Author: Annabelle

Woah, I cannot believe we’ve reached the end of the semester! Thinking of endings: this is always an ending I don’t mind reaching. If we think about each week as a chapter and the whole semester as a book, I’ve enjoyed this one. In this comparison am I writing the chapters or reading them? I guess that depends if we think of the future as determined or variable. Okay well, that’s enough of that, I am getting annoyed with myself.

A takeaway for me is how long books can be helpful. Going into this class, two of my favourite pieces of literature were Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck (about 100 pages) and “Desirée’s Baby” by Kate Chopin (about 8 pages). While I do definitely like long books, I like how short texts are so concise, precise, (when done well) every piece fitting just so. I feel it is harder to argue that longer books achieve the same precision: one of my challenges with The Savage Detectives was whole parts could have been taken out or switched or changed, and the whole story would not have come out much different. In another way, I like how the super short stories we read – like the dinosaur in the bedroom – had a similar effect of causing an amplification of our imagination imbued into the reading.

But there are things only long books can do. Bolaño held us in suspense for some-500 pages and several decades to conclude a story that all started with García Madero joining the visceral realists. That is certainly not a tool shorter books can use – but I don’t think I would have the patience for another book like this.

Reflecting on the long book format, I see another interest in long books: as antidotes. Increasingly, attention spans are shortening as content is shortening to meet them, creating a back and forth that seemingly leaves long books as out of style. Perhaps we can think of long books as solution: to require readers to commit for a longer period of time, to require closer reading than trendy BookTok favourites and commitment to putting away other distractions if we are either to get to the end or to get something out of it. 

Towards the end of the semester, as I find myself increasingly stressed and without a moment to spare, I find myself increasingly tiring to Instagram feels for respite: a quick scroll really puts my mind at ease (lol!). But then of course, like any other vice, it doesn’t meaningfully  help me. Turning to long books, or books in general, might just. And so, I find myself turning to my next read…

I have the amazing opportunity to visit my good friend Sofia in Chile for three weeks in May! To prepare, I’ve done a VPL spree and I’ve put a bunch of Chilean books – fiction and non-fiction (and also a photography book from 1954? I’m going to try to find the same streets to compare!) on hold – including Isabelle Allende’s House of Spirits, which we’ve talked about in class…not favourably! Haha! Also a book Lily recommended to me, called I Lived on Butterfly Hill, which makes me reflect on the social aspect of books. I love the social aspects of books – how a usually solitary activity can create community and conversations…hmm sounds like I need to join a book club!

Which, now that I think about it, RMST 495 felt like to me. It was a space to share findings, learning, interpretations in an open way that promoted discussion and deeper readings. In not having to worry about writing essays, I found myself doing a different kind of learning: how to read to share. I’ve enjoyed hearing from everyone else’s interpretations and own books, as well as the atmosphere in class! It’s been so fun to be in a class where everyone contributes and is not on their phones the whole time. Thanks guys! I was a pretty quiet student – but I always enjoyed listening to what others had to say.

Well, that’s all from me folks. I am both excited and sad about our final class tomorrow – it’s my final class for the semester, which always feels both exhilarating and daunting! For my final question for you all, do you have a favourite end of year song? I can think back clearly to the song I put in my headphones at the end of each semester (it had to be the perfect song to capture the weight lifted off of my shoulders of course!). So do you have any songs you like to listen to at the end of the year?

My final post on Les Misérables!

Last week, I got to see Les Misérables at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre! Both Jon and one of my friends had told me that it was hard to follow, so as the curtains fell, I locked in. Happily, I found that the first three quarters were almost exactly like the book! It was satisfying to watch scenes that I had read unfold across the stage. Some elements were changed – Fantine is a character forced to work as a prostitute to support her daughter. In the book, she snaps and attacks a man after he throws a snowball at her as she trudges down a snowy street. In the play, she refuses to be bought by a cruel man, which results in her imprisonment. Both of these create a victim in different ways: as someone to heartlessly abuse on the street and as someone punished for trying to preserve her dignity.

