Author Archives: Avery

And the RMST 202 students lived happily ever after!

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Hurrah! We have done it! We have conquered the second semester, I don’t know about you all but I’m reeeally ready for this semester to be over! What I’m finding a little harder to let go of, however, is this class!
If you happen to be reading this post from a future Jon Beasley-Murray I encourage you to not be frightened by the different course structure! It looks inttimidating at first but you get the hang of it quick! If you are someone who likes self-direction and consistency I think you will enjoy this class structure. One of my favourite aspects of this class were the in-person discussions. I felt that so much was revealed to me through not only our professor and TA’s but by my classmates. I was actually awe-struck sometimes at the things my classmates picked up on from novels! I felt very greatful to be in a class with such passionate, observant, adn smart classmates that made me really think outside of some of my original thoughts.

My favourite book was “Death with Interruptions” by Saramago! I just thought it was so interesting to think about what would happen if we couldn’t die and the reprecutions that I didn’t even think of that the novel explored. I loved it even more as it got more fiction like with the death character and her experience. I just enjoyed it the most and the lecture that was done by the TA’s was very fun! I wish I had been able to read “The book of Chameleons” by Aqualusa. From the blog posts I skimmed over that week and the small bits mentions during our discussions it sounded like a funny yet interesting read! I mean a book told through the eyes of a chameleon/lizard/reptile (??) making comments on memory, identity, and life…who wouldn’t want to read that!
Currently I am reading the ACOTAR series (I’m on book 2 out of 5) which someone from this class suggested in a comment on my first blog post!

Well thats it for me! As I took this course as literature requirement I dont think I will be doing many more courses like this, though I saw this course as a “requirement” before I ended up really enjoying it and I loved the fact I got to be exposed to so many books that I wouldn’t have read otherwise!

My question to you is: What is on your TBR (To be read) list? Or are you planning to never look at a book until school starts again? Any summer book suggestions for me?

I hope you all have rejuvinating summer and are proud of yourself for getting through this year! See ya 🙂

We’ve been tricked! “Faces in the Crowd” a 3-in-1 Book

Posted on by under Luiselli

At last, we have arrived at our last book of the semester (summer is near we can do it!) and what a way to end! ‘Faces in the Crowd’ by Valeria Luiselli was an interesting read, it had many layers of story-telling that was only made (semi) clear to me after I had watch the lecture and gotten it explained to me. This was definetly not an easy read! It was confusing and in my mind I compared it to mens 3-in-1 shampoo.

I talked to some people about this book and their interpretation, it seems that there are many interpretations, rightfully so, as I feel this book leaves many loose ends just because of the style its written in. I don’t want to say it doesn’t flow because it does in it’s own way, just not a traditional storytelling way, and I think this leaves out bits and pieces. Anyways the way I initially interoperated it was a women writing a story about her young past (simply put) but I really though about the part where the boy asks what his mothers (our author) book is about to which she responds that its about ghosts.
“It’s a ghost story.
Is it frightening?
No, but it’s a bit sad.
Why? Because the ghosts are dead?
No, they’re not dead.
Then they’re not very ghosty.
No, they’re not ghosts.”
(pg 13-14)
The way I interoperated it was she is writing about people she once knew, their ghost aka the memories she has of those people, the shell of those people, and that maybe she was writing about the ghost of her own past self. I thought about this symbolism of ghost and what it could mean and the first thing I thought of was ghostwriters. A ghostwriter is a person who is hired to write for another person who is credited as an author. This got me thinking a lot about our story, how our narrator goes un-named, and how it seems like the author Gilberto Owen is writing a similar story to our authors life. This then brings up questions of who could be a ghost writer for who? Who is being hidden? Maybe it has something to do with her husband as from my understanding in the lecture he was first written in as a writer as well? There are so many writers and stories within this story that thinking about this long and hard kind of makes my head spin, so I’d love to know what you all think!

