Author Archives: noor

Dénouement & Farewell

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I am so happy I took this survey course which introduced me to European and Latin-American authors writing in the “Romance languages”. Some of the readings were definitely challenging and different, but I believe that the only way one can learn and grow is by forcing oneself to read challenging texts in different genres.

I definitely expect more of myself now, especially living in a world that is increasingly embracing a global monoculture that is dominated by American and western values and lifestyles. My dream is to one day be able to read authors in the original language because so much gets lost in translation. As Dr. Jon mentioned in the final lecture:

“In the global distribution of power and knowledge, more and more it is only English that counts, and even languages such as French or Spanish are relegated to conveying cultural particularity rather than being seen as vehicles for thought. Moreover, that particularity is to be translated into English for it to become intelligible, comparable, quantifiable.”

As an Arab speaker, I could not agree more. No translation of the Holy Quran can capture the beauty of the Arabic in which the Quran was revealed. No translation of Rumi can capture the true essence of the man and many Persian speakers cite the criminality in modern interpretations like those of Coleman Barks, who does not speak Persian nor understands basic principles of Islam. It is truly tragic that Goethe’s utopian idea of “World Literature” in which no single language or nation dominates has only remained an “ideal” or an “aspiration” and nothing more. Not every form of market freedom and growth is good, especially when it comes to “world literature”.

On another note, I have been sharing quotes from different authors we’ve read this term with friends and family and on social media. These past two years have forced many people to grapple with their own mortality after losing loved ones to COVID-19 and the uncertainty the future holds for many so I shared a few quotes from Bombal’s The Shrouded Woman and Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. because I felt that these works really resonated with me and others.

I truly believe that it is tragic for one to go through four years of university education without having read any works outside of the “Western Canon”, and it is even more tragic that more and more people are graduating without having read much works even within the Western Canon. I am truly thankful that I was able to read works from both the Western and Eastern canons and also thankful to have taken this course which introduced me to the minor works within the Western Canon.

Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Jon for his wonderful lectures and accompanying transcripts as they helped me understand some of the more difficult texts. I would also like to thank Dr. Jon, Patricio and Jennifer for the wonderful class discussions as these were my favorite part of the course (in addition to the readings). I will no longer be a UBC student come end of term, and my only regret is not having taken more Romance Studies courses.

Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas

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I thought this novel, like all the other novels assigned for this course, to be interesting. Although this novel is supposed to be fiction, it can also be classified as an autobiographical work because it incorporates several autobiographical elements through the overlap of the life of the real writer and his fictional counterpart. Because it is written in the first person, the reader feels an immediate connection to the narrator. What I liked about this novel is that the narrator introduces himself as a failed writer, subverting the stereotype that paints writers as perfect (and gives other failed writers hope!).

This amateur writer experiments with his talent as a journalist and his literary ambitions by creating a narrative framework set during the Spanish Civil War which took place 60 years ago. His journalistic background helps him create this hybrid novel that blends fiction with historical facts which creates something so realistic that it seems more believable than the actual events, which creates an entirely unique reading experience.

I found it strange for Cercas to be sharing his creative process with the reader because readers are accustomed to reading the finished product. This gives rise to questions like:

Is the ending of Soldiers of Salamis really the end of the novel?

When Cercas is on the train back to Spain, is the “final version” of the novel that he starts thinking about the same version that we are reading now?

In the first section, he outlines for the reader his idea for the novel, and his writing process leads him to embark on an investigation that results in the second part of his novel. The first part also tells us that the novel is not pure fiction because it is based on real events. The novel takes a different turn in the second part where the reader is told about the life of Sanchez Mazas in the third person. However, in the third part, he reveals that he has reread the final product and feels dissatisfied with it.  As the reader, we see how much effort he has put into his novel especially in overcoming insecurities. This is when Roberto Bolano, whom we read last week, comes into the story as a sort of mentor to Cercas, reminding him that a writer is always a writer at heart, even when they are not writing, and that “all good tales are true tales, at least for those who read them, which is all that counts” (161).

Further questions for discussion:

What roles do writing and war play in the novel?

What role does failure play in the novel?

Could this story be considered an ode to life?

To what extent is memory collective or individual in nature?