Unfortunately, once I got past the part I’d read…I was lost. Why were they fighting? Honestly, that was my main question. There was a giant barricade onstage as characters defended it from…I did not know who.

Okay, after finishing up the book, I understand the story now! It was a reversal of watching the first three quarters of the musical – now as I read the images from the stage are what I imagine in my mind. So, the fighting was Marius’s (a young man who reminds me a little of a benevolent Garcia Madero) friends’ political uprising, harkening back to the Révolution française (“It’s ’93 all over again!” many characters exclaim in despair). Meanwhile, Marius pines for Cosette (Fantine’s daughter!) while her adoptive father Jean tries to keep them apart – “That man” he calls Marius angrily.

The most poignant scene for me both in the book and the show was the death of (nearly) indestructible Inspector Javert, who hunted ex-convict Jean across the country and decades. In another example of forgiveness, Jean rescues Javert from the hold of the insurgents. When later Javert captures Jean for what seems like the dozenth time, Jean pleads with him to be released – caught between his extreme morals and the debt he owes Jean, Javert lets him go. This decision breaks him, and he throws himself off of a bridge. On stage, through the magic of set and lighting, this was a remarkable scene – Javert seemed to fall in slow motion to his death. It was beautiful; it was also satisfying.

Next, Marius and Cosette are permitted to marry, however, after Jean reveals his criminal past to Marius, the new husband restricts his wife from seeing her adoptive father, leading to an isolated life in his old age. We see once again – and saw onstage represented by a greying and depressed Jean – how actions from our past, if interpreted as criminal by the law, can haunt us still, even decades after their occurence. Happily, there is a moment of…what’s that word, when Marius, Cosette, the ghost of Fantine and Jean reconcile. Jean Valjean passes away, and we see him finally escape his actions through forgiveness and in death.

I really enjoyed this book, and I am grateful that this class gave me the opportunity to read it!

A final note on long books and cultural longevity in looking at Les Misérables and another adaptation of a book, It (2017). I think the musical is what most people my age think of when you say the title, and I would like to hear your thoughts on how adaptations impact cultural longevity and renewal.

I finally watched It this weekend instead of doing homework. Which is funny – I feel like the movie just came out, but that was almost 10 years ago! Yikes! Another adaptation, I read the book, which came out in 1986, in 2018 or so, I guess jumping on the movie’s popularity? Anyway, something I don’t love about myself is my memory – I find it hard to recall books and movies that I’ve consumed even recently. The Savage Detectives, with its non-linear plotlines, was really hard for me to remember when I had to pick it back up again. However, as I was watching the movie, I felt myself telling my parter “That wasn’t in the book!” “In the book Patrick murdered his brother” and “There’s gonna be something down the drain!” I was so surprised at how much I remembered from a book I’d read almost 10 years ago; it had really stuck with me. The movie didn’t feel as impactful, which made me reflect on the strengths of a long book over a movie: so many details, tensions and contexts were left out, leaving it a good movie but feeling so surface-level compared to the book.

Are there any adaptations that you think surpass the source material? I think it depends on if the movie is meant as a remake of the book, or to stand as its own, and which one remains most popular. For some examples I think of Gone with the Wind, which I think remains just as well-known as a book and as a movie, and Midnight Cowboy (1969), my favourite movie, which far surpassed its book’s success, and, I feel, is a better rendition of the story. I think in the case of Les Misérables, the musical is perhaps more accessible to people today – it is shorter to consume, the songs can be hummed, and certain aspects, such as Fantine’s story, have been tweaked for modern audiences.

Ahhh. This was the easiest that picking up Bolaño has been all semester. I’ll admit I’ve done most of my reading early Wednesday morning and late Wednesday night this semester (so that I can write my blog before midnight and work on things for my two other Thursday classes that are due in the morning afterwards). This ended up being the case this week as well. So I’ll say, having to read 50 pages after mowing through a few-hundred-or-so some weeks felt GREAT.

