“Mad Toy” by Roberto Arlt

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This novel was much easier to read than “Combray” and it was also more entertaining. I really enjoyed the structure of this book and how it was broken into distinct parts. I loved seeing the different stages of Silvio’s life. Right from the start I was very intrigued by Silvio’s fascination with bandits and theft. I found it interesting that our first introduction to the main character was to see him as a thief. In my opinion, a big part of enjoying a book is being able to relate to the characters. Which begs the question: Wouldn’t making Silvio a thief make readers hate the narrator? So why introduce him as such?

One of my favourite quotes from the first part was: “We basked in the knowledge that, had our deeds been known, we would have been hauled before a judge” (36). I think that this quote really showed Silvio’s youth because him saying that shows that he has nothing to lose. He is to young to realize that his actions can have serious consequences.

In chapter 2, when Silvio’s mother was telling him that he needs to get a job, I thought that this really showed how much a mother cares about her son. She was pleading him to get a job because she wanted a good future for him. Then, after Silvio got kicked out of the army for being too smart and attempted to kill himself, it was really heartbreaking seeing his mother react to his actions. His mother did not care about the fact that he is no longer in the army, she would’ve welcomed him back home regardless. I think this was a devastating scene because had Silvio understood the love his mother has for him, he would’ve never wanted to die.

A quote that really stood out to me throughout the whole novel was: “So that’s life, always complaining about what was”. I thought about this quote for a long time, and how true these words are. People love complaining. So much so that we often don’t realize how often we complain. In the novel, life was a huge theme. We see Silvio have many jobs, complain about them and then move on. We see him searching for his identity as the world around his shifts and evolves. I loved being able to see what was going on in his head. When Silvio was thinking to himself, those were my favourite parts. The questions he asked himself and the conversations he had with himself were very compelling to read.

My question this week is why do you think Silvio betrayed Rengo? Silvio used to find joy in theft, so why the sudden change of heart?

Proust’s Combray

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To be honest, I am not a fan of this novel. I found it quite confusing and a bit difficult to follow. As discussed in the conversation video with professor Farid Laroussi, time in this novel is not linear. For such a long book to never mention the precise time is crazy to me. I think the author wants us to get lost in this book as one can get lost in his memories. The novel jumps to the past then to the present and if you’re even slightly distracted you will get confused. I will say that the writing style was quite befitting for one of the themes of this novel: memory. Memories can be confusing, they can be difficult to remember and you don’t always think of them in the order that they occurred. To me, the way this novel was written matches this notion of distorted memories.

I also did not like the weird relationship the narrator had with his mother, or rather with women in general. The constant anxiety surrounding the relationship between the narrator and his mother didn’t really make sense to me. I didn’t understand why if his mother did not give him a goodnight kiss he would overreact so much. He would get angry at his father for keeping his mother from him and I wish we would’ve gotten more of an insight about this complex relationship (Freud must be having a field day!). I feel like this bizarre relationship extends to other women in the novel such as Gilberte. The narrator says he loves her and that he thinks she’s beautiful, yet he proceeds to say the following: “I though her so beautiful that I wished I could retrace my steps and shout at her with a shrug of my shoulders: “I think you’re ugly, I think you’re grotesque, I loathe you!”” (145). Clearly, the narrator has a very odd perception of love.

Lastly, I absolutely hated the endless descriptions about the church in Combray. This book requires a lot of attention and during the pages in which there were long descriptions about the church, it was difficult for me to stay concentrated. That paired with the never-ending sentences  made it even harder for me to stay interested.

Discussion question: In high school, my French literature teacher loved to use the expression “Madeleine de Proust”, which basically means an object, scent, taste… that reminds you of your childhood or brings forth a very emotional memory. So my question is: What is your “Madeleine de Proust”?

Introduction

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Hi everyone! My name is Nini and I am a first year student. I’m planning on majoring in psychology next year. I moved here from Montreal, Quebec in August. I’m fluent in French but I prefer reading in English. I have always had a passion for reading so I’m very excited for this class. Reading is my favourite form of escapism. I usually prefer reading fantasy, romance and fiction but I am still looking forward to reading the novels assigned in this course. Some other random facts about me are that I used to be a competitive gymnast, I love marvel movies and I am currently obsessed with the new Percy Jackson show on Disney plus.

When I registered for this class I didn’t really have any expectations other than I have to fulfill my literature requirement. And I still do. However, after our first lecture, I am intrigued by this class. I like to think of myself as a good reader so I want to challenge myself by signing the contract to get an A+ in this class. This will either confirm that maybe a I am a good reader, or I’ll end up hating books forever. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. I honestly still don’t have that many expectations for this class other then the fact that I am expecting it to be challenging as reading 11 literature books does not sound easy. I guess I could say I’m expecting to learn how to properly read a book like a piece of art rather than just words on a page.

After watching the lecture video, I was surprised to find out that the term “Romance” comes from the Roman Empire. I don’t know why but this really surprised me. Something that really caught my attention was when Dr. Beasley-Murray said: ” Romance studies belongs nowhere, and it finds a place everywhere. This enables a democratic freedom of expression” (10.04). I found that this is such a beautiful way to think about literature. Because it doesn’t belong anywhere, it belongs everywhere. Also, in the conversation video with Dr. Tim Beasley-Murray, when talking about all the languages that derive from Latin and how knowing one of them facilitates the process of learning another one. I’ve noticed this before when I was learning Spanish in high school. Because I know how to speak French, whilst learning Spanish I couldn’t help but notice all the similarities which made it so much easier. Even though all of these languages come from Latin, they all offer different things to literature and reading the translated versions is just not the same as reading a novel in its original language.