April 4, 2022 · 11:11 pm

Concluding Post

This was by far the most interesting literature course I have taken so far. The format allowed me to be flexible in the way I was reading the novels. While in previous literature classes I have taken I was required to focus on methodical and technical skills while reading, I finally felt like I could enjoy the novels in RMST 202. Instead of looking for literary patterns or hunting for specific themes, I really felt like I was able to just focus on what the authors were trying to express in the books we’ve read. I didn’t feel like I had the pressure to identify specific concepts and, instead, I was able to write about what struck me about the stories. This was extremely beneficial in terms of my understanding and my contribution to the class. The discussion-oriented classes and blog posts were very stimulating. I learned a lot about other people’s perspectives by commenting on other people’s posts and about my own biases. 

In terms of the contents of the course, reading books from Italian, Spanish, and Mexican authors was fascinating. We are so used to reading books written by English-speaking authors that we often forget to expose ourselves to different cultures. Learning about different countries, societies, characters, places, and more was refreshing and I’m very grateful that I was able to do that through literature. Especially since we live in an age where we can learn about any culture on the many media platforms at our disposal, I loved re-discovering literature as a way of knowing. Lastly, reading novels written by Italian authors in English was very interesting for me. As an Italian native speaker, I was able to put myself in the shoes of non-native speakers who have to be translated versions of Italian novels. This was extremely thought-provoking and taught me how beneficial yet tricky translation can be.

To answer the question with which we started the course, I definitely noticed some differences as well as similarities between the different books. We read stories told by different authors treating different themes, but what I found all books had in common was a romantic type of storytelling. We had established at the beginning of the course that the class would have little to do with romance as in a love story fairytale type of thing. However, ironically, there was a romantic quality to all the novels that captivated me. A sort of dream-like mood and the blurry line between reality and imagination were common denominators in almost every book we read. I don’t know if that could be associated with the fact that these are novels originally written in romance languages, but I personally feel like this could be a partial answer to the purpose of this course.

My question for the class is: did you find a dream-like quality to be recurrent in the novels or do you feel like that is just the common feeling we get when reading stories?

Thank you to Professor Jon, Jennifer, and Patricio for this wonderful course!

– Bianca

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· 10:34 pm

“My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante

I absolutely loved My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Even though my expectations were high, the novel did not disappoint and I’m very happy I get to end this course on a good note. My Brilliant Friend is a novel that keeps the reader entertained with a multitude of dramatic episodes and characters while also teaching the valuable lessons that Lila and Elena had to learn in their society. Being Italian myself, I identified with many of the themes expressed by the author and it was very interesting to read about Naples during the 1950s and compare it to the Naples of today. 

One of the two things that I found most interesting about the novel is how the friendship and development of two very different characters converge into the same type of oppression in a misogynistic world. Elena and Lila are both very smart individuals. The support of their families or lack thereof, though, leads Elena to pursue her intellectual interests while Lila is forced to put an end to her academic career. Nevertheless, both of them try to realize their aspirations — Elena with her article and Lila with the shoe business. What the two protagonists end up facing regardless of their different paths in life is oppression in a male-dominated society. Elena fails to publish her article and Lila’s shoe-manufacturing innovation ends up being instrumentalized by men who want to manipulate her. The girls’ efforts end up being meaningless in the unfair and violent system they grow up in. Ferrante decides to treat the heavy themes of oppression and violence throughout the novel, but I was surprised at how she is able to alternate deep reflections with more lighthearted instances of friendship, happiness, and love. 

The second thing that the novel pushed me to reflect upon, especially after I was done reading, is the role of dialect in the story. The sentence “in dialect” is repeated many times in the book to try and represent the symbolic role of dialect in the original novel. However, when I had a look at the novel in Italian (L’amica geniale), I realized how much gets lost in translation. The author’s use of the Neapolitan dialect in the original novel enriches dialogues and really helps the reader grasp the cultural side of Southern Italy that’s being portrayed. The loss of this traditional and cultural quality made me realize how difficult it is to translate novels preserving all facets of what the author tries to portray.

My question for the class is: how important did the use of dialect seem to you when you were reading the book?