Thinking about Jasmine and David explaining how they explained The Savage Detectives to their friends, here’s how I would describe the road so far (did anyone watch Supernatural? lol):

“Juan García Madero joins the visceral realists, a poetry group in Mexico in the mid-1970s, where he meets Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, and bums around Mexico City for a while. Then, the three of them, plus a prostitute Lupe, end up in an Impala (Supernatural again?!) driving as fast as they can out of Mexico City to complete a double-headed quest: both escape Lupe’s cruel pimp Alberto and start a pilgrimage to find Cesárea Tinajero, touted as a figurehead of the visceral realist movement. Then, we skip over their journey, and hear from a vast collection of closely- or loosely-related acquaintances of stories.”

And now, Part III, the season finale if you will! Or maybe the second piece of sandwich bread if we think about Part II being a giant whopper of a sandwich – we’re looking at Scooby-Doo proportions here. Okay that’s enough random thoughts…

In Part III, we return to the first days of ’76 as García Madero, Lupe, Roberto and Ulises in Quim Font’s Impala driving out from Mexico City to escape Alberto and to find Cesárea Tinajero. I found Bolaño captured well the mundanity of a road trip, even one with life and death consequences, García Madero quizzing his friends on literary devices and his drawings of birds-eye-view sombreros. This had me thinking of how I spent time on road trips. I grew up in Vancouver but my family is from California (=American citizen, which we uncovered during one class. Not a point of pride) so I’ve spent a lot driving to California, which takes about two days. Plenty of time to pass: usually I read, zone out, or gossip with my mom – we usually have more to gossip about on the way home!

I enjoyed a literary reference I finally got! Hot on Cesárea’s tail (or rather, making something out of nothing), our searchers uncover Pepín Allevenada, a bullfighter, and refer to Hemingway’s sad matadors. I took an American literature class in my second year (uh no not American again) and we read In Our Time, which is a collection of short stories interspersed with little snippets of other stories, many of these of matadors – almost Part II-esque. Here’s a quote that felt Bolaño-esque about a bullfighter who had a poor fight:

“Afterwards I saw him at the café. He was very short with a brown face and quite drunk and he said after all it has happened before like that. I am not really a good bull-fighter” (p. 95).

Both aspects of the quest unite when the quartet find Cesárea and at the same time are found by Alberto. I was a little ambivalent about Cesárea’s death: on one hand, that’s sad both that she died for herself and also for the visceral realists, but at this point I was down for whatever Bolaño had written to get to the end. It felt like he was playing with his reader again though; all that just to have her die.

Going back to John v Ava on whether we like endings or not, I will yell it from the top of a hill that I am happy to have ended The Savage Detectives. My ritual of finishing a book: I put my bookmark in my bookmark tin, I mark it off as “Finished” on GoodReads, and then I decide if I want to keep the book or pawn it off to a local lending library. I think I would like to reread this book on my own time; having to cram it all in for late Wednesday nights was not optimal reading for me. But I’ll give it a year or two to simmer.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Even though I didn’t love this book, I did enjoy reading it.

Back to Les Misérables for this week! Here’s a quick summary of the book so far:

Jean Valjean was convicted for a crime in his youth. He repented and became a beloved mayor, but then tenacious police officer Inspector Javert found out about his criminal past and started hunting him down. Along the way Jean rescued a little girl named Cosette, whose mother he knew. Last we left off, Jean and Cosette were living on a farm, Javert still hunting to no avail (yet anyway).

The next section of the book is called “Marius,” which is what I read for class today. Marius Pontmercy is a new character, though linked to the story so far: Thénardier, the barkeeper who raised (read, abused) little Cosette, fought in the Battle of Waterloo alongside Marius’s father. Thénardier scavenged a medal off of almost dead Monsieur Pontmercy, who mistook his actions as trying to save him. Thénardier really is no good, and contrasts through with Jean as a man who appears noble yet is cruel behind closed doors.

Marius is a young man raised by his royalist grandfather and his unmarried aunt. After his estranged father’s death, Marius learns that his grandfather had intentionally kept the two separated; he then rejects his grandfather in memory of his father, leaving home for Paris. With this rejection we see a return to the ideals of the French Revolution: where his grandfather represents the royalists, Marius turns away to embrace a more Napoleonic stance. Marius meets new friends along the way, which brings me to my next discussion point.

