like the diverse methods of thinking about sensitivity and love in different places and nations, notably the United States and Mexico, when combined with the position of female instructor Harriet Winslow. For this general in Mexico, his relationship with the old man is a bit like competition. He may have some inferiority complex towards this old gringo from a country that creates nightmares for Mexicans, and the old man regards him as a son.

This novel’s tale is enthralling, full of voices and time. Flashbacks are included in the story’s structure as well.

So my question is, in the end, the old man died, and how do we, as viewers, see his death, and what did his death bring?

Reply on “W or the memory of childhood”

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The novel’s structure is novel, as if Island W tells one storey and my childhood memories another, seemingly unconnected but merging in places. What I think is the interest of this book is the certain contents of its description. Everything described is like a real scene, but it’s actually just existed in the author’s memory. It is uncertain whether the things that appear in memory can be regarded as real or not. He also incorporates many elements, similar to war and death. These two stories are dispersed throughout one book, and the other is from the odd same appointment. Finding a link between them was often difficult for me. The title of “champion” is like an acknowledgment of the winner in W’s village division of Olympic sports, and even the names of athletes. Whether at athletic events or battles, the victor receives preferential attention.

In W, or the Memory of Childhood, there are so many characters in the chapters, such as Gaspard Winckler, George, Cyrla Schulevitz, Caecilia Henri, Esther, Berthe, and so on. This part of my memory seems to be more tragic. George’s father was a soldier who died in World War II, while his mother was slaughtered in Auschwitz in a tragic manner during the war. Just like the beginning of chapter two said, “I have no childhood memories.” This seems to contradict the title of the novel. But then read the following content. You can see that his knowledge of his parents mainly comes from objective things like three pictures of his mother and his aunt’s description of his father. Perhaps like many children in the war, he also had a yearning for a happy family relationship, as if page 30 described his imaginary mother’s life.

However, when he talked to the man who wanted to be a lawyer, the picture jumped to the island that he had conceived of.

The sports activities that happened in W and its dietary system are part of the social system of W village. Talk about what benefits the winner can get. On this island mountain, people, or athletes, fight for fame and privilege in this arena. And this Olympic spirit is particularly cruel, because the result of winning or losing affects the treatment they are about to receive, so it has become a world of the jungle. This seems to be more than just a few villages on an island; it looks more like what the world really looks like.

Whether it is the deaf boy named Gaspard Winckler or the protagonist who later inherited his name, it appears that they are all children who are lost and fighting alone in the sea.

I don’t know if you have any questions about the name of this novel. Why is it not called “W and the Memory of Childhood” but with “OR” as the connection?

Reply on The Passion According to G. H

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Clarice Lispector’s article is indeed very obscure for someone like me who doesn’t have much exposure to literature. In the article, she asked herself “could I now start thinking”? But the whole book is full of profound and philosophical thinking, making readers unable to help thinking along the author’s words. She discusses every little detail of what she sees, thinks, and even feels, and seeks to understand and define herself. She connects her hand to happiness, and what is it like when a person doesn’t experience happiness? There may be fears, and desires for the good, which may be something one needs to experience, or think about, in the face of adversity. Many mantras often lead to the meaning behind the appearance by discovering the phenomenon and asking questions. Literary works that portray uniqueness, such as this one, can help us learn more about the world and the events that occur around us. When the author recalls G’H entering the maid’s chamber, he is horrified, but the encounter also turns out to be a process of self-seeking. There are sharp lines cutting the ceiling, empty space and crazy figures on the wall. Through the maid description, just like Lispector words knowing herself from others. And “the drawing is not a decoration it a writing” just like In GH’s eyes, the maid’s evaluation of her was reflected in the lines on the wall. Clarice Lispector’s writing style is inconsistent; her chapters are disjointed, and some of the incidents are even more odd. Is this, like the dissection of a cockroach’s body, a process of building one’s own identity? The description of the environment is also combined with the mapping of mentality, as if it was written on page 82, “No dark, just lightless, I then perceived that the room existed in itself.” The combination of people and the environment deepens the interpretation of metaphysics. This process is full of violence, turmoil, and absurdity. She talks about the cockroach, and at the same time brings up the accidents in her life, such as her pregnancy. Her experiences, her disability, have shaped her unique writing style, living in joy with pain, discovering her own existence. Every chapter and every shot she describes is like a dream, dazed and unrealistic, and it can trigger her thinking. Even a safe can remind her of darkness, hell and pain.

