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Another Conclusion

I must say it felt like yesterday when I first looked at my Semester 2 timetable and wondered why romance studies takes place in the math building (as well as trying to find it, confusing the mathematics annex for the math building, and nearly being late for the first class because I’m bad with directions).

I still am, to this day. But enough about that.

I also remember being confused with the concept of “contract grading” since I was expecting RMST 202 to follow a similar structure to RMST 201. It was certainly unique compared to the other classes I had, especially since we get to pick out the books we want to read as well as the grade we want for our report card.

Naturally, that would mean a lot of us would gun for As and A+s, right?

Regardless, I still heavily enjoyed the course and the wide selection of texts that was available.

If I have to pick out a favorite book, I suppose it would have to come down to two choices: “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” and “My Brilliant Friend.” The first one because I’ve found the different types of reading styles to be interesting to note (also because I personally interpret the author as trying to start on many creative writing projects but unable to finish any of them so he decided to combine them all into one book). And the second one partially because I’ve already read it before, and it is one of my favorite series to read because of how nuanced everything is – not to mention the complex friendship that Elena and Lila share with each other.

And I wasn’t too fond of books that heavily focused on romance (to state some examples: the second half of “Death with Interruptions” and “The Lover”). But I can mostly attribute that to not being interested in romantic relationship-centered plots in general since the genre never quite appealed to me.

Thank you so much Professor for creating various forms of lecture videos so we could follow along (I really enjoyed reading the transcripts and drink pairings as well as your reasonings for why the drink and the book should go together). And thanks TAs Daniel and Tesi for reading our blog posts! Also, thank to everyone who’s commented on my blog posts – your follow-up thoughts had certainly given me a lot of food for thought post-reading!

Throughout the semester, what was your favorite book you read and why?

“The Most Functional Family” Award goes to… (Nada, Carmen Laforet)

Okay, let me just say this up front:

There isn’t a single universe where Andrea’s family would win that.

For context, “Nada” is a coming-of-age novel written by Carmen Laforet about an orphan who moves to Barcelona post-Spanish Civil War in order to attend university. She moves into her formerly-wealthy-but-now-poor grandmother’s apartment with several relatives: her grandmother (a very faithful Catholic), Aunt Angustias (a strict aunt), Uncle Román (a former musician), Uncle Juan (who isn’t a successful painter), Juan’s wife Gloria (a beautiful young gambler), and their child (who wasn’t named if I recall correctly). In addition to this, there’s also a housekeeper and a dog who live with them all.

With so many people living together in a run-down apartment when times are just hard after the Spanish Civil War – it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that conflicts and drama constantly break out between them. Juan abuses his wife. Angustias constantly lectures Andrea and closely follows her footsteps. It’s a very happy family, you know? And that’s why it’s understandable when Andrea only finds solace when she’s away from them (especially when she befriends Ena and others from her university).

Yet, I’ve always found it peculiar that the concept of blood family is very important to society – even if the members are horrible individuals. Now, the idea of “family” can be defined in multiple ways. But the general defnition would be something along the lines of parents, siblings, and any others who are related by blood. As far as I know, this doesn’t always mean trust, love, or loyalty in a relationship. Blood may make someone a relative, but it doesn’t mean that they care in a way that’s best for you (for example, Angustias may want to mould Andrea into her own definition of an ideal citizen, but her methods are very discouraging and invasive). A family is not always what you think.

So what exactly is a family supposed to mean? I like to think that they’re the people who take care of you when everything goes wrong. Those who don’t judge or turn away, despite any differences in opinion or clashes in personality. Those who are willing to support you no matter what and help you out.

In a sense, I believe Andrea’s friendship with Ena has been more familial than her blood relatives. Ena did take care of her, invite her into her family and spend lots of time with her. Her friendship also did help her get opportunities for jobs, further education, and ultimately leave her life behind for Madrid.

How important is “family” to you and why? Do you think it’s something you’re born into, or something you choose?

María Luisa Bombal “The Shrouded Woman”

Having a dead person tell the story is not an entirely original concept. This has happened in “The Book Thief,” where Death narrates the tale. It also happens in “Epitaph of a Small Winner,” where the protagonist narrates his death, funeral, and journey to the afterlife. But has that ever tired me of continuously reading books with similar themes, ideas, and storylines in them?

Absolutely not. What truly matters is the execution, after all.

Personally, I’m impressed with how much information about Ana María’s life was condensed within a relatively short amount of pages. Ana María may have been dead, but her spirit still watches as people she know come and look at her corpse. She can still think and feel, and uses the time to reminisce on her life with a new sense of insight death can provide. Now that her life is over, time can’t go back. There’s nothing she could change even if she has any lingering regrets. As a result, it is fascinating to see how Ana María’s change to her thoughts on love and everyone she has ever loved – ranging from the children she raised and first love Ricardo to her best friend Fernando and her very eventful marriage with Antonio. She also regrets having initially been cold towards her husband, as it had altered the course of their relationship where she experiences plenty of emotional pain.