I would like to discuss the relationship that I see between Les Misérables and The Savage Detectives. Though as we discussed in class, it seems that long books are long for many different reasons, in this section I found that these two long books anyway share a few similarities. First of all, Marius reminded me a lot of Juan García Madero: orphans raised by family members, now young men, pushed to be lawyers but reject this path in favour of wandering, and then leaving home to look for answers in other people and ideals.

Additionally are the expansive lineups of characters, as well as portraits of them, Victor Hugo stating explicitly, “This is the history of many minds of our time” (206) to justify these lists. Marius, his grandfather, father, and aunt, down to the parakeet that she owns, are described in detail as each are introduced, which is different to the first-person snippets that we get of characters in The Savage Detectives, but still provides an equivalent portait of characters.

Here is one (abbreviated here – it lasted a page!) portrait that cracked me up: “Monsieur Mabeuf’s political opinion was a passionate fondness for plants, and an even greater one for books…he had the appearance of an old sheep” (231).

Marius meets a host of like-minded friends in Paris, “The legitimate sons of the French Révolution” (a very visceral realist-esque), and they discuss, instead of poetry, revolutionary ideals at the Café Musain. Here, visceral realism and the Revolution reach a similar status of the young folks, Enjolras, a friend of Marius, declaring that “Citoyens: my mother is the Republic” (222)

Marius, living nearby where we last saw Jean Valjean and Cosette, observes in the Luxembourg gardens a father and daughter – the father is nicknamed Leblanc and the daughter Lanoire. Though they have new names now, we have met Jean and Cosette once again. At first, he finds Cosette homely, but six months later he is beguiled, and falls in love with her beauty. This novel was written in 1862, so some of the ways that Hugo describes girls is disturbing from a modern standpoint: “that pure and fleeting moment which can only be described with these two words: sweet fifteen” (237). Marius then proceeds to what we might interpret today as staking Cossette/Lanoire, following her around the park and to her home, though here it is presented as innocent and genuine love. Eventually, freaked out by this persistant follower, father and adopted daughter move.

For a discussion question building off of this relationship, what do you think about navigating past standards that do not live up to modern expectations?

I’ve sort of avoided saying this in my blogs because I feel bad, but I can’t hold it in any longer: if The Savage Detectives were not for class, I would have stopped reading around page 200. Which I do not usually do – my mom calls it “book martyring” where we both have to finish a book once we’ve started (she’s been trying to get through Braiding Sweetgrass for the last six months or so). I almost always finish a book, but sometimes it’s a battle. But I would not have even book martyred by way through this. If we think back to Cesarea Tinajera’s one poem – the rectangle on the lines – I started off my reading Part I as going along the strait line, then slowing my reading became the wavy line and last I left off it was certainly the jagged line. This week, I was really dreading going back to Bolaño.

However, I decided to try to refresh my mindset. Which, with Bolaño’s style is pretty easy to do – if you don’t like one story or perspective, pretty soon you’ll get another one. And if you don’t like the next one, well, maybe then you’re out of luck. But usually there is something for everyone as they say.

I felt like the stories in the section for this week were longer, which made them easier to follow, for example the lottery winner, or the lawyer who kept saying things in latin (?). I felt like I got a clearer picture of both Arturo Belano and Cesarea Tinajera, and that the perspectives were more clear about explaining the whole who/what/where/when than previous sections, which helped me focalise my understanding of the book better through these common threads. I have struggled most with The Savage Detectives during the stories that I just cannot connect to my understanding of the plot: why is this here? Why do I have to read this? I find myself asking heatedly. Having these two touchstones helped guide this reading into more enjoyable waters.