– Bianca

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March 28, 2022 · 11:22 pm

“Soldiers of Salamis” by Javier Cercas

Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas was a somewhat interesting novel, but I cannot say I particularly enjoyed the plot. I found the narration to have a very slow rhythm which didn’t keep me engaged and the many specific details about the story were hard to keep up with. I did appreciate that the novel is divided into three stories that intertwine. Parallel or related streams of narration always add a multidimensional aspect that enhances the story – in my opinion. In the first part, Cercas tells the story of his search for Mazas’ history, of his life as a writer, and of his investigations. The second section focuses on Mazas’ actual life and his escape from a group of Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. Lastly, the third part is the description of Cercas’ interactions with Miralles – who is thought to be the soldier who spared Mazas during the civil war. The three parts offer different facets to the story that make it more entertaining for the reader, however, I found Cercas’ way of approaching a historical novel too factual. The narration is very descriptive and almost felt like I was reading Cercas’ personal diary. I have liked most novels we have read in this course, but Cercas’ was not one of them and I blame that on a few different aspects. The main one is the author’s attempt to make the events told seem as real as possible.

One part I did find very insightful was Cercas and Bolano’s discussion on what a hero is and on literary credibility. While Cercas tries to be committed to the truth and the “relato real”, Bolano appreciates a less realistic way of writing. The Chilean writer notes that memory – whether it is accurate or not – is enough to tell a story while Cercas’ passion for the truth pushes him to make his story feel historically truthful. After reflecting upon the two authors, I figured out that Cercas’ search for realism is why I didn’t enjoy his novel. I appreciated Bolano’s genuine combination of reality and fiction as it added a more dreamlike quality to Amulet. The same dreamlike quality lacked in Cercas and, in my opinion, made the narration less efficient in keeping me involved. An example of this is how the events are introduced in the second part of the novel. Cercas uses sentences like “That same day”, “Over the following days”, “At dusk on the 29th”, and “Hours later” to introduce episodes that, in my experience, ended up blending together and gave a monotone quality to the narration. 

My question for the class is: did you find Cercas’ search for realism to inhibit or enhance your involvement in the story?

– Bianca

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March 21, 2022 · 10:47 pm

“Amulet” by Roberto Bolaño

Amulet by Roberto Bolaño was a very fascinating novel. I have always enjoyed books that blur the line between fantasy and reality, and I think Auxilio Lacouture’s recount does precisely that. In the violent context of the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968, the main character hides in a bathroom of the UNAM during its occupation and embarks on a mental journey that we get to read about in the novel. Auxilio tells her story about her life as the “mother of Mexican poetry” in a melancholic dream-like stream of consciousness. She tells about her work at the university, her relationships with other intellectuals, her love for poetry, and overall creates an escape to the brutality of what goes on beyond the bathroom walls. 

At the same time, though, the woman’s stories seem to be greater than the concept of time. Auxilio predicts future events like Arturo’s return to Mexico in 1974 that emphasize the narrator’s omniscient and almost mystical presence in the novel. The distorted concept of time in the novel makes the recount slightly hard to follow at first and points to the potential unreliability of Auxilio’s narration. As I kept reading, however, I found myself sympathizing with and trusting the narrator more and more. Even though she often forgets details and contradicts herself, Auxilio shows her awareness by doubting her own credibility and always seems to search for the truth in her story. This creates a sincere relationship between her and the reader that I really appreciated.

One theme I found particularly interesting in the novel is the one of womanhood – or lack thereof. We are told the story of a woman from Uruguay with mysterious origins and an adventurous past. However, Auxilio is not described as a feminine woman. At the beginning of the novel, we are told the narrator is missing some teeth. She says: “it was strange to be thinking about my teeth, because in a sense I didn’t care that I had lost the four most important teeth in a woman’s mouth” (32-33). We then understand that Auxilio is old and wise in some ways, but she also has a childish way of thinking that makes her even more interesting. She says “But one thing stopped me from going crazy: I never lost my sense of humor. I could laugh at my skirts, my stovepipe trousers, my stripy tights, my white socks, my page-boy hair going whiter by the day […]” (43). Her lack of femininity, old age, and childish way of thinking make her characterization peculiar and almost make her seem like the character of a fairy tale. Her mystical nature elevates her story of what is ultimately a significant political and historical setting.

My question for the class is: how do you think Auxilio’s peculiar characterization contributes to the narration of her story?

