I felt too dumb for this book, like I completely and entirely missed the point, confused and certain I was missing something, that I should be able to wade through the language and symbols to find the underlying meaning much better than I was actually able to.

The use of names in this book confused me for the vast majority of the story: I couldn’t tell which names were intended for whom, how people were related to one another, and I really didn’t appreciate that there were approximately 15 different nicknames for one person, and it took me much longer than it should have to realize that all of these nicknames were referring to the same individual. I don’t mind feeling a bit lost and just letting the book take me where it wants to go, but I just felt entirely unable to follow where I was supposed to.

I appreciated the political commentary and the idea of political tension being shoved under the table, going through the motions of everyday life, even while under a dictatorship. I think that idea is still relevant in today’s political climate, where, despite the many important things going on in society, for the most part, people are still able to live their lives relatively normally.

The dialogue in this book stressed me out; it felt like every monologue was a spiral of thoughts that went nowhere, or at least somewhere that was completely lost on me. There was definitely a sense of descending into madness and paranoia, which fits with the themes of the novel, as Dina becomes obsessive about the possibilities of the trenchcoat that was left behind. The repetition in the dialogue of certain phrases as a representation of the repetition of everyday life under totalitarian rule certainly added to the feeling of madness when they spoke, and it makes sense that the boredom and repetition would contribute to madness both in a literary context and in life.

I think it’s interesting to think about language in translated works. I often find myself wondering whether something was an intentional literary choice or a relic of the language it came from. For example, whether the repetition of ‘yes, yes’ is because it serves as a common filler word in Romanian or is a literary choice to add to the mania of the novel.

After watching the lecture video, I feel I have a better understanding that the trenchcoat was of somewhat ambiguous relevance intentionally, but while in the depths of this work, the layers of ambiguity and confusion just hurt my mind.

I’m curious if you think the relative continuation of life as normal is a sign of their privilege or a more universal feature of life under totalitarian rule?