I think my favourite chapter of this section was that of Edith Oster, I can’t really say why other than I was just the most entertained. I have found throughout the narrative a pull towards female characters. I was sad when Edith lost her cat – for a character who self-reportedly cries all the time, she didn’t seem too sad about it. Reading the scene about horse riding conjured up a passage from the beginning of the book that I had totally forgot about – something about another girl and Belano with horses. Reading that passage at the start of this (very tiring) semester feels so long ago now that the memory has mushed and blurred and I almost wasn’t able to place the horse scene from earlier in this book. On page 445 she also mentions a nurse named Rosarío from Mexico City – could this be the same Rosarío from García Madero’s narration? I hoped so – she’d be doing better now.

Though the timeline expands outward on one end – we make it into the 1990s, and does conversely closes in on 1975 and Cesarea Tinajera. I enjoyed how the analysis of her poem (or not poem) mirrored our own discussion in class, looking at the title, the rectangle as taking a journey over the waves, other interpretations too. It felt like the book predicted what we would say pretty well! And, the final chapter revealing what I have long been hoping for: a directive of what the driving force of this whole narration is. Let’s find Cesarea!

GARCIA MADERO ALERT. I was wondering if we would ever hear about him again, until the very final pages of this section when Ernesto Garciaz, the only living expert on visceral realists in the world, says…”Juan Garcia Madero? No the name doesn’t ring a bell. He never belonged to the group.” (585)

“Of course I’m sure,” he says next, anticipating perhaps the reader’s surprise at this. Who then, was Garcia Madero? The other 17-year-old that Ernesto names? Someone else? Anyway, for my sake I really appreciate both the return to the beginning as well as the more direct plotline for the next section.

Discussion question: perhaps we’ve talked about this in class, but would you prefer a more “direct” plot in The Savage Detectives, or do you like the style in which it is written?

Whew! Even though it is my first time reading both books, after the polyphony of The Savage Detectives, returning to Les Misérables felt like sliding back into a favourite armchair after a long day. Here, there is one narrator, one clear protagonist, and one clear antagonist. What a comfy seat.

I started a section, called “Cosette,” after a character I will discuss below. The section begins at the end of the Battle of Waterloo – which brought me back to Grade 9 Social Studies (shoutout Ms. Chen!), as well as ABBA and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Funny how historical moments become pop-culture phenomena, and funny too how this chapter begins at one of the most famous “endings” in history.

Hugo takes time to describe the scene at the end of battle, describing bodies, blood, and nature ravaged or untouched. A few lines that made me think of Auxilio’s story were, “The moon was an evil genius on the plain…what mattered it that the earth was red, the moon retained her whiteness. Such is the indifference of heaven” (p. 121), how the moon and its light marked the passing of time. Auxilio and the Battle of Waterloo had the same moon!

Here, we see a man, unnamed, (a tendency of Hugo is to have a chapter about a character and only reveal their name at the end – usually we are meant to guess who it is, but in cases like this I was not sure who this homme could be!) pilfering medals from fallen soldiers. Who could it be? Surely not Jean Valjean, our convict turned beloved pious mayor turned man on the lam hunted by tenacious Inspector Javert? It couldn’t be! And aha, the pilferer is revealed to be Thérnardier! Oh rats, who was that again? I shuffled back through the book…Thérnardier is the tavern keeper who took Cosette, a seven-year-old orphan, into his and his wife’s “care” after her mother can no longer care for her.

And so, we return to the life of orphan Cosette, who lives a Cinderella-like existence at the mercy of Thénardier, his wife, Thénardiess, and their two pampered daughters. While Eponine and Azelma play with beautiful dolls, Cosette knits stockings for them under the table so as to take up less space and avoid abuse; “These three little girls could not count twenty-four years between them all, yet they already represented all human society: on one side envy, on the other, disdain” (144).

One night, when poor Cosette is forced to fetch a pail of water, she imagines all sorts of terrors waiting for her, beasts and ghosts prowling the trees, though nothing scares her more than the Thérnardiers. As she struggles with the bucket, she rescued by another unnamed man – this time it is revealed to be Jean Valjean, freshly escaped from jail. Seeing her state of despair, Jean buys her the most beautiful doll in the village, and rescues Cosette from the tavern. Yes! I thought. Stories like this are common, especially in fairy and folk tales, but reading about Cosette now had me reflecting on the vulnerability of children who don’t have anyone able to defend them. I suspect this is on all of our minds these days.