– Bianca

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March 14, 2022 · 10:27 pm

“The Old Gringo” by Carlos Fuente

As much as I liked the actual story that Carlos Fuente writes about in his historical novel The Old Gringo, I can’t say I enjoyed this novel as much as other texts we have read thus far. I found the narration quite chaotic, it was hard for me to stay engaged, and I initially couldn’t understand what message the author was trying to convey. That being said, I appreciated some of Fruentes’ choices when capturing the partially-real story of Ambrose Bierce and I will try to explore them in this post.

Firstly, I liked the sharp irony and the paradoxes. While the old gringo’s initial purpose is dying in the heat of the revolution, he ends up being shot by Pancho Villa only after he is already dead. Similarly, while Harriet leaves the Unites States and the lie she has been living with her mother to find a new life in Mexico, her spiritual journey ends up being full of death and disappointment. Lastly, Arroyo seems so invested in leading a revolution against the Mirandas but ends up being emotionally attached to the worthless papers he finds in the hacienda as he is himself the bastard son of a Miranda. I really liked Fuentes’s use of irony as it gives a more lighthearted feel to a somewhat intense and violent historical novel centered on realistic events that occurred during a revolution.

Secondly, I enjoyed the lyrical tone that the author gives to the novel through stylistic aspects. Like Professor Beasley-Murray explained in his lecture, the repetition of the sentence “Now she sits alone and remembers” adds a dreamlike quality to the novel that – again – made the historical narrative less consuming for me. The characters’ flashbacks and the frame within the frame narration are what made the story more interesting for me. They gave a mystery-like feel to the story and – although they were somewhat confusing at times – made a plain story quite intricate. The fine line between reality (Ambrose Bierce’s real-life story) and imagination (basically all of the made-up adventure that the old gringo goes through after he crosses the border with Mexico) is hard to identify while reading the novel, but once the reader learns more about Bierce’s biography it is fascinating to see how factual evidence, myths, and fantasy intertwine in Fuentes’ work and enrich the story of an American writer who lived over one hundred years ago.

My question for the class is: in your opinion, do irony and fantasy take away from or add to the historical narrative of Ambrose Bierce’s life?

– Bianca

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March 8, 2022 · 12:10 am

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

Georges Perec’s postmodern novel W, or the Memory of Childhood is a very interesting story about the author’s life in Nazi-occupied France. Other than being a very interesting semi-autobiographical recount of the main character’s memories (or lack thereof), I really enjoyed the concept of duality in the story. The juxtaposition of two parallel narratives was slightly confusing at first. Once I got used to it, though, it really helped me to feel involved and understand the different facets of the main character’s experiences. The distinction between the two narratives is also made very clear by the author’s stylistic choices. What stood out to me was Perec’s skill in portraying past events that actually occurred versus the fantasy world invented by himself as a child. The parts of the novel where he is describing his actual memories are often backed up by evidence. Since the author doesn’t have much recollection of his childhood memories, he resorts to pictures, documents, and factual information to reconstruct his past. When he wrote about W, on the other hand, the narration is a lot freer and less “strategic” – even though the memories of W are the clearest ones. This reminded me of Aragon’s Paris Peasant and how specific accurate details are used in contrast with a surrealist narrative. Although the contrast in Perec’s novel can be interpreted in different ways, I liked the concept of duality as the reader is able to see a bigger picture by looking at two sides of the same story.

Another aspect I found interesting is the one of translation. We have talked about how translation can be somewhat problematic in literature, and I think the title of this novel can work as a perfect example of that. In French, the title of the novel is W ou le Souvenir d’enfance, which is read as “double-v” and sounds like “double-vie”. When translated to English, the pun doesn’t work and there is no meaning of a “double life” expressed in the title, so the translator had to add a paragraph explaining this at the beginning of the book. I think the author’s intention when writing the novel might have been to summarize the essence of the book in its title while also allowing the reader to discover this hidden meaning later. The “organicness” of this author-reader interaction gets lost in translation here, and it’s fascinating to see how the message of literature can altered when works are translated in other languages.

My question to the class is: what might have pushed Perec to include the “double-vie” pun in the title? Was it just a postmodern stylistic choice or is there a particular message that he tries to convey to the reader right from the start?