Roberto Bolaño, Amulet

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I found this novella quite unusual and compelling as it tries to narrate through an unusual character the story of a country and the state of Latin America’s literary talent and tradition in an unconventional and dreamlike voice.

Auxilio Lacouture, whose first name comes from the Latin “auxilium” and as mentioned in Dr. Jon’s video, means “help”. She is a very interesting and eccentric character and seems very passionate about poetry and emphasizes the great talent and admiration of her idols. When she hides in the bathroom of her university, this seems to be the moment when she feels the most alive and aware of life’s impermanence. Her inner reflections on literature, friends, and life become necessary in order for her to tell us facts about her present and future. Despite being a foreigner, she seems herself at the heart of Mexico’s emerging literary talent. She is at a liminal place where history is being made in real time (the siege of the university) while at the same time seeing herself transcending space and time because she is not directly taking part in the event but shuttered in the bathroom. Being in this liminal space, she is able to observe, narrate and participate all at once, and her account is both clear and enigmatic as she tells us about her friend Elena, Arturo Belano, and her story about how she rescued a boy from sexual slavery.

I found this quote to be so poignant and true:

“Life is full of enigmas, minimal events that, at the slightest touch or glance, set off chains of consequences, which, viewed through the prism of time, invariably inspire astonishment or fear”

This brings to mind how World War I started, by a minimal event–the assassination of one man, Archduke Franz Ferdinand–that lead to a “war to end all wars”. Or the 9/11 events that lead to unjustified invasions of several countries that lead to the deaths and displacement of millions.

The narrator’s poetic account helps the reader discern the true nature of events happening in Mexico City. Her friends Elena and Arturo symbolize hopelessness and missed opportunities and it is as though Auxilio wants to tell us the truth through these people, events, and objects, and what we get is an account that is unusual as everything in her microcosm is reflected in the macrocosm. She makes interesting predictions and becomes a sort of oracle and the bathroom a temple where she is able to see into everything more deeply and is more keenly aware of the true nature of the situation than anyone else.

This novella may not be for everyone, however, it is a very distinctive and unique way of conveying one of the most violent chapters in Mexican history.

“…those who can see into the past never pay. But I could also see into the future and vision of that kind comes at a high price: life, sometimes, or sanity”

Question for discussion:

Do you think the account would have been narrated differently had the narrator been a native Mexican? Would it have been less eccentric, and more clear and direct with more relevant observations? The narrator does pay tribute to Latin America’s literary ambition and tradition in a great way, but I wonder how Mexicans who directly participated in the siege see this account.

 

 

Georges Perec, “W, or the Memory of Childhood”

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I found this novel to be quite unusual and interesting. One never expects to find two parallel narratives in a novel where one is autobiographical and the other fictional. But that is implied in the title “W” and it seems that this is an autobiography for an author without one. The stories merge into one another because Perec tells us that when he was thirteen, he made up a story that was called W and it was, in a way, “if not the story of my childhood, then at least a story of my childhood.”

It seems that what makes this autobiography important is not what he remembers, but the gaps. Perec has to rely on objects in order to create memories that cannot be confirmed but that is all he has to establish a foundation for this narrative. “W” seems at first to be an idyllic place of fairness and meritocracy, but we are give clues early on and there is no attempt to keep the truth of “W” a secret as it is too entwined with the author’s memory. The island of “W” describes tyranny and “the survival of the fittest” where equality is not just absent but abhorrent. Living in a world that is becoming more authoritarian and McCarthyist, one can extend this not just to one phase of time in one continent, but to all humanity throughout history.

The gaps in the story are never filled or the truth about his childhood. Most narratives are about rescue and closure, about setting a problem or defining a loss or creating a mystery that is solved with a return to wholeness in the final pages. But Perec instead manages to make those gaps and silences resonate with meaning as the reader moves through the stories, so that loos itself and the absence of meaning become the focus.

I write: I write because we lived together, because I was one amongst them, a shadow amongst their shadows, a body close to their bodies. I write because they left in me their indelible mark, whose trace is writing. Their memory is dead in writing; writing is the memory of their death and the assertion of my life.

