{"id":52,"date":"2022-02-07T23:07:14","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T06:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/?p=52"},"modified":"2022-02-07T23:09:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T06:09:20","slug":"blog5-teenage-hubris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/2022\/02\/07\/blog5-teenage-hubris\/","title":{"rendered":"blog#5 – teenage Hubris"},"content":{"rendered":"

blog#5 – teenage Hubris —<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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 impassioned demeanor felt like the perfect fit to this messy, chaotic, story of family. It was perhaps my favourite part of the book… watching Andrea struggle with her role, her inner conflict between intervening and spectating.<\/p>\n

While reading\u00a0Nada<\/em>, it always felt a bit muted. It felt like I was spectating a scene that (an older, more mature) Andrea is intimately describing to me. I was still immersed in a sense while reading, but it was an immersion that feels somewhat distant, with cold sympathy and sharp, vivid descriptions – like a person telling their story of how they escaped their terrible circumstances, and the innate beauty of the miniscule. (Seeing as it is based loosely on Laforet’s life, I can understand why it feels this way). In the beginning, Nada<\/em>‘s beautiful, descript scenes of Barcelona and its city vistas are what kept me somewhat hopeful for the protagonist. Though when Andrea’s gorgeous language shifted from describing Barcelona to Ena, I think this is the part of the book that truly came alive. I loved seeing that same love that exuded from Andrea when she was talking about Ena or Barcelona. It truly gave me some relief to know that I wasn’t going to be reading a book written only about a family full of interesting, terrible, miserable characters – doing interesting, terrible, miserable things to other people.<\/p>\n

Throughout the book, I found myself always asking ‘what would have happened if Andrea’s family wasn’t this crazy?’. Of course, it wouldn’t be as interesting of a story, not as much drama would occur, but it seems a shame to me that the reader’s only vision of Andrea being hopeful and full of life and curiosity, was in the very beginning of the story – before she meets her family. A kind of invincible, teenage hubris that only exists in youth. Perhaps impassioned by the notion of being 18 in a new city, excited by the bounds of curiosity and bewilderment, wanting to discover the corners and nooks of Barcelona – only to be choked by the unruly responsibility of living in that household in Calle de Aribau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,57,5,58,7,40],"tags":[63,62,65,60,54,67,59,61,64,66],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-childhood","category-family","category-gender","category-laforet","category-mother","category-womanhood","tag-barcelona","tag-city","tag-drama","tag-family","tag-fate","tag-hubris","tag-muted","tag-responsibility","tag-spectator","tag-teenage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/rmst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}