Monthly Archives: February 2022

Rodoreda

The Audacity of Quimet

Although Mercè Rodoreda’s The Time of Doves was a fairly easy read with its short chapters and simple narrative style, I found myself getting frustrated with a particular character. In particular, my frustration wasn’t caused by the actions of the narrator, Natalia, but instead revolves around her love interest, Quimet.

Quimet displayed a few red flags in the beginning of the novel, but as the story preceded, he only got more insufferable. To start, when he first meets Natalia, Quimet, despite knowing that Natalia had a fiancé, makes the bold claim that he’ll marry her by the end oof the year.

However, he soon goes from calling Natalia his “queen” to treating her like crap, for a lack of a better word (17). Although it starts off quite innocent, small incidents such as Quimet being unforgivingly late to a date with Natalie soon build up to fits of jealous anger. For instance, he demands Natalie to quit her job because he thinks that her boss is hitting on her and when Natalie protests, he “grabbed [her] neck and shook [her] head from side to side” (25).

That should have been a red flag for Natalie to end the relationship for good, but somehow Natalie manages to forgive Quimet and the toxicity of the relationship only grows. His jealousy fits only continued as he later falsely claims that he saw Natalie with Pere and makes her kneel and apologize to him.

The relationship doesn’t get any better when they get married with Quimet continuing to treat Natalie poorly and make up  excuses for why he can’t do better.  At this point when my empathy for Natalie also shifted to a bit of frustration for why she didn’t choose to end the relationship earlier. Quimet has only displayed traits that make him a walking red flag, yet Natalie seems to look past them.

Going back to when Quimet and Natalie took a three week break because of the argument regarding her boss, Natalie had showed  signs of regrets for ending her previous relationship. During that time, she also compares her relationship with Quimet to the one she hade with Pere and her only complaint about Pere was that he was “too caught up in his job” (25).

So, I’m wondering why she didn’t attempt to get back with Pere? Although she may physically spend time with Quimet, he clearly doesn’t value her presence as he would “talk like [she] wasn’t there” so what made a relationship with him more attractive than one with Pere (28)?

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Sagan

xoxo, Cecile

Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse was a very fun read, but I quickly grew to have conflicting feelings about the main protagonist. In fact, many of Cécile’s thoughts and actions reminded me a lot of Blair Waldorf from the tv series, Gossip Girl (the one that first aired in 2007 – not to be confused with whatever mess the 2021 version was). The two characters share many similar traits that make them endearing but also infuriating at the same time.

Firstly, both Cécile and Blair are privileged teenagers who have the same tendency to scheme and manipulate situations to their liking. Cécile’s claim of how she loves the “pleasure of driving in a high-powered car, of buying a new dress, records books [and] flowers” (19) mirrors the extravagant and luxurious life that Blair Waldorf lives in New York City as a wealthy heiress.

Furthermore, Blair’s mother, Eleanor Waldorf, is a successful fashion designer that also shares a few similarities with Anne Larsen. In addition to how they share the same career, there are also many parallels between their relationships with Cécile and Blair. For instance, although both of Blair’s parents are alive, her parents are separated so she mainly lives with her mother in New York City’s Upper East Side. Blair clearly looks up to her mother and craves her validation yet finds herself annoyed at her when she doesn’t meet her expectations. One example of this is when Blair disapproves of her mother’s decision to marry a man and creates a whole scheme as an attempt to break off their engagement.

This is very similar to how Cécile “greatly admire[s]” Anne for being a smart and beautiful woman (10) yet found herself “irritated by the discovery that she was vulnerable (15-16). Her disappointment from finding out that Anne is in love with her father and their plans for marriage leads her to create a scheme involving her father’s ex-lover, Elsa, and Cyril, a man who’s infatuated with her. In the end, her plan succeeds, but it also results in a tragedy with the death and possible suicide of Anne. Cécile is left feeling describing her father and herself as “alone and unhappy” (128). However, Cécile later finds herself “happy” (129) when she falls in love with Anne’s cousin and her father moves on to a new lover.

This ending leaves me with a lot of questions for what Cécile’s life beyond the story’s end:

Do you think Anne’s death will have any impact on Cécile’s growth as a person? Will she be less inclined to scheming or do you that it’s inevitable that she’ll repeat the cycle? Also, do you think Cécile’s behaviour stems from her own insecurities?

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Nada, Week 4

Carmen Laforet’s Nada

Although I made the choice of choosing to read Carmen Laforet’s Nada over Alberto Moravia’s Agostino weeks ago, I began to question whether I made the right decision when I saw the amount of blogs written on Moravia’s novel instead of Laforet’s.

What drew me to read this book initially was the description that the professor gave. The “Which texts” page on the course website mentioned how we might relate to the protagonist since she is also a university student. Since this book was published in 1945, I was curious to find out whether the protagonist’s experiences would still be relevant today.Nevertheless, I continued to read Nada and was not disappointed at all!

To start, although it was interesting to follow the story of a young woman in university, I was quickly more intrigued by the gothic and mystery tone of this book. For instance, on just the fifth page, the protagonist, Andrea, goes from describing her stay at Barcelona to be an “exciting adventure” to a “nightmare” (5).

Since I have a tendency to visualize books while I’m reading them, many of the passages in this text also set a haunting tone and image in my head. For instance,  Andrea’s first impression of how the home “seemed like a witches’ house” and how her bed “resembled a coffin” leads me to imagine the apartment to be similar to a haunted house (8) (9). In addition, with descriptions such as Juan having a “face full of hollows, like a skull in the light” and Andrea’s aunts being “ghostly women”, I could also imagined them to resemble characters from a Tim Burton movie (6).

Also, I noticed how many of the chapters left on a cliffhanger of some sorts that made the story feel engaging and exciting to read. This was a shift from many of the other books, because there was an actual narrative structure to follow through. Furthermore, after every chapter, the reader is able to learn a little bit more about every character and what their intentions are. One character that I was particularly intrigued about was Román. Since the beginning of the book, there was a lot of mystery revolving around him and I was confused about what his intentions were.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and here are some questions for the class:

Do you think the comparison of the characters and tone to a Tim Burton movie is valid? Also, for those who read Agostino, I’m curious to know why you decided to choose that book instead!

 

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