Question for you: Who or what do you think she is referring to when she talks of writing about ghosts?

death, putting the ‘fun’ back into funeral

Posted on by under Saramago

If you’ve read some of my blogs before you may remember me as the girl who was scared while reading the shrouded woman because of her constant worry of death…yup you could imagine my joy reading this book, I’m joking, I actually really enjoyed this book, even with the constant talk about death (maybe I’ve accepted fate??? Who knows), Before I get into my opinion on this book I wanted to relate it to another book that I’ve read called “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E Schwab, It’s a pretty popular book so some of you may have read it, but it’s special to me because it was the first book I read, during the blazing Vancouver summer of 2021, that got me hooked into reading, One of the first books in a long time that I had truly enjoyed, It’s a Fantasy Fiction/ Historical Fiction and I felt it was similar to “Death with Interruptions” by JosĂ© Saramago, it speaks a lot about memory and a similar “what would happen if…” story that makes you reflect on how things are, maybe not super similar but I got the same vibe, Now as I said before I really enjoyed this novel, “what would happen if everyone in one area just stopped dying one day?” is essentially the simple summary, out of all the novels we’ve read so far this one raised the most questions for me, One of my first thoughts about this was what would happen to the crimes that are punishable by death? Would people commit these crimes with knowing they cant be punished by death? Or would they even be able to commit the crime as most crimes that are punishable by death are murders? There are so many things brough up in this book that I didn’t even think about, like how immortality would effect politics, jobs like funeral workers, healthcare workers (which in honesty it sounded like their situation of the hospitals getting filled up is similar to our own situations today, at least headed in that direction), how it effects religion, and even the suffering of those about to face death described, I also think the choice to turn death into a female personification was an interesting choice, to anthropomorphize death and give her feelings of remorse for the decision to make everyone immortal, I feel the lesson from this book is to not get in the way of death and it’s plans, anyways I really did enjoy this book and am excited to discuss it further,
It also seems I forgot how to use a period, oops, how very Saramago of me.

My question to you is how would you spend you pre-death week?

maybe money should be fireproof…?

Posted on by under Piglia

Money to Burn by Ricardo Piglia has been my favourite book we have read in this class. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to like an Argentina-based gang robbery as much as I did but for whatever reason I found this book a much easier read than any others. Most of the time I can read books quick when I enjoy them and I find myself reading for a long time w
A part of it I didn’t enjoy however were the random unhinged lines. They were random in terms of context, the only thing about them that was out of place was the graphicness of them. The very first line I noted that caught me off guard was on page 9 which says “He forced him to his knees, plunged his face in the mud, and it’s said he pulled down his trousers and raped him while the cop struggled to try to free himself with his head under water.” I would argue, however, that maybe these early-on lines were put in to reflect the intensity of these characters, what they’ve seen and what they’ve done. It prepares us for scenes we get further into the novel like when we find out about the back story of Dorda or the Kid. I found their stories really crazy, like Dorda and the voices he hears in his head and the Kid and his story about r*ping girls, which was really messed up. I also found the two’s (Dorda and the Kid) relationship very interesting, I almost felt bad for them, how they cared for eachother (seceret lovers?). I especially felt bad when the Kid died in the final scene, the standoff with the police,”dead at his (Dordas) feet, the only man who had ever loved him, and who’d treated him as a person, better than a brother, that Kid Brignone had treated him like a woman” (188-189pg), But just when I want to feel bad for the characters they say something that reminds me that they are infact (pretty messed up) crminals. Also the amount of character at first, and honestly sometimes as they were randomly brought up, confused me at times. I found myself having to go back and try and remember who is who. Even when people died (like twisty ((?)) spoiler) I found myself saying “oh no!…wait who was that again?”
This to me felt like a gang version (and a much more brutal version) of Oceans 11. This happens to be one of my favourite movies (I’d recommend to anyone who enjoys the quick-paced heist genre), I like seeing the thought process when people who really want things that are below the law and how they think, it’s a different kind of smarts.

My question is what was your final opinion on the characters? Did you still feel some sympathy or was not a fan of the criminal minded robbers?