Though, it is interesting to see how fresh of a perspective death could bring about life. After all, we tend to waste a lot of our time focusing about trivial matters. But Ana María doesn’t do this on her deathbed. Rather, she only focuses on her most important memories. In other words, time is best spent living and laughing in general. We do only get to walk the earth for a few decades before returning to dust.

And even then – even if death happened the next day – you still existed. You are a concept that the laws of the universe allow to materialise. All the beauty that is you is cemented into the fabric of reality. You will die, everyone that knew you will die, humanity will die, the earth will die, the sun will die, the universe will die. But no amount of time will ever negate the fact that your life was real.

So this does bring me to my question: how different do you think Ana Maria’s thoughts about her life would be if this was set in a different moment (ex = when she’s on the verge of dying)?

Robert Arlt “Mad Toy”

To me, it felt that Robert Arlt’s “El Juguete Rabioso” (“Mad Toy”) provides an interesting tale into the life of an adolescent as he struggles to fit in within the society that surrounds him. While the protagonist Silvio Astier is certainly a genius bookworm, his environment barely has a place for academic pursuit of any kind. In fact, it could simply be defined by one word: poverty. Yet, poverty hasn’t quite stopped Silvio from completely giving up in this world – as he spent an entire book exploring multiple solutions to try to fit in and make enough money to escape poverty: through creating a club dedicated to thievery (that eventually fell apart), joining a toxic workplace in a bookstore (which totally did wonders for his mental health), attending an academy for aviation (that he got kicked out of for being too smart, and almost drove him to kill himself), and working as a door-to-door salesman. Within the last job, he also faces a moral dilemma to either relive the dreams he had in his childhood (theft) or adhere to his values and rat out his co-conspirator.

Upon reading on all of the misfortunes that Silvio has faced in his adolescence, it really made me wonder “how?” How is a teenager like him capable of living in a constant state of turbulence without completely losing his mind for the most part? It was very admirable that he was mostly able to endure the pain and overcome it in the end, even though he barely had anyone he could count on. And he could only depend on himself to figure out the meaning of his own existence.

Yet as far as I know, the concept of identity is who you are and what you’ve done. From these two things, we create meanings. And these meanings tell us who we are. Yet, it could be complicated at times. We could start to worry over trivial matters and ask questions that we’ve never bothered to ask ourselves before. We feel more exhausted because more of our energy gets consumed by the emotional fight between the stresses that pressure us with the feeling that we must do something to answer that question, and the fear of the unknown. In this stage, we’re trapped in our minds within an isolated wasteland. There is so much pain, yet we experience too much fear to do anything about it. And to free ourselves from the war, the best thing to do is to find answers to our questions and take the appropriate action in order to progress further.

How would you define ultimately yourself as a person in comparison to Silvio? Has any fictional character inspired you the same way Silvio’s books about thievery did (they did have a heavy influence in his early adolescence annd early career choice, after all)?

Marcel Proust “Combray”

Upon the first reading of the text, I did find Proust’s book to be confusing to read at first. It took me a while to do a few rereads before getting a general understanding of what is going on since I found the prose to be quite complex.

Whenever I’m reading a work of fiction, I know that I want to be immersed in the world. I want the author to completely distract me from the reality of incoming deadlines from other classes and horrible weather for the next few weeks with the protagonist’s thoughts and actions as they interact with the world around them.

The protagonist of Marcel Proust’s “Combray” definitely understands that well, saying that the action of reading enables him to be “invisible” to the rest of the outside world within his garden – and discover “the secret of truth and beauty” where their appearance in books can be felt a lot stronger than in real life (p. 116).

But what exactly is the concept of “beauty?”

I’d like to say that beauty is a combination of qualities that is pleasing to the aesthetic senses, especially to the eyes.

Anything can be beautiful, and the mere sight of beauty can instantly steal your breath away.

It is exciting. Calming. Awe-inspiring. Even heartbreaking.

I believe that we find them beautiful because as human beings, we are capable of abstract thought. Finding things beautiful just because we do is a reward in itself.

The protagonist clearly does so in his fascination for art, as well as how he perceives characters in a book. Since characters in a book are a writer’s creation, their thoughts and feelings are much more condensed and easier to follow – especially when they are transcribed on paper. As a result, that could be why Marcel feels that he has learned more about people in books than in his personal environment.

And speaking of thoughts and feelings, it was also interesting to note that Marcel tends to read the same way I do: by trying to understand the mindset of the characters. I do have a tendency to apply psychological theories (especially Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis) to the text to try to figure out any issues within them (with an example being his aunt Léonie’s case of illness anxiety disorder when her husband died).

Whenever you are given a new piece of literature, what is the first thing you do when trying to read the text or understanding the messages the author may have implied within it? Do you try to get into the mindset of the character? To immerse yourself in the environmental surroundings of the character? Has it helped you understand the text better? Why do you think that is the case?

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