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?