Tag Archives: Adulthood

Week 12 – Conclusion

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Throughout the past few months, this course felt like an endless seesaw ride, bouncing against different – yet similar – themes and cultures. In the beginning of the course, I questioned what “Romance Studies” was, or rather, what it could have meant. However, right from the introductory lecture, I realized I won’t be able to find a single answer to this. I therefore avoided trying to find the meaning behind Romance Studies. This allowed me to approach the texts with an open, unprejudiced mind; rather than seeking for a “hidden” theme, thus creating a filter between the book and myself, I allowed the book to speak to me in its most authentic form, in its most natural language, without any of my own thought filtration. Of course, getting rid of this “tendency to find specific meaning” took time to develop. I remember reading Proust and Aragon and feeling a bit lost as I couldn’t find anything that could answer what “Romance Studies” was. However, simultaneously, the lecture videos were of tremendous help. It guided me through the relevant themes of the story, allowing me to establish an understanding of key concepts without having to systematically “look” for them.

Looking back at the texts that we have read, the strongest commonality I personally found between all the books was the theme of “relationship”. First, there was the relationship between people. From the parent-child relationships shown in The Shrouded Woman, Agostino, Bonjour Tristesse, The Time of the Doves, The Society of Reluctant Dreamers, Amulet, etc., to the temporal relationship between one’s past, present, and future, as shown in “Combray”, Paris Peasant, W, or the Memory of Childhood, everything in our texts started off and ended with relationships. Reading about these different relationships – between people, nations, time, objects, literature – was in itself a truly remarkable experience. One big part that stood out for me was the relationship between narrators and literature – such as the mother’s bedtime stories in “Combray”, the narrator Cercas’ journey to write Soldiers of Salamis, and Auxilio’s obsession with poetry. The relationship between people and literature seemed to have a parallel with the relationship between people and time. Like how time can affect people, in that people can reconstruct the present with a recollection of the past, literature, too, seems to reconstruct people’s futures; in some instances, literature seemed like the key driver of people’s lives (especially for Cercas).

Requiring myself to read a book every week was the best thing I have done in this semester. Not only did I become a faster and better reader, but I was also able to experience a “new world” ever week, every time I opened a new text.

Finally, I would like to express my greatest gratitude towards Professor Beasley-Murray, Patricio, and Jennifer for everything they have done for this class this past semester.

My final question: Out of the numerous themes we have encountered, what stood out to you’re the most? Is it applicable to your life in some way?

Week 6, Sagan, “Bonjour Tristesse”

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Reading Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse felt like riding a playground swing. For me this book was full of an ongoing internal contrast in Cécile’s mind between admiration and resentment towards Anne. On one hand, the difference that Cécile and her father had from Anne seemed to be highlighting class differences; Elsa, Cécile, and her father’s lives were categorized as “Bohemianism”, whereas Anne’s life was that of “a cultivated, well-organized, bourgeois existence” (46). I noticed how Cécile took advantage of this difference to cognitively separated her and her father from Anne, strengthening her treatment of Anne as an intruder and “danger” to the happiness of her and her father.

However, at the same time, Cécile seemed to have viewed Anne with great admiration. Cécile explicitly said, “I greatly admired her” (10). Cécile believed that Anne’s addition (or intrusion) to the family would benefit her as she said, “she would guide me, relieve me of responsibility, and be at hand whenever I might need her. She would make both my father and me into paragons of virtue” (44). I felt that throughout the entirety of the book, there was tension between Cécile’s admiration and resentment towards Anne. Perhaps Cécile’s admiration towards Anne fueled her resentment, as Anne’s attempt to bring order and responsibility to Cécile’s life kept Cécile from liking herself; Cécile, “who was naturally meant for happiness and gaiety, had been forced by [Anne] into self-criticism and a guilty conscience” (52). Cécile undoubtedly admired Anne and her “bourgeois existence”; however, she viewed Anne’s orderly life as something far too superior, something that will require too much work, responsibilities, and changes to her current life that seem to her as unwanted sacrifices.

I felt that love was a key driver of this book. Cécile’s attitude towards love started cynical, where she viewed it as mere sensation rather than happiness (20). Then, love changed to a strong “physical” and “intellectual” pleasure that seemed to make her happy when she was with Cyril; it seemed like a true realization until this point. However, her realization of love took a drastic turn when she realized that it was not Cyril that she loved, but she “had loved the pleasure he gave [her]” (127). Perhaps this attitude accurately summarizes the novel’s focus on sensuality, pleasure, and irresponsibility. At a certain point Cécile started to resemble Anne; she started to think about the future and formed tactics that were derived from critical thoughts. However, her irresponsibility remained the same; she is driven by emotions, usually resentment, and never thought of the consequences that could happen by her actions.

To close off my blog, I would like to ask a question: Throughout the book we never got proper insight on Cécile’s mother. Considering that this book had a first-person narrative, do you think the lack of insight on her deceased mother has any implications? Is it merely because her deceased mother is uninfluential to the plot, or perhaps, is Cécile repressing thoughts about her mother?

Week 5, Moravia, “Agostino”

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Reading Moravia’s Agostino brought me a new perspective towards the transition between youth and adulthood. While I was trying to empathize the situation Agostino was going though, such as him witnessing his mother’s relationship with the young man, I could not understand – by heart – what Agostino could have felt in those moments. In this way, I felt quite attached to Agostino’s thoughts; I did not have any prejudice or bias towards the scenes he was witnessing, so it was easier to perceive – as information – what Agostino was feeling.

What really stood out to me was how Moravia depicted the change of Agostino’s thoughts and perspective towards his mother. In the early parts of the book, where he first saw his mother “let herself fall awkwardly into the arms of [the young man]”, Agostino was confused of why his mother would indulge in a “feminine clumsiness” (11). Then, as he learned more about adult sexuality from the boys at Vespucci beach, his initial misunderstanding turned to “complicity, curiosity, and mug, glum approval” (47). This initial change of thought and perspective was weirdly understandable; I could not relate to it because I did not go through the same thought process nor achieved the end product similar to Agostino, but I was able to follow this change of thought without denying it. Furthermore, it was interesting to see the instances where Agostino had to hold back what he truly wanted to say to his mother, showing how there was that ongoing conflict between his innocent youth and emerging early adulthood. For instance, Agostino wanted to shout to his mother, “cover yourself, stop showing yourself to me, I’m not who I sued to be” (69).

Although it was tempting to view Agostino in a psychoanalytic perspective, I chose not to do so. The reason for this goes back to Aragon’s obsession over sensuality. Agostino’s story, which was a short instance of his much wider life, was full of new sensations; it was almost as if Agostino was piled up by new stimuluses that he could not resist but pursue. In this way, Agostino let his sensual experiences guide his thoughts, rather than rationalizing everything. Therefore, I respected this “pursuant towards sensuality” and decided to follow along the same line; I, too, focused on understanding Agostino in regards to sensuality, rather than logical rationalization.

To conclude my blog, I’d like to end with a question: Moravia, intentionally or unintentionally left out big gaps on Agostino’s life; his regular day-to-day life, as well as his previous relationship with his father. How do you think his regular day-to-day life would have changed, after his summer instance? Also, it was told that his relationship with mother had changed. How about the metaphysical connection he must have had with his father? Do you think his attitude towards his deceased father would have changed?