Monthly Archives: January 2022

January 29, 2022 · 11:19 pm

Bombal’s “The Shrouded Woman” : Reflections from beyond the grave

It is certainly always a delight to hear female voices in modernist literature, and Bombal’s “The Shrouded Woman” is no exception. It is rare to see older female protagonists/ narrators depicted in literature, and that reason alone could suffice for making the book an interesting read. The novel is a narrated by the corpse of a Chilean woman, and depicts her reflections of life in death, as she lies to rest in her grave. Instead of providing a holistic review, I have chosen a few segments from Bombal’s writing that had a impacted me.

The book begins with the narrator’s taking delight in the gaze she is subjected to as a woman, even in death. Through unique self- reflexivity as a corpse, the narrator takes pleasure in her physical appearance at her own funeral and “she takes delight in submitting herself to the gaze of all” (p. 157). This speaks to the constant “gaze” women are subjected to and creates a paradox in defining the fine line between unwanted attention and enjoyment of it. Moreover, her reflexivity as a corpse creates interesting observations through the gift of hindsight, in a tone that is often perplexing and ambivalent. She wonders “must we die to know things” (p. 176), re-evaluating the subtle pointlessness of drowning in misery after her first heartbreak. It also provides commentary on the broader wasted opportunities to live life while one can, and to desire the gifts of hindsight earlier on in life.

Another recurring theme in the book that intrigued me was the narrator’s connection to God and religion. Through instances of questioning her faith, and the existence of God, Bombal creates a powerful concept of agency that is often not afforded to women, especially in patriarchal societies. She says, “God seemed to me so remote, and so sever”. This positions women as having agency in the form of strong ideas, independent thought and being curious. Their minds are depicted as free from capture from the patriarchal cage that surrounds them, which reads to me as an act of rebellion against the missionary movement of the West and the mandatory adherence to God that was demanded of all people, including women.

On an concluding note, another observation I made was that the male characters in the book- whether it was the narrator’s lover, father, or brother are depicted as deeply flawed in the narrator’s mind, which creates active space for women to shine in the book, even given the constraints of their material and worldly conditions. On page 182, she talks about the “price women have to pay” when they refuse to conform to the pillars of patriarchy, but she talks about it in a light which is celebratory of women who choose to do so.

Astha Kumar

Food for thought: 

What are your thoughts on this particular line that comes from the ending paragraph of the book- “Alone, she would at last be able to rest, to die. For she had suffered the death of the living.”

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Filed under abyss, inorganic structures, isolation, Memory, nostalgia

January 24, 2022 · 6:13 pm

Paris Peasant- an inquiry into the past?

Words like historic, romanic and chic are a part of my common vocabulary when I think about Paris. However, through reading Aragon’s “Paris Peasant” (1994) , I was offered an opportunity to imagine a distinctively different Paris. In his vivid descriptions of the city, it’s places and people and things, the narrator induces an almost painful nostalgia through his  surrealist tone- ..”in this world that surrounded me and which seemed to me to be a prey to quite new obsessions” (113).  The old order of the world was disintegrating, and the world was on the brink of change during the time of Aragon’s writing, and he posits the narrator as witnessing and processing this shift through meticulously archiving the daily, and the mundane.

Aragon’s descriptions of the mundane descriptions of landscape, setting and people (friends and strangers alike) are a testament to the fact that the old world is not redundant. He writes  about sacred places at the turn of the century- “At least each space of space is meaningful, like a syllable of some dismantled world” (169).  Through this description alone, Aragon engages in the brave act of preserving history. The ordinary times, even as they are re-shaped into something extraordinary by temporality, cannot deem the past as unimportant in its original form.

As a reader, I felt the narrator move through life embodying the ethic of the avant-garde. Time becomes clung to objects and setting, which appear almost ghost-like. I believe this spectral feeling is created within the readers because Aragon does not not rely on a plot or characters to illustrate the aforementioned themes in his work. Instead, he relies on the literary tactic of stream of consciousness, where the flow of his thoughts become the words on the paper and the backbone of the story. To me, this promotes the idea of the ghost setting, and ghost object and ghost people referenced in his work are an entity worthy of social examination, and not just as dead and forgotten as the tidal wave of time seeks to wipe them out.

