Tag Archives: fictionality

Week 11, Cercas, “Soldiers of Salamis”

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Reading Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis was filled with many different emotions.

At first, reading about Cercas’ – the narrator – detachment from his literary career made me sad. However, upon quickly realizing that he had found a new impulse to write again, I felt excited for the narrator. This quote in page 55 resonated to me:

“[A]fter almost ten years without writing a book, the moment to try again had arrived” (55).

Until this point, I did not know the legitimacy of the narrator’s story; I knew it was Cercas, but I didn’t know if this was “imaginary” or “real” (as in real life). However, that had no effect on the empathy I felt towards the narrator.

Reading the “Part Two: Soldiers of Salamis” was a little “drier” compared to the story on how the narrator “Cercas” wrote the book itself. It was an engaging war tale; however, it had a very strong “autobiographical” or perhaps “non-fiction” feeling within it. What compensated for this “dryness”, though, was the context of how this story was created by Cercas. Throughout the whole book, Cercas goes through constant processes of validation. For example, when Cercas received Sanchez Mazas’ diary from Figueras, Cercas stated to have a suspicion “which insidiously crossed my mind as I read, that the notebook was a fraud, a falsification contrived by the Figueras family to deceive me, or deceive someone” (65). In response to his suspicions, Cercas seeks for and obtains documentary proof. As such, I think it was this process of validation which gave Cercas the motivation to write again. Cercas continuously made hypotheses of what could have happened; using his imagination and fragmented testimonies, he tried filling in the gaps between what was known and unknown about the moment Sanchez Mazas’ life was spared. It seemed like he was attracted to this process, feeling satisfaction and enjoyment.

Finding Bolano in the last third of the book was pleasant; it was nice to see a known name, so unexpectedly. One quote about Bolano resonated:

“Bolano felt profoundly sad, not because he knew he was going to die, but for all the books he’d planned to write and would now never write, for all his dead friends, all the young Latin Americans of his generation – soldiers killed in wars already lost – he’d always dreamt of resuscitating in his novels and who’d now stay dead for ever” (176).

I was quite moved by reading Bolano’s vision to write “for all his dead friends”, to keep the dead Latin American soldiers alive by his memories, books, and the history that he recreates. It reminded me of Auxilio Lacoutoure; it seems like Bolano himself felt the pressure of this “mission” to keep the dead Latin Americans alive through his remembrance.

Cercas and Miralles also seem to share this “mission”. An inspiring statement on 236 exemplifies just that:

“He remembers for the same reason I remember my father […] he remembers because, although they died sixty years ago, they’re still not dead, precisely because he remembers them” (236).

This re-creation, or continuation of the dead, through memory, is a very emotional topic. I think anyone can relate to this idea, regardless of how accurate or misleading the contents of this book are.

Question: Do you think Miralles was the soldier who spared Sanchez Mazas’ life? Or was it not him, like Miralles himself said? Or does it not matter?

Week 9, Manea, “The Trenchcoat”

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When I first finished reading Norman Manea’s “The Trenchcoat”, I felt way too confused. However, after watching the lecture video and reading blogposts of my peers, I realized that confusion – especially regarding the Trenchcoat – was a central theme of the story. For me, the anonymity and lack of description for the Trenchcoat made me read the story with a suspicion; looking back at the notes I have made throughout my reading, there are a lot of question marks.

The start of the story felt rather mundane and perhaps boring. However, one short sentence caught my interest. That is, “The future: small and immediate. Already present, already past, already small, shrunken . . . enormous” (192). I think this sentence explains well the hopelessness of life in Romania at that time. Although this sentence did not explicitly indicate anything about people’s “boredom” and “lack of progressive ideas”, I think it shows an attitude that corresponds to Professor Beasley-Murray’s statement that “Nothing really happens in Romania; all ideas of progress have been abandoned”.

Another interesting part of the story was in the early part of the book, where Iona argues how “dinner parties have been disappearing” and that “it’s the desire, above all, it’s the desire to get together that has disappeared” (193). It was interesting to learn about the context of this book, specifically the Communist Regime in Romania. Although I can only imagine, I think the world people in Romania at the time had to live through would have been characterized by mistrust, suspicion, disconnection, and boredom (or hopelessness). People, full of mistrust and lack of hope for the future, “lost the desire to get together” (193). Perhaps, it is within this life of boredom and suspicion where the Trenchcoat becomes so significant, something that attracted the attention of Dina.

I’m still confused over the numerous hypotheses of the appearance of the Trenchcoat. At first, I thought it was just left at the house by one of the guests at the dinner party. However, that seemed untrue as Dina’s phone calls proved. Then, the possibility that it was left deliberately as some sort of experiment posed a new suspicion. Finally, the constant suspicion between the visitors worsened the confusion, and made the situation look much more serious than it looked at the beginning. Reflecting on my experience as a reader of the various hypotheses of the Trenchcoat, I feel like I always had a strong suspicion towards all the characters; every time a new suspicion was posed, I was attracted to believing it. In this way, I feel like the Trenchcoat was a device that allowed Manea to share the experience of living through a “world of suspicion, distrust, and boredom (hopelessness)” to the readers. At least he certainly did for me.

Question for the author: The appearance of the Trenchcoat was left an unresolved mystery. In your mind, was there an answer to this mystery? Why and how did the Trenchcoat appear?

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?

Week 4, “The Shrouded Woman”

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Reading Bombal’s The Shrouded Woman was a fascinating experience. Not only did it create a unique perspective that I had never even dreamt of, but it also facilitated a metaphysical environment for me to reflect on my own life.

I truly enjoyed the fact that the narrator was a dead person. Although I highly doubt that what happened in the story happens in reality, it was fascinating to read Bombal’s creativity in this matter. Speaking of creativity, I believe Bombal successfully “created” an authentic world in her book. In other words, she created an environment in her book where all the characteristics of the world were derived from her creativity. In this way, I view Bombal’s book as a fictional literature that is “real” in itself. In addition, I was heavily impacted by the perspectives of this book. While following the Ana Maria’s reflections of her past, I, too, reflected on my life so far; I reflected upon the relationships I had, my actions in certain situations, and how I could have been perceived by other people. The fact that Bombal’s book affected me in this way shows that it was “real” in its own sense. It created concrete effects in my life, giving me a new perspective to view my own life.

Another notable characteristic of Bombal’s book was how the role of women was depicted. Before reading the book, and during the first sections of the book, I had a strong expectation that this book would depict women to be inferior and “controlled”. Part of this initial expectation proved right, as the women of the story seemed to have limited opportunities in any department of life than men had. For instance, Ricardo went abroad for his studies, whereas no other women did the same. However, the way women were portrayed, at least in the case of the narrator, was against this prejudice of women being inferior and “controlled”. This is especially in the case of Ana Maria, the shrouded woman. Following Ana Maria’s reflections, it almost felt as if she had superior wisdom than any other people who were living. Ana Maria shows acceptance, sympathy, and pity towards the people who had hurt her in her life. She depicts the sorrowful events of her past as something silly and childish. Perhaps this also shows a separation between life and death; the wisdom we could only gain through death. For some reason, however, this “superiority” of the narrator being in an extraterrestrial realm made me perceive a sense of superiority of women. Moreover, this understanding was strengthened after reading about Maria Griselda’s prominence.

To finish of my blogpost, I would like to ask a question: Ana Maria freed herself from her “terrestrial anxieties” through reflecting and evaluating the relationships she had and how those relationships affected her life. Do you have any “terrestrial anxieties”? Where do your “terrestrial anxieties” come from? How do you think you can free yourself from them?