Questions for discussion:

How can we explain the apparent contradiction in this narrative, which is both autobiographical and fictional? To what extent can it be said that Gaspard Winckler is the fictional double of Perec?

 

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector

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I found this novel to be very metaphysically intense. The preface of the novel addressing the reader that “this is a book like any other book. But I would be happy if it were only read by people whose souls are already formed” reminded me of my beloved Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Muslims consider him al-Insān al-Kāmil which means “the person who has reached perfection” or literally “the complete person”. Tonight, according to the Muslim calendar, is the Night of Ascension, or Nocturnal Voyage, in which our Prophet ascended the seven heavens, and which Muslims consider it to be an archetype of the highest, culminating stages in the inner spiritual journey that each human must take.

Also, since Islam literally means “surrendering to God”, I found her novel all about surrendering because the reader feels like they are taken on a journey with the protagonist in order to attain the “truth” that she has come to understand.

It is clear that the narrator starts her novel with uncertainty and must recount events of the previous day by giving them form and shape in order to make sense of the transformation she has experienced and attain some sort of certainty. I felt as the reader that I was the invisible owner of the disembodied hand that the narrator was addressing. She seems to be building a foundation in order to know herself. As someone who has studied many world religions and greats like Aristotle and Socrates, her novel reminded me of the teachings and maxims in all these religions that urge the seeker to “know thyself” and that the whole purpose of knowledge is “certitude”.

I found the cockroach encounter disgusting and kafkaesque, and certainly most readers would find it to be so as well. But it looks like she somehow was able to see herself in this despicable creature. She is able to transcend herself and see this creature as something that is a part of her or as if she has become one with the roach and thus one with everything around her. This reminds me of certain Yogic and Buddhist practices where the meditator becomes one with the object of meditation, and one’s connection to the material world ceases to exist.

But in her case, her journey into the nature of being is much more disorganized and takes a lot of reconstructing and piecing together. In the end, she comes to the realization that being is a process and not something that can be arrived at.

This has definitely been one of the most intense novels I have read and certainly not suitable for bedtime reading. I would say that it compares in intensity to Yellow Wallpaper.

Question for discussion:

The passage about the cockrach reminded me of Kafka. Was the author influenced by The Metamorphosis?

 

 

 

Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse

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The French female narrator, Cécile, seems to be intelligent and a bit immature. She explores her own first sensual and sentimental experience. The immorality and sensuality of the characters would seem less shocking today, but this is indeed a very daring and matter-of-fact account during a time when such things were unbecoming, especially amongst the bourgeoisie.

The novel is well-written, but I found it vain and superficial because it was written at a time when the French were brutally colonizing and exploiting Algeria. It is very sad that millions of Algerians died or suffered so that some French boogies can spend their days sun-bathing and surfing and nights drinking, dancing, and engaging in debauchery.  I understand that this account was written by a teenager and I do not expect any moralizing or noble truths from such a work, but what I found even more repulsive was that the adults were also acting like immature teenagers. The narrator is nothing more than an entitled, spoiled daughter of a rich promiscuous man whose girlfriend is a bone in the narrator’s throat because she gets in the way of her sexual pursuits.

Maybe if I read this as a teenager I would have found it enjoyable. I also found the ending to be a bit hyped beyond the necessary. I think it would have sufficed for Anne, the stepmother, to drive off and leave the decadent father and daughter to their lifestyle. Perhaps the only positive thing about the narrator is her scrupulousness in assessing herself in relation to the other characters. She is able to capture the melodrama and indifference of teenagers very well. I certainly remember as a teenager overreacting to the smallest things and disregarding bigger things more worthy of my attention and regard. For example, she is aware that Anne would make a good stepmother. She is also aware that her father’s actions are not the norm. I bet most teenagers reading this novel would sympathize with the narrator and understand her anguish at being locked in her room and her shock and anger when she is banned from seeing Cyril. But, as a mature reader, I personally do not see myself empathizing with her because I know that Anne is doing what is best for her and looking after her way better than her own father. Anne represents everything that Elsa is not. She is respectable, independent, and has a life. All in all, this is definitely not a read I would prescribe to friends or even teens. However, it is well-written and captures what it is like to be an annoying and entitled teenager.