Luckily, Cosette and her surrogate grandfather Jean are able to take up residence in the Gorbeau House, where a “maternal” sort of love occurs, where Cosette is allowed to play and learn. The narrator adds that the teachings of the bishop in the first chapter and the family created with Cosette fully brought Jean back from the brink of criminality.

But the happy times don’t last for long: the indefatigable Inspector Javert, who represents black and white authority, like a hound on the trail, sniffs out Jean! On the run once again, Jean now has to navigate a flight with a young girl – after close calls and clambers up walls, the two take refuge in a nunnery, where a man Jean had once helped welcomes them. The section ends.

In this section, we see the idea that our past can haunt us no matter how we atone for it, the redemption of love, and how authority views “crime” – that Javert pursues Jean for helping Cosette’s mother (in a chapter past), yet no one pays any mind to the abuse suffered by Cosette. I really enjoyed reading this section.

Getting back into The Savage Detectives after about three weeks off was not as difficult as I had feared – I recognized the first voice, Amadeo Salvatierra, from his references to the Suicida Mezcal, and the rest of the pieces linked together from there. It helped that some of the chapters began to grow into pretty stand-alone episodes, for example Mary Watson’s journey through Europe starting on page 253, which could have just as easily been made into an Amulet of its own. This was my favourite narration of the section for this week, I found it the most fun and interesting to read. Like if On the Road were set in Europe and narrated by a young woman. If this were its own book, I might just check it out of the library!

Along the way, I noticed a few links to the other book I’m reading, Les Misérables. It is directly referenced on page 208 by Quim on a tangent about types of readers – desperate readers, he says, cannot read through, it seems, long books, (the four books he gives as examples are quite long) including Les Misérables. I’d like to say here, although the Savage Detectives is a long book, I don’t think what Quim calls a desperate reader would have as much trouble with it. Even though he rushes through his explanation, I think the fast paced variety of Savage Detectives would appease this reader. Later, as the stories start to take place in France, one Alain Lebert tells of how he is to stand trial for “having ripped off a supermarket” (271) of a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a can of tuna, as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables is accused of stealing a loaf of bread. But Alain, instead of his fellow Frenchman, takes instead to poetry readings and drinking late at night than repentance.

Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima weave the stories together, alongside Amadeo Salvatierra and his mezcal, who opens and closes this section, providing touchstones for the why of some stories. I began to recognize other narrators, such as Joaquin, Angelica, and Maria, which helped tie this part of the book into that of the first. Something I have struggled with in the Savage Detectives is at what point is this a cohesive story. Perhaps it is a story, but I do not find it cohesive. Anyway, having a link back to characters I had more or less left to exist at the beginning of the book was helpful in making me feel a sense of completeness.

The question of translation is an interesting one. As one character mentions (rats I’ve lost the page) whether to translate Satin de sang as “satin blood” or “blood of satin,” and Amadeo discusses translating poetry with Cesarea from French to Spanish : “Cesarea in a slapdash way, if you dont mind my saying so, reinventing the poem however she happened to see fit, while I stick slavishly to the ineffable spirit as well as the letter of the original” (p. 282). I know we speak a lot of different languages in our class, so thinking about translation in the context of literature, what do you think is the best way to go about it?

To conclude, this section felt like an expansion: out from Mexico to France, Spain, England, Israel, with new characters, into the new decade of the 1980s, with almost infinite stories within stories that could be plucked out from anywhere. But I also a return to characters from the first part of the book, as well as the quest for Cesarea Tinajero, satisfying a desire I felt for less expansion, and more linear cohesion between sections of this vast book.

Anyway, my thoughts are not the most cohesive, so maybe it’s a little ironic to be out for Bolaño about it, but maybe they’re in his honour.

P.S. Canada shoutout! “Then I’d climb into my Canadian Impetuous Extraprotector sleeping bag…” (p. 270). One of the most Canadian experiences for me is getting excited about something like that.