– Bianca

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March 1, 2022 · 12:44 am

“The Passion According to G. H.” by Clarice Lispector

Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G. H. was a peculiar, eerie, and illuminating read. The plots of the novels we have read in this class have been rich with events, details, characters, and so on. I enjoyed Lispector’s story because of its simplicity. Despite describing uninteresting events and portraying very few characters, the author is able to show the significance of a spiritual journey through G.H.’s thoughts. The stream of consciousness makes it very easy to feel engaged in the narration and the honesty with which the main character expresses her reflections gives a bit of lightheartedness to the book. One thing that made me realize how captivating G.H.’s reflections were to me was the structure of the different chapters. The fact that every chapter starts with the last sentence from the previous chapter almost felt like a brief pause in the main character’s thoughts, like a deep breath before a speech.

G.H.’s spiritual awakening was initially hard for me to grasp, but by the end of the book, I understood the message that Lispector was trying to convey. The main character’s development from being imprisoned in her superficial life to gaining a broad understanding of the universe reminded me of The Shrouded Woman and Bonjour Tristesse. We have seen characters that – due to situations they find themselves in – start a process of change towards a deeper perception of the world. In this case, though, what sparked G.H.’s development was a very uninfluential situation. She finds herself in a “room [that] was the portrait of an empty stomach” (43) and the act of killing a cockroach is enough to send her into a deep psychological crisis. This is was makes this character distinctive from the ones in the other novels. Although the reader doesn’t get to know a lot about her life, it seems like her spiritual awakening had been long-awaited.

Lastly, I liked the parallels that the author creates in the story. The way in which the death of the cockroach is connected to G.H.’s passivity when she goes through an abortion shows how shaking the event is for her. Killing the bug – which would usually be considered an insignificant act – makes the main character realize things about herself and her past that change her. Similarly, the parallel between the silence in the maid’s room and her past relationships tells the reader a lot about the weight of G.H.’s realizations.

My question for the class is: why does the author choose a seemingly insignificant situation to be the trigger of the main character’s spiritual journey?

– Bianca

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February 14, 2022 · 9:42 pm

“Bonjour Tristesse” by Françoise Sagan

I found Bonjour Tristesse to be a very engaging yet melancholic novel. The decadent mood that Françoise Sagan creates by portraying the French upper class in the first half of the 20th century is almost dreamy. One of the things that I found most interesting about the story is Cécile’s character development and how it is shaped by the adult women in her life. Overall, the role of female characters in the story and their impact on the main character is impressive for a book published at that time, so that’s what I will focus on in my post.

Cécile is a very entertaining main character. She seems to be very mature for her age mentally but her father’s tendency to spoil her leads her to engage in immature behavior. The coming-of-age nature of the story allows the reader to see Cécile changing substantially due to the circumstances she goes through. At the beginning of the novel, the main character lives her frivolous life carelessly, indulging in her privileged life thanks to the superficiality of her father and, probably, to the absence of a mother figure. She says “I am not ashamed of indulging in these pleasures. In fact I just take them for granted” (19) In part 1, Cécile acts like a spoiled seventeen-year-old but she doesn’t seem to have any bad intentions. 

After Anne and Raymond get married, though, we start seeing her manipulative and morally questionable side. Her mean childish behaviors reach a peak when she splits up the couple and hurts Anne’s feelings so badly she has to run away. Right after Anne’s escape, however, we see her realizing what the consequences of her actions have led to. Cécile starts feeling guilty about what she has done and beings to feel that her conduct can influence others. After fighting with Anne, she says: “for the first time I realized that I had hurt a living, sensitive creature, not just a personality.” (135)

It is interesting to observe how Anne – an older, more intelligent, and successful woman – has an impact on Cécile’s character that goes way beyond Elsa’s. While Elsa is described as one of the many young mistresses that Raymond gets together with, Anne is presented as a more sophisticated woman who appears to be more serious about her relationship with Cécile’s father. I think the author might have created this juxtaposition to show the importance of a mother figure in the lives of adolescent girls. Anne is the only character in the novel who is able to change Cécile’s stubborn attitudes, and, in my opinion, that is because of Anne’s connection to the main character’s mother and her overall motherly attitudes.

My question for the class is: can Anne’s influence on Cécile’s character development be attributed to her presence as a mother figure in the story?