Discussion question:

Does the novel suggest that our sense of self shapes our sense of ethics?

The narrator wonders about the reason for the superficiality of her identity. Would experiencing the lives of others through written mediums or others contribute to our sense of self or help us discover different aspects of our identity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alberto Moravia “Agostino”

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This was a very interesting and enjoyable read. The story delves into the psychological torture that the innocent and timid Agostino must endure as he accompanies his mother on her boat rides. Growing up in a sheltered and conservative household, I saw myself empathizing with him. I felt as if I was right there with him because the story is so vivid–I felt as if I was on that beach with him and his mother. The descriptions of the seaside town were also very majestic and I really felt as if I was both reading a story and looking at portraits.

Agostino is at a critical phase in his life because he is crossing the threshold of childhood into adulthood, with all its agonies and conflicts. I would not say that his feelings towards his mother stem from an Oedipal complex, but perhaps a natural jealousy and overprotectiveness that men naturally feel towards their womenfolks and this is very common in many cultures across the world. He is clearly very attached to his mother and many conflicts manifest as a result in a way that may seem complex and perhaps oedipal by Freudian standards, but I believe this has more to do with the fact that he had a sheltered upper-class upbringing and does not seem to have much agency because he is infantalized and neglected by his mother.

When the privileged teen meets the group of rough boys and engages in their uncivilized adventures, I immediately recalled when my teenage brothers who were also sheltered and privileged experienced something similar and thus felt this encounter to be so familiar in many coming-of-age real life stories. There were many parts in the story that were very comedic and dramatic and it was easy for me to put myself in Agostino’s shoes and remember the agonies and wonders that I myself experienced when I was coming of age.

If I were to meet someone in Agostino’s shoes, I would tell them that this phase is only temporary and that many wonderful things await them on the other side. I would advise them not to rush to unravel the mysteries of the world around them and enjoy their remaining days of innocence. I would advise them to choose their friends carefully and not succumb to peer pressure. I would also advise them not to rebel against their parents even if they disagree with them and that parents are not perfect, and have the same needs and desires as the rest of us.

The Shrouded Woman: María Luisa Bombal

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As a woman who has to constantly navigate the patriarchy and listen to other men “mansplain” to me, I found this novel to be very personal, intimate, and emotional. It also feels so real, because in many cultures and religious traditions people believe that the consciousness of the dead lives on and thus the state of mind and thoughts of Ana Maria feel so accurate and convincing. It is fascinating that Ana Maria’s thoughts turn to love and all the complexities associated with it as it is one of the main regrets people on their death beds express–not having loved enough and not having lived in the moment. Which is why this novella is even more poignant, because Ana Maria is not on her deathbed, she is dead. Only through the eyes of a dead woman who talks about her life in the past tense, did I truly feel the joy of my life lived now. I am grateful that I still have time to love, and do things differently so I do not have regrets, and to right the wrongs I have done.

Indeed, death is a reminder that all these trivial things we busy ourselves with and all of that idle talk will come to an end. As Ana Maria lays shrouded in her casket, she is not thinking about how clean her house was kept, or who will inherit her belongings, but only reflects on the things that truly matter. The problem is that she is dead and it is too late for her to go back and rethink her choices. Living in a pandemic, and seeing so much death and suffering around us, so works remind us that none of us are promised a tomorrow and we really should live by the Latin idiom of carpe diem (seize the day).  The novel inspires us to live differently and is also chilling and sad because it is too late for the protagonist to do anything but contemplate her life in retrospect.

Ana Maria was, in a way, already dead when she was alive, and after experiencing real death, at least her torment and suffering came to an end. At the end she seems content and resigns herself to her fate and embraces death. I found the last paragraph to be so poignant:

“I swear it. The woman in the shroud did not feel the slightest desire to rise again. Alone, she would at last be able to rest, to die. For she had suffered the death of the living. she had already suffered the death of the living. And now she longed for total immersion, for the second death, the death of the dead. ”

Indeed, there are so many people who sleepwalk through life and never get to experience what it is to be truly alive, to live in the moment. This Islamic saying attributed to Ali comes to mind:

“people are asleep and when they die, they wake up”  Ali ibn Abī Tālib

 

 

 

Louis Aragon’s “Paris Peasant”

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The first thing one discovers when reading this work is that it is not a traditional novel. It reads more like a travelogue or a meditation on the peculiar magic and mystery of place. The Passage de l’Opera seems to serve as a repository of memories, desires, fashions, etc. His meticulously detailed descriptions of cafes, salons shows the inventiveness of the author’s mind by bringing out the beauty and strangeness in a not so ideal and often mundane existence. Aragon tells us in the preface that he is “already twenty-six years old” and asks if he is still “privileged to take part in this miracle?”. He answered his own question by writing this work which offers a different theoretical framework for experiencing the world.

