Tag Archives: narrative

Norman Manea, “The Trenchcoat”

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“What, what the… what the hell is it with that raincoat?” (p.253)

 

This story made much more sense when the context is explained in the lecture. I read the initial part blind and found myself thoroughly confused but also very tense and intrigued (in a good way); it conveyed an unnatural feeling that something was terribly wrong but everyone was putting up pretences. The dialogue is somewhat bizarre and the constant repetition and run-on makes for uncomfortable scenes even when it’s simply a mundane party. The stormy, dark weather that seems to drown out the surroundings only serves to make for an ominous backdrop and is punctuated by little references to totalitarian control. It makes so much more sense understanding the allegorical purpose; Don Bazil and his wife are so jittery and constantly putting up a front, and while the guests humour them they are not particularly satisfied. It is hollow. Farcical. A mere show, and no substance.

Later, after Dina’s calls about the mysterious trenchcoat inexplicably cease, Ali and the Kid (?) get into a heated discussion about Dina and the trenchcoat. The tension builds quickly as Ali gets increasingly frustrated, and it’s interesting to observe how delicately he beats around the bush. I wonder if this is Manea himself beating around the issue of censorship.

Over time I think the book becomes increasingly confusing, perhaps by design. It is all incredibly vague, yet poetic, and mysterious as well. Why is the unnamed One unnamed? What does the trenchcoat represent, if anything? Perhaps the trenchcoat is indeed just a trenchcoat. A meaningless object, but in a world teetering on the brink, even something so innocuous can spark such tension. Worth noting, I think, is that the trenchcoat is not just nondescript and anonymous, but sometimes isn’t even described correctly, often mistakenly referred to as a raincoat or overcoat instead. This leads me to believe the trenchcoat really isn’t anything of significance, and yet everyone treats it like something of significance. I think this only lends to the tension hanging in the air. Nobody is ever really sure of anything. But evidently there is a link between the unnamed One and the coat, and they both go by multiple, indistinct names too.

I wonder what the ending means. Time is personified as laughter, but described so poetically yet so abstractly.

I’m very much looking forward to listening to Manea in person. Overall, I admire Manea’s writing style a lot. Such interesting and unique ways of creating atmosphere and vagueness. I also find the title of the collection pretty interesting. “Compulsory Happiness”, as if there is not even the freedom to feel.

 

A general question: What is ‘ex’ supposed to represent? It is repeated a lot by the unnamed One, and later by Ioana at the end.

For Manea: What was it like having to work around the censor? How much of what you wanted to say was left unsaid, and do you think you said what you wanted to say better, in the way that you did?

 

“There’s something going on! There’s always something under the face, obviously. Obviously! Nothing is what it seems, nothing or no one, not even your own husband, no one! Anyone can become anything! Anyone, anytime, anything?” (p.257)

Marcel Proust, “Combray”

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On Part I

Having read the introduction by Davis, I mentally prepared myself to be thoroughly confused and worked up my capacity for patience. To my surprise, for how long Proust’s sentences and descriptions are, they flow extremely well and are very lovely to read. That being said, I am impressed by how much can be said about so little actually happening within the story. Sometimes it feels like my own thought process bouncing between analogy and all kinds of ideas and tangents. Below I will list some of my impressions after reading through the passage.

A central theme of this part seems to be the narrator’s relationship with his memories at Combray. In our dreams, we sometimes explore the places and times we have been in, but without complete clarity. It is once the narrator is pulled into the waking world that he recalls his experiences. His relationship with his family is an interesting one. There is an almost Oedipal obsession with his mother, and a cold sternness from his father, and yet, this seems to flip by the end of the chapter, for it is his mother who shows the sternness and his father who grants him the comfort he seeks (sort of; it is clear that his father does not express his love (?) outwardly). He is portrayed with a nervous disposition and desires the fleeting comfort of his mother at night, which is often denied because of his nervousness. However, perhaps paradoxically, his anxiety seems to give him the courage to be “rebellious” and seek the comfort he is kept from. This seems to bring truer expressions of love between him and his parents. Love thus appears to be another recurring theme in the story. And of course, there is the scene with the tea and madeleine. This scene was wonderfully poetic and lyrical, but also very confusing. The madeleine evokes something within the narrator. I believe this is the peculiarity of memory. In dreams we see fragments, and in our awoken minds we recall, but sometimes it takes something as simple as the taste of a madeleine to make us relive. It’s like a gateway into lost time, or perhaps an anchor? Back in high school, I studied literature for a bit, and this reminds me of the poetry of an author, Boey Kim Cheng, who often wrote about the power of food to bind us to memory and love and family, allowing us to rediscover memories from the past.

Those are just some of my musings and I haven’t really thought too hard about their applicability. So, what about Swann? I do not fully understand the class politics in play with regard to Swann, or why some of the family members treat him with such disdain. I also do not really understand his place in the story yet. I understand him to be a man with friends in high places and he maintains his relationship with the narrator’s family through a connection to the grandfather, but not much more than that. Perhaps more will become clear once I proceed to Part II. Will update this post when/if I get there!

Oh yes, and a question to pose: What is the value of remembering the past? Is it better to remember, or to forget?

EDIT: Some other thoughts that occurred as I read other posts.

  1. It is beautiful the way the chapter ends as the memory of Combray is rebuilt “from (his) cup of tea”. It’s like it is immortalised.
  2. The narrator describes how there is something more enduring and more immaterial even as people die and things are destroyed by time. He says smell and taste remain for a long time, but perhaps it is not smell and taste per se. After all, the feeling evoked within him was not the tea or the madeleine, but something deeper within. Those memories deep inside will always withstand the test of time. (but maybe I’m misreading this!)

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