– Bianca

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February 7, 2022 · 5:56 pm

“Agostino” by Alberto Moravia

Moravia’s short coming-of-age novel Agostino was a very interesting yet slightly bizarre read. I had previously read another one of Moravia’s novels, Gli Indifferenti, in high school. Although I read Gli Indifferenti in Italian, I found many similarities between the two novels, and the overall mood conveyed by Moravia was the same in my experience. Moravia’s realism when writing stories about a few characters and their internal development is captivating but easy to misinterpret. In other words, it is easy to get weirded out by some aspects of Moravia’s stories. However, the message beyond the events he narrates is often meaningful and teaches the reader about personal growth, family, sexuality, and society.

Moravia’s characters are often passive to their lives, alienated by society, and overall overwhelmed by the discomfort they feel around others. Agostino fits this description perfectly well. Throughout the whole novel, the thirteen-year-old boy is in a state of unease caused by his transition from adolescence to adulthood. Seeing his mother in her new relationship, discovering about sexuality, entering a friend group that doesn’t respect him, and being the victim of Saro’s pedophilic attitudes are events that add to the main character’s distress. As readers, we see Agostino being the subject of these uncomfortable events but also being unable to react. It’s as though the main character was trapped in an imaginary prison and couldn’t properly react to what happens around him. This is very similar to the behaviors of the characters in Gli Indifferenti. It’s almost as if Moravia’s goal was to show us how frustrating it is to not take control of one’s life through his characters. Everything that remains unsaid throughout the novel is almost louder than what actually is being said. When Berto and the other boys make fun of his mom, “Agostino [wants] to say, “Don’t talk about my mother.” But he [is] so confused by the swarm of sensations and dark memories aroused in him by the question that he [is] left speechless.” (17). His inability to act is discouraging for the reader who is aware of everything that happens in the main character’s head. Even when he is overwhelmed by the embarrassment of discovering some of the worst aspects of sexuality, the main character doesn’t express his frustration. He is an object of life, not a subject if that makes sense.

After writing these reflections on the main character and his development/role in the novel, my question for the class is the following. Does Moravia portray Agostino as a passive character as a way to show the importance of taking charge when needed? Or does he simply paint a picture of an awkward thirteen-year-old without any instructive purpose?

– Bianca

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February 1, 2022 · 12:15 am

“The Shrouded Woman” by María Luisa Bombal

The Shrouded Woman is a captivating novel. María Luisa Bombal explores some of the themes I am most interested in and she does so through the memories of a dead Latin American woman. The narrative is a juxtaposition of fictional and non-fictional events and a puzzle of different perspectives. It is up to the reader to reconstruct the main character’s life through the points of view of the different narrators. The world constructed by Bombal is very dream-like in some ways and very real in others. The outer framework where the main character lies in her casket and the inner one made up of past events create a fascinating dynamic between reality and the supernatural.

The theme that I found most interesting and the most prominent in the novel is the relationship between life and death. Death is seen as a spiritual experience in which Ana María is able to understand a lot about her life. The author embraces the idea of death as an unknown process and rejects its negative connotation. Whenever I get asked if I believe in the afterlife or in something after death, I am torn between the spiritual belief that there is a journey after death or the realist idea that after we die nothing happens, we just rot cease existing. Bombal portrays death as a final act of life. Ana María gains wisdom and freedom after her death and she embodies human individuality in our unknown universe. The novel shows how illuminating dying can be for a human and how naturally beautiful the journey can be.

Nature is another important theme in the novel and it goes along with the main character’s life course. Ana María seems to be very connected to nature in the parts of the novel where she is content and free. When she is young, in love with Ricardo and pregnant with his child, the main character deeply identifies herself with nature. She passes hours on her hammock “suspended between two hazelnut trees” (169) and lays there for hours. She sees “a flight of doves with their coming and going streaking with fleeting shadows the book opened on my knees; the intermittent chant of the sawmill – that sharp, sustained, soft note, like the humming of a beehive – cutting through the air as far as the houses when the afternoon was very clear” (169). After her death, the main character is immersed in nature in a similar way. In her casket, she feels “an infinity of roots sink and spread into the earth like an expanding cobweb […] feeling the grass grow, new islands emerge, and on some other continent, the unknown flower bursting open that blooms only on a day of eclipse.” (159) The essence of Ana María as a human and a woman is rooted in nature and her relationship with the natural world changed throughout the story.

The question I have for the class is: does the changing role of nature follow Ana María’s development in the story or are the two elements unrelated?

Can’t wait to read the other posts!

– Bianca

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