Someone might wonder what is the point of such a work? And why should such thoughts and odd musings be considered worth it?

I would say that his thoughts are worth it, because they show us the power of the human imagination that is often lost as we age. His philosophizing also implores the readers to venture into new territory and sometimes the surreal and imagined offers a far greater substance than what is perceived by the faculties of sense and reason. Aragon combines philosophy, poetry, travel, mythology into something that seems to defy catogorization.

In a nutshell: Aragon has taken two disparate spheres – that of the real world, as revealed through his senses, and that of the imagination – and now seeks to elucidate his vision of a city whose people and passages conceal a rich subconscious that can be glimpsed only by the most open-minded viewer. Tired of resorting to abstract fancies to understand the world, he resolves to trust in the imaginative arrangement of his immediate sensory input, “then, without feeling reluctant any longer, I set about discovering the face of the infinite beneath the concrete forms which were escorting me, walking the length of the earth’s avenues”.

Finally, I must say that the work did not feel at all “surreal” to me. I also found the first part to be the best part of the book. I found the second part to be less specific and realistic and the last part basically is a long stream of consciousness dealing with everything and in part self-referential and critical of the book as a whole and the reader, but not in a necessarily condescending way. It is certainly an intellectually stimulating work and a must read for anyone studying Surrealist literature and wanting to learn more about the movement.

 

 

Marcel Proust, “Combray”

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This is my first time reading Proust. What I liked about the reading was the power of his imagination that imbued his experiences. His imagination seems to constantly overpower his reality but he eventually manages to subsume his reality, which is often disappointing, into his imagination. Reading this novel is also a form of cultural tourism for me as I’ve never been to France and thus he offered me a window into the French countryside. It is fascinating that this little village was the source of so much inspiration and imagination and stored memories that culminated in the production of this great work, and which made him one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.

Living in a time of pandemic, one can only appreciate the close-knit family group represented in Combray. I loved his description of his grandmother and how she loved the rain. Living in Vancouver, or Raincouver as we call it, after having lived in hot and arid climates in the Middle East, made me really appreciate the rains and embrace them the same way Proust’s grandmother did. I also loved his description of the doorknob and his “unconscious handling” of it. I wonder what he would have to say had he lived in our time during this pandemic, where any surface we touch might result in our demise. I also appreciate the strong sense of place in the novel, something that many of us lack nowadays because we lead such individualistic lives and our sense of place is constantly shifting because we are so fixated on materialistic pursuits rather than community and human connections.

Reading Proust is certainly not easy like Dr. Jon mentioned and the translator also forewarns the reader in her introduction. He is rather verbose and uses many big words that one has to constantly look up. One word, ‘transvertebrate’, returned no results. If anyone knows the meaning of this word do share it in the comments.

Finally, I am not sure if Proust read St. Augustine, but this novel reminded me of St. Augustine’s Confessions where he dedicated an entire chapter (book X) to imagination and memory and also discussed the death of a maternal figure, in this case Augustine’s own mother. Proust’s description of maternal figures in his story somehow parallels that of St. Augustine, where you get a sense that his recollections are full of ambivalence. His moments of happiness at the tender attention of the female figures in his life seem to be followed by a sad and oppressive sense of desertion.

Finally, The whole of Proust’s world comes out of a teacup with the episode of the madeleine dipped in tea. A recognized psychological phenomenon triggered by smells, tastes, or sounds, involuntary memory vividly reproduces emotions, sensations, or images from the past. Why do you think readers and critics universally consider this scene to be pivotal? What does the Narrator think about the experience of involuntary memory?