Overall, the book creates a feeling of the narrator hanging in between remembering what is gone and cautiously awaiting what it yet to come by offering a still, provocative account pf the present- “I do not seek the right. I seek the concrete.” (202). This is culturally revolutionary because many people associate the turn of the century and technological innovation as a symbol of development. The new world is an embodiment of progress, but the process of such changes might reveal significant details, as evident in Aragon’s work.

Astha Kumar

Food for thought: 

While recognizing the broad usage of surrealism in Aragon’s work, can we maybe point to smaller and specific instances of its usage?

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Filed under avant-garde, language, nostalgia, temporalflow

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January 17, 2022 · 2:59 pm

Proust’s “Combray” : A window into the past that is neither transparent nor opaque, but translucent.

Marcel Proust is often cited as a crucial contributor to modernist literature. His chapter on “Combray” is a remarkable study of the fragile nature of memory and remembering. Upon first glance, Proust draws the reader in by the using words that seem to occupy a liminal space between sleep and consciousness, that mimic the confused state of the main character in the book, who is experiencing confusion upon waking up in his room. He arouses a feeling of loneliness in the reader, by populating the setting with great detail, yet positioning the character as feeling empty, in a desolate space. His vivid descriptions of the room, coupled with the descriptions of the objects within it, seem to be longing for the company that the rooms once inhabited.

In a traditional novel, the reader expects a linear time sequencing, a reliable and singular narrator and descriptions of any art form, such as literature, imitating life. Proust’s work, which is an embodiment of modernist work, unsettles and challenges all these expectations in a myriad of ways. The unnamed narrator takes a journey into the past, travelling seamlessly into moments of past that position him as a child, occupying space in the same house he lives in today. He outlines conversations, and moments, and his longing for maternal comfort in great detail, through a narrative tone that is, at best, unreliable. This unreliability is turned inward for the main character, as he struggles to discover whether his memories of the past are locked in time, or moulded into something different as he looks back with the benefit of hindsight. He remarks, “these recollections abandoned so long outside of my memory, nothing survived”. This challenges the idea that every memory, every caveat of the past should fit like a piece of a missing puzzle. Instead, this style of writing encourages the reader to reject the idea of categorizing and recalling the past as a neatly woven structure, and instead look at it as an ever-changing form, with no certain beginning, middle or end.

Memory is described as a window into the past, that looks different from various angles and periods of time. The narrator, when he writes about his childhood, is lacking the obvious nostalgia one expects when describing his home, family members and the private memories of their household. This is yet more evidence of an unexpected style of writing, and provides testament that Proust’s work embodies the modernist agenda. Hence, the window into the past, is not transparent (full available) or opaque (fully blocked), but instead translucent, allowing limited, incomplete and malleable glimpses.

-Astha, K

Food for thought:

A question that I pose from his work is- Were you, as a reader, a) surprised by the narrator’s commentary on class, caste and social status? and b) what did you make of these observations? (page 21).

 

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Filed under language, Memory, Modernism

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January 12, 2022 · 1:05 pm

An introductory note

Hello everyone!

I am writing this introductory note from an especially rainy day in Vancouver, which seems somewhat perfect for this occasion. My name is Astha Kumar, and I am a fourth year Sociology major, about 4 courses shy from graduating this spring. In my free time, I thoroughly enjoy reading, cooking and finding music from independent artists.

I took this course because it seemed like a great way to exercise my curiosity and break out of my comfort zone. My new year resolution this year was to broaden my horizons when it came to reading, and I believe the diverse RMST 202 reading list is a great way to exercise my commitment. Literary works are not only powerful sources of knowledge, but great informers of culture, language, people, traditions and ways of life. My primary expectation from this course is to be able understand, compare and contrast the unique voice in every text and make a genuine effort to learn something of value from each one of them– perhaps ideas I can carry with me, long after this course is finished. Every good book, in my opinion, is able to do this.

In reference to the introductory lecture, Professor Jon’s passion was captivating and infectious. I especially appreciated how he practiced reflexivity in explaining his choice of the texts, and made sure to acknowledge areas, topics, and aspects that were missing from the diverse collection. He also viewed the translated nature of texts from an extremely unique standpoint. I often believe that there is an original essence of the work lost to the reader when reading a translated text, but Jon reassured us that it was an opportunity to re-make, re-imagine and travel with the texts. Hence, I embark on this journey, and brace myself as I travel across the world through the texts in pursuit of understanding what underpins romance in our world.

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