blog#11 – Time and the way She swims through Dreams — As soon as I finished the book, I fell asleep. I read The Society of Reluctant Dreamers in a period where I was (and am) sleeping a lot. I clocked in about 14 or 15 hours straight the other night. I’m not quite sure why […]
Category: blogs
blog#10 – the traits of Womanhood — The first thing that really took my attention while reading Roberto Bolaño’s book Amulet, was the fact that Bolaño himself was writing from a female character’s perspective. I know its quite normal for a male author to write in female voice, but for some reason this is what stuck […]
blog#9 – the Object of Anxiety — I’ll admit that I am not very good at remembering character’s names when reading, especially during the part I have to read in dialogue. But in this book, many characters have a kind of tic or catchphrase that they say which I thought was really interesting. Whatever their […]
blog#8 – the burden of Names — Georges Perec’s book ‘W, or The Memory of Childhood’ was by far the book with the most interesting formatting. (Out of the books that I’ve read for this class anyway). The two parallel stories and the switching back-and-forth took a lot of getting used to, and admittedly, I […]
blog#7 – a woman and her Cockroach — Reading The Passion According to G.H. was one of the closest moments that I felt like I was reading a well-composed transcript of my own thoughts. The way the Clarice Lispector seamlessly yet abruptly changes from concept to concept is mind-bogglingly impressive – all the while articulating […]
blog#6 – taming Chaos — The Duality of Cécile was by far the most captivating aspect of Bonjour Tristesse. Françoise Sagan’s ability to portray both a wild, cunning jealousy and guilt-ridden empathy and sorrow is what makes the book such an interesting read. The raw honesty and (at times, hesitant yet inevitable) introspection of Cécile’s own […]
blog#5 – teenage Hubris — Laforet’s writing and Andrea’s inner monologue felt like a moment taken from my own thoughts. Her thought processes were so oddly intricate yet seemed vague, as if she only had a few seconds to take in her environment and the people around her. Andrea’s shy, reserved, yet stubborn and quietly […]
I loved reading Paris Peasant. It was everything it was described as: “a-novel-that-was-not-a-novel”, a character study, a portrait, part-fiction, part-treatise, part-memoir. I did wonder beforehand how a novel could encompass all of these things and still be balanced and enjoyable, yet it did all these things and more. For a few moments during my reading, […]
blog#2 – Combray and Childhood Guilt — While reading Proust’s Combray, I automatically and unconsciously tried to categorize it in my brain with themes of other texts and books I’ve read in the past. The result was somewhere between ‘intimacy-deprived only child soliloquy‘ and ‘anxiety fueled mommy issues‘. Though Combray left with me with more […]
Categories
blog#1 – introduction
blog#1 – introduction Hello all, I’m Jasmine. I’m in my (second) first-year of school at UBC. I’m taking this course because I’ve always had in interest in books and literature from people that aren’t currently alive – mostly because I could afford the royalty-free books at the store (thank you penguin). I’m hoping to learn […]