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, a (y/n) story

Posted on by under Calvino

I remember when I was looking through books to read I saw the blurb about If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino and I thought it sounded very unique. I don’t think “unique” begins to describe what this book is! It really pushes you, the readers (me!), expectations, I never knew quite what I was going to read next…it was fun! I have a very very short attention span, however this felt like a series of short stories with narrations in between, I found it was able to keep my attention a bit better than some longer stories. I related to the reader opposite us the reader (me the reader? … you can imagine how confusing this gets) near the end of the story, “Don’t be amazed ifyou see my eyes always wandering. In fact, this is my way of reading, and it is only in this way that reading proves fruitful for me. If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end” (254). He then goes in to saying that although he only reads a few pages, it holds “whole universes”. It’s jarring as a university student and a reader to read this constant use of “you” and second person perspective as it’s something I feel like we get harped on not to use is scholarly essays. I do however feel that its uniqueness also played a part in some confusion that was present in the story. I am almost positive I missed multiple things due to the constant perspective changes, sometimes when saying “I” it seemed the author was referring to himself but sometimes I couldn’t tell if the “I” was referring to me, the reader, from my POV.
In the lecture the question of how we read the book was asked. What form did this novel take as we consumed it? I just chose to read it as a free PDF version, as I’ve figured out that when I buy books for courses I never touch them again (no offence!). This changes the experience for me with this story as the author constantly refers to the book as an item. “you have turned toward a stack of If on a winter’s night a traveler fresh off the press, you have grasped a copy, and you have carried it to the cashier” (pg.6), I’m sure this quote would’ve been a little more jarring to me, the reader, if I ad actually experienced going to the bookstore to buy this book. I think this question applies to the book as the author constantly makes assumptions about the reader, like assuming the reader is reading a physical book.

My question is were any of the assumptions the author made about you correct? How did that make you feel if he made an assumption that was right? uneasy? If it was wrong did you feel like it took you out of the story?

Quimet the Gaslighter and his Coquette Mother

Posted on by under Rodoreda

Reading “The Time of the Doves” by Marcè Rodoreda made me feel lots of big girl feelings, I was intrigued, disgusted, confused, furious, and most of all just straight up sad. I think this book speaks a lot to generational trauma, especially in women. It reminds me of the type of generational trauma that is brought up a lot today, female rage.
A quote that really stuck with me was from page 39, “I’ll (Father Joan from the church) marry you, and I think it’s better if you do it calmly. I know young people are high-spirited. They want to live and live fast…but a life, if it’s really going to be a life, has to be lived slowly.” I resonated with this quote because often I feel that I go through life, especially in university, fast because I always am stressed and live my life by checklists and just getting the next thing done. But when the year end always get sad at how fast it went.
I noticed as well, though I’m not quite sure what it means, that colours were brought up many times throughout the novel. Noticeably the colour blue. In fact when I word searched “blue” apparently it comes up 61 times. Like I said I don’t know what this means, maybe it wasn’t intentional, maybe Rodoreda like the colour blue, maybe it’s because blue is associated with sadness.
Quimet was, I feel, the embodiment of a women’s worst nightmare. From the beginning I was practically screaming (in my head) at Natalia to RUN. He was a true gaslighter, not supportive or kind ever, and did not respect Natalia in any way right up until his death. I have a feeling she was attracted to the adventure he seemed to bring, and her poor ex, I guess nice guys do finish last. I think there is something to be said about Natalia’s character as she faces all the bad things that happen to her
I also had a bit of a laugh because of Quimet’s mother and her obsession with bows. There is a very prevalent trend right now where girls and putting bows on everything as a way to express femininity and girlhood, inspired by the trend of “coquette” and the uprising of “girl”. Bows will get tied around mens biceps or sports items and saying “im just a girl” or “this is me if you even care”. I know that the author could have never know this would be a trend today as her book was read but it gave me a good little chuckle as I find the trend cute and funny.
Question: Why do you think colour (especially blue) was brought up so much? Coincidence or meaning?

Agostino – Mommy AND Daddy Issues?

Posted on by under Moravia

If you read my last blog post you may remember that I found The Shrouded Women quite anxiety inducing, for this weeks story I read Agostino by Alberto Moravia but if I thought last weeks story was “bad” (in the sense of feeling, not content, I quite enjoyed The Shrouded Women!) then this weeks story was worse. There was a discomfort that engulfed me throughout this story from start to finish. When I read that a theme in this book was sexuality I certainly did not expect it to be portrayed in this way. Although I must say it was interesting to read of it from this young innocent boy perspective, I feel like it’s quite “taboo” in a way for society and therefore an untapped subtopic within sexuality. I hesitate to say I enjoyed it (it was an interesting read but I didn’t quite enjoy it) just because of the fact that its sexual acts and concept through the lens of a young boy (A MINOR AS WELL), so to me it just feels wrong.