The first two lines of Amulet that I read were the first, as I opened the book, and the last, as I flipped to see how many pages I should pace myself for each day this week: “This is going to be a horror story” (p. 1) and “And that song is our amulet” (p. 184). Very intriguing! I don’t feel like they are connected, but I look forward to finding out.

As I read, I recognized lines, passages and ideas from Part II of the Savage Detectives – like when Auxilio berates herself for forgetting her paper supply in the bathroom, or Arturo Belano returning from Chile after the coup. It really does read like an extra chapter, and, since Auxilio’s voice and story were the most appealing to me from Part II, I was excited to learn more.

What initially captured my attention was the writing style, which kept me reading through events and narratives that for the most part I did not find inspiring. I love the descriptions and use of language: “Let me stretch time out like a plastic surgeon stretching the skin of a patient under anaesthesia” (p. 2), the possibilities of a Pandora’s Box-like vase, how the younger generation of poets make her shudder, “as if they weren’t creatures of flesh and blood but a generation spring from the open wound of Tlatelolco” (p. 77), “Then the moon changed tiles” (p. 168). I love the little details all throughout the text, like a silver frog or Mexican feline lineage, which, though we might consider these as what makes a long story long, I find fit in here much more easily than little details would in the Savage Detectives. I cannot quite put my finger on why: perhaps the narrator.

Two themes I found interesting are temporality and companions. I enjoyed the use of temporality in the novel, the 13 days being measured from moonlight on tile – two images found on the cover of my edition. The moon is mentioned so often throughout the book that it evokes the idea of a companion during Auxilio’s isolation. Reading is another companion for Auxilio, “I knew that I had to resist,” (p. 32) she explains, turning to her book of poetry as the companion to resistance. For a question relating to a major theme in class, how can reading be a form of resistance? What is the difference between resistance as an author versus as a reader?

For these reasons I did enjoy reading Amulet, but honestly, I don’t feel like I got that much out of it. Maybe I would have found it more impactful without having read the Savage Detectives, but I found it to be about characters that I did not really care too much about, and too flighty/loose/airy (I really cannot find the right adjective!) to ground me in the solid reality of the horror of being trapped in Auxilio’s situation.

As for the opening and concluding sentences, I suppose being isolated in fear in a washroom for days on end is a horror story. I find in the children singing a protective song in the end evokes the ideas of what the university students were pushing for: reform and resistance.

Thank you for reading!

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo, page 74-120

At the end of the last section, we were introduced to Fantine, a young mother who has to leave her daughter, Cosette, with a cruel family; Monsieur Madeleine, the beloved new mayor of Fantine’s hometown who promises to get Cosette back; and Inspector Javert, who assures M. Madeleine that he knows that M. Madeleine isn’t Jean Valjean. When I mentioned Javert to my dad, he said, “Javert? I remember him from the ’80s. I fucking hate that guy. He’s the thorn in Jean Valjean’s side.” To which I said, “I haven’t gotten to that part yet!” Come on, dad. Anyway, at page 120 now, Javert is definitely a thorn:

As a character, we see that Inspector Javert prioritizes what is “lawful” or “correct” to him over the bigger picture, seeing simply what happens on the surface. When Fantine is forced to work as a prostitute to save up money for Cosette, walking in a thin dress up and down the snowy road, being taunted by villagers, she finally snaps – after a boy throws a snowball at her back – and attacks him. Javert arrives on scene to arrest her – he can only see that a citizen is breaking a law by attacking another. Back to my earlier blog post on whether stealing bread to feed your family is morally acceptable, as was Jean Valjean’s crime, Javert’s response is clear.

Soon we learn that Monsieur Madeleine is indeed Jean Valjean, who we last saw repenting after stealing a coin from a child – the “Petit Gervais affair”. As aligns with his character, he toils mentally back and forth on what to do after Javert reveals his suspicions – first he resolves to denounce himself, and then to break ties with anything that connects him to Jean. He feels he is paying compensation in his new identity, that with his tens of millions, he has uplifted his town: “poverty disappears, and with poverty disappears debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder, all vices, all crime!” (p. 80) Interestingly at this point in the narrative, at least in my translation, Valjean/Madeleine is not referred to by either of these names, but as simply “he”. This is interesting as a reader because it adds to the ambiguity of this character; even though he is both, who is he really? He struggles with this question as well. The passage ends, and he hasn’t quite made up his mind.