I can’t help but ask my classmates who have read this book, can you understand it? Will this style of writing give readers a sense of humiliation?

Sagan, Françoise. Bonjour Tristesse. Reply

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When I finish reading Bonjour Tristesse, as a reader, I felt a variety of emotions, including anger, regret, and sadness. Maybe because of my upbringing and my education, I didn’t like this book very much. How did a nineteen-year-old girl come up with such a light-hearted storey? On such a lovely summer day, with beach, sunlight, and the scent of love in the air, the title of the book hints that the plot isn’t as fast paced as the image it depicts.

At the beginning of the novel the author uses nobility to describe sorrow. One cannot help but ask, why can nobility and sorrow be linked together? Cécile’s growth, the unexpected price she paid on her road to youth, I believe, accompanied the formation of this feeling.

Personally, Cécile and Raymond, in some ways, remind me of egoists, hedonists, or individualists. They are the sort of folks that lived life to the fullest after war. Before the arrive of Ann, their lives are freewheeling, as described on page 19: Cécile she just is lying on bed, she thinks about her life and the way of enjoying life, and her life seem full of joy without the will of study. And her father, Raymond, enjoys his life around women. The addition of other characters has just hastened the tragedy’s development; even without Elsa or Cycil, Ann’s fate may be the same, simply because they are not the same sort of people.

Cécile ‘s heart is extremely sensitive, for example, she was very happy when she knew that Ann was coming, but she was afraid of her, and she didn’t even want to pick her up with Raymond.

When Raymond and Ann decide to marry, the plot takes a new turn. Cécile ‘s unpleasant sentiments begin to get stronger in Chapter 6 as she fears for her future existence. When Ann said, “I was afraid of your being frightened of me”, I think she is really a smart and considerate woman. She knew how the little girl felt, and she said it meant she cared. Cécile ‘s inner contradiction is obvious, as in the novel more than one place she praises Ann, praising her character, beauty, her wisdom, and even she seems like a distant and untouchable sacred character. Ann’s control over her behavior makes Cécile unable to accept Ann to change their lives. It’s more like a rebellious child, making excuses for her maverick. She would realize that she was a spoiled girl and that she was planning something wrong, but she instinctively avoided the care and love that Ann brought her.

Cécile and her father show off their character, lover, kiss, make love, behind this passionate life, their hearts may be full of emptiness, lacking and not wanting to be discovered by others, which leads them to not want others to hinder them development of.

What I want to know is What happens, will change the direction of the story？

Nada review

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This Spanish girl’s experience seemed strange to me. Her upbringing has been in tune with her age and the social environment in which she grew up since she became an orphan. Because it was unsurprising that there was a tumultuous family dynamic during the turbulent years of the Spanish Civil War. Carmen uses lyrical language to depict Andrea’s surroundings, the words she hears, and the feelings she experiences. Complaints, aggression, and prejudice pervade her life, and she must learn to break through herself and become self-sufficient. This awakening of female consciousness is not only cherished at that time, even in modern times it is still the consciousness that women need.

I recall Andrea being sick at one point. In that frail state, she can actually feel a sliver of happiness, and this description can sense her subtle emotional fluctuations. Instead of spending time with her relatives, she strolled about the city by herself, which her aunt Angustias described as an example of a wicked girl. For her, the adult world is not so easy to integrate into. She takes to the city’s streets in an attempt to discover her own liberation from that suppressed, unpleasant relationship.

She kept her gaze fixed on everyone in the family, as if they couldn’t escape her gaze when they spoke. Gloria’s sorrowful eyes, her grandmother’s shaking hands, and her uncle, an agent, all spoke of family strife from various perspectives.

Andrea wanted to find like-minded friends in her peers, and the classmate, Ena, she liked approached her just to let her introduce Roman. Like many ordinary girls, she needed to find a listener who could share her story with her. But for a girl who came to an unfamiliar environment, it seems to be a very difficult. Andrea enjoyed the time when Angustias left their house, and she went to her bedroom, lying on the bed. This likes when the person who always puts pressure on himself suddenly leaves, and the mind gets a moment of relaxation.

Andrea, on the other hand, is not so mature that she embarrasses herself with the temporary use of pocket money. A boy she didn’t like kissed her. She doesn’t have the ability to adjust her life or control the environment around her. But these seem to belong to the behavior of young people again. In her own words, her happiness needs to be paid for by unhappiness.

In the end, the girl returned to the theme of getting nothing. She seems to have learned nothing from this quarrel and violence, but she is the child who has really grown up.