I noticed that throughout the story a word was changed in relation to his mother. Throughout the first part of the book Agostino’s mother is referred to as “his mother”, but I noticed that on page 44 she’s referred to as “The mother”. I thought this was more interesting as it takes away Agostino’s personal relationship with his mother as he learns more about the world and her, just by using one word. This happens throughout the book whenever his is upset/disgusted with his mother, it changes to “the” mother.

Again I feel as though this story objectifies women, it puts women’s sexuality almost as a thing to be ashamed of, through the way Agostino is in such disgust with his mother. On the other hand a bunch of young boys are running around naked having fun while their old man leader watches! It’s hard to say because it is literally his mother and we are only getting Agostinos sexually confused perspective. However I feel like this book really put women’s sexuality to shame.

I don’t think that there was ever a mention of Agostino’s father and I can’t help but wonder the effect of having a loving father figure would have on this story. Maybe Agostino wouldn’t be so surprised or repulsed about intimacy and sexuality if he has seen his mother with his father being affectionate. Maybe he wouldn’t have this strange thoughts of interest in his mother sexuality or maybe he would want to kill his father and have his mother for himself (a very Freudian concept)…who knows! I do feel like having the father present would change the trajectory of this story quite a bit. I even wonder what would happen if roles were reverse and his father was the only one present with no mention of his mother. Would Agostino be so horrified if he saw his father naked and on boats with women?

Question: How do you think a father figure would have changed this story?

The Shrouded Woman, My Personal Horror Story

Posted on by under Bombay

The Shrouded Woman by Maria Luisa Bombal constantly made me think of memories and death, honestly I didn’t enjoy this aspect of the story, let me tell you why. Often I worry about death and ending and spend a lot of my time fearing them, something I am trying to get over. I often worry about everything really (you could ask any of my family and friends) from earthquakes to crashing planes. So what I didn’t enjoy about this book was the constant looming of death over the entire novella. With every sweet memory the author spoke of I found myself almost forgetting they were dead, I was going through a roller-coaster of emotions.

I think if I passed away I wouldn’t want to be able to think of all my memories. I think I would ponder on them too much, even thought I would be dead, and the anxiousness of what could’ve been if I had done things differently would overtake me. I don’t think I would enjoy that very much.

What I did enjoy about this novel was it was much easier to follow than some we have been reading. In no way am I saying I enjoyed the other books we’ve read less, they were just more of a challenge to dissect. This felt a lot more digestible. Something that did, however, throw me off at points was the point of view, sometimes I couldn’t really figure out who was telling the story. This could just be my own confusion but I also believe that the point of view is what made this novel so unique.

Throughout the story there was a lot of descriptions of nature, lots of forests, rivers, and storms. It all made me think of Mother Nature and the give and take of nature in relation to the story. In a way I think Ana Maria was Mother Nature as she accepts her deaths and just wants to “feel the grass grow, new islands emerge, and on some other continent, the unknown flower bursting open that blooms only on a day of eclipse” (pg.259). There was a sort of mystical-ness to the story as Ana-Maria travelled through what seemed to be a sort of in between of her life and death, an opportunity to silently observe and recall given to her by a figureless light. Sometimes nature represented this in-between with forests and snow.

I also noticed lots of underlying proto-feminism with Ana-Maria, I feel like at this time a story from a women’s point of view, with such a life that Ana-Maria lived, was perhaps a little scandalous. She brings a lot of awareness to the struggles of women, their emotions and their passion, coming to some very forward thinking (for that time). We see this in page 226 when she says “Why, oh why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?”. I personally really liked that quote, it made me think a lot about my own life. I also liked the cheeky fact that all the men were in love with her, I feel like it gave her a lot of agency to say no.

Question: Do you think the women in this story act on their agency? Do they use it for gain or fear it?