Next, we have the Champathieu Affair – the trial in a neighbouring town for Champathieu, a man accused of being accursed criminal Jean Valjean. Even as Champmathieu pleads that he is not, the judge is about to sentence him to the galleys, when Monsieur the Mayor, as everyone thinks he is, announces that he is Valjean, and proves it by sharing things only he would know. Here, we see his resolution to his earlier turmoil; he had wanted to forget about his past in order to keep living his life properly as M. Madeleine, but realizes that he had to own up to his past in order to do the right thing and save Champathieu. Guess how Javert must be feeling now?

So, Valjean hurries back to his town, to see Fantine, who he had promised he would bring her child, Cosette. Fantine, feverish after her toiling in the snow, asks after Cosette, and here Valjean tells a lie: that Cosette is playing outside and cannot see her mother until she is well again. I was struck that after the importance of truth in this passage, that Valjean would lie to Fantine – but perhaps this relates to the question of “right” and “wrong,” and makes us think when is lying acceptable. As Valjean is assuring her, who should enter her room but JAVERT: “It was the face of a demon who had again found his victim” (p. 112). He arrests Valjean and Fantine learns that Cosette has not been brought home; she dies on the spot. It is truly, as Hugo says, “all the evil of good” (p. 112). Ooh, maybe that answers my question about the worth of lying…

Well, I won’t keep you any longer.

As I cozied up to start the next section of The Savage Detectives, I was very curious to see where the story would take me. I want to know what happens to Lupe, and I wonder how Garcia Madero will continue to mature.

At first, I felt a bit lost in this new narrators and settings; it was like beginning a new book (or a couple) all over again. Eventually, characters like Ulises Lima, Arturo Belano, and Luscious Skin, as well as the visceral realists and the magazine Lee Harvey Oswald clicked into place from the first section, and by page 166 I felt confident with my grasp of the different stories from different sources. Unfortunately, due to the time between readings and how many other things I am reading right now, I can’t remember how everything fits together. All of these narratives feel like they are introduced as interviews – is this being done in the search for Cesária Tinajero?

I found something compelling in the first few pages as the narrator describes a crush on a boy at her school. This perspective on attraction felt refreshing after Garcia Madero’s.

The writing style – fluid, “speedy” and long sentences –  as well as the content – meeting new people and going to new places sometimes too fast to keep track – reminds me a little bit of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. With both books, I found the pacing exhausting to read, so much happening so quickly.

I enjoyed Laura’s takes. She observes about Belano, “And then I realized that deep down the guy was a creep,” and “The whole visceral realism thing was a love letter, the demented strutting of a dumb bird in the moonlight, something essentially cheap and meaningless” (152). Later, she likens the visceral realist movement to a male bird’s mating dance: “that’s what Arturo Belano was like, a stupid, conceited peacock” (172). I think Laura is tapping into what Carlina, Lily and I talked about two weeks ago, how visceral realism feels a bit performative. Later, Luis says to Luscious Skin, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, and don’t take it the wrong way, but I couldn’t care less about the visceral realists (God what a name)” (175) I felt a bit seen.

Another pertinent quote, this time from Perla, says “Not for long, really, which goes to show how relative memory is, like a language we think we know but we don’t, that can stretch things or shrink them at will” (166). I feel memory is a crucial element in the passage for this week, as different characters recount their (sometimes contradictory) memories. How do you approach your understanding of this passage based upon memories that may or may not be faulty?

Of all the new narrators, I found Perla, Laura and Barbara to be the most compelling to me. Maybe because they are women and are over the visceral realists, and I like Barbara’s voice as a narrator.

Very obvious lack of sex compared to the first section, yet I noted here I felt more sexual violence towards men with the story of the French troops.

Question I still have: where is Garcia Madero?