Nadja the Dream Woman

Posted on by under Breton

Reading Nadja by Andre Breton was quite interesting to me because I have a little bit of background knowledge, I am going to Major in Visual Arts and during my studies have seen Breton’s artworks, I have also read and learned a lot about surrealism, what it is, it’s history, it’s practice, so I feel like because of that knowledge I have some groundwork. To me surrealism knows no bounds, Surrealists are focused on the involuntary, the unconscious, and psychoanalysis, it was an art movement created to get artists out of their heads and away from the perfectionist square box of fine art. At least that is my view of it. I’ve never really been a huge fan of surrealism fully myself and in my practice, but I can appreciate it. Surrealism visually can be a confusing and analytically deep concept to grasp for me, so you can imagine surrealist writing left me staring at the words for many long seconds. I was definitely a little lost sometimes (many times) and many sentences I would read were not creating any sort of logic or thought outcome in my head. I did find it easier to digest sentences further into the story. I did also feel this overall sense of drama, everything was written very dramatically as he talked of deep thoughts of fate and the universe.

Something this style of writing reminded me of was a surrealist practice called automated writing, where you are just supposed to write whatever comes to mind. To me, some sentences seemed to have no rhyme or reason.

I think there is a very fine line in this story about who exactly the woman, Nadja, is. Especially the line about whether she is real or not. She is quite the mystery! The jumbled thoughts and obsession almost make me think that this woman could be made up, a figment of his imagination or desires. Maybe this book reflects Breton’s unconscious desires, which is a very surrealist idea.

Another thing I noticed throughout the story was there was a lot of first person, the story is very much told from the writer’s perspective and is very involved with his thoughts and concerns only. The story being told solely from one perspective doesn’t give much room to think about other perspectives in the story. I definetly think that the ideas and thoughts that the main character rambles on and his deep obsessions with the world and Nadja about almost make me question his sanity (if that is fair to say), therefor I question his authenticity about his experiences with Nadja.

My discussion question: Is there a line between being infatuated with love and obsession? What do you think differentiates the two?

The Magical land of Combray – Marcel Proust

Posted on by under Proust

Combray, Proust

Combray by Marcel Proust overall gave me an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia. It reminded me very much of, from what I can remember, being a child. I felt connected with these scenarios of family situations, being a child at family gatherings. You know who everything is, you know kind of what’s going on, you know what feelings you are feeling but as a child, you don’t truly understand the gravity of things going on or being said and why you are feeling what you are feeling. I think this is described very well in the book, the boy knows he’s feeling anxious but can’t quite pinpoint why that truly is, all he knows is he wants his mom. I especially related to the scene where he wanted to see his mother even though he was not supposed to be out of bed and the anxiousness you feel as a kid wanting to talk to your parents when you should be sleeping. So in a sense the description of that scene was nostalgic for me.

Maybe it was just my reading into it however I found some bits of the novel and its trajectory hard to understand. I never quite knew where his thoughts were leading, like some thoughts spiralled into others which as a reader caused some confusion. But when I think about children and their sporadic train of thought this thinking process made sense to me. Often the child would see something that would remind him of something else, like seeing a book and remembering that his grandma bought and returned books for him which led to a thought about his grandma’s old spending and gifting habits. Often times I forgot about what the original thought or scene was until it was circled back to.

A recurring action throughout the novel is physical cues associated with memories, tastes, smells, actions, and feelings. There were a lot of combinations of scents that caused powerful and very lucid recollections. For example the smell of varnish that reminded him of a particular staircase, the smell and taste of the madaline and tea, the “dark cool smell of both forest and ancien regime” (pg.75) of a room he used to read in. This boy has a very acute sense of smell! I was amazed at the visual detail that was thoroughly described in some of the memories, not one detail was left out which made picturing scenes in my head very easy. – 50pg

I also thought his relationship/slight obsession (?) with his mother was very almost Freudian. Overall I picked up on the themes of memory, dreams, class and lucid visuals and enjoyed the vivid imagery of the settings in the novel. I found it quite ironic when he talked of places one has not been but heard stories and seen photos of, and how seeing it is almost disappointing all while the author creates this magical land of Combray.

Question: Do you have a childhood memory that is a very vivid memory for you?

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