Category Archives: Weekly Responses

Agostino, Week 5

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Overall this was not a favorite of mine compared to what we have read so far. Agostino is a story of adolescence and growth centered in early 20th century Italy (I think not entirely sure if the location is specifically mentioned). We get a very select slice of Agostino’s life as he enters in to the early stages of puberty and fully grasps the concepts of sex and love. I thought that the narrative was an excellent slice of life and the overall atmosphere of the little Italian city on the coast was superb. Definitely not on the level of Paris Peasant with its surreal French arcades but still quite good. A lot of the imagery in this text and the overall prose of the novel felt very well aligned with the themes of liminality and transition that are so inherent to puberty and young adulthood as a whole. As far as the themes of this novel goes I thought that the transitional and almost blurred quality to the narrative was handled excellently. We never really have to go through any of the explanations as the gang of boys removes Agostino’s innocence yet we can understand through his reactions and emotions the difficulty of these times. What is frustrating with this novel is that the major conflict of Agostino’s existence is completely wrapped around Freudian notions of psychoanalysis and the Oedipus complex. I think that exploring sexuality and specifically sexuality as we are introduced to it through adolescence is an intricate and important topic that not a lot of literature explores. But at least for me all of the drama, emotion and connection to Agostino is completely undercut by the simple fact that a lot of his newfound sexual feelings are directed towards his mother. to me this distracted and really put me off to the narrative as a whole. That is not to say that our media and literature should challenge and make you uncomfortable. I think that some of the best moments from this book happen when Agostino is facing the awkward realities of growing up. Specifically the scenes when they go swimming on the far away beach is in my opinion the best of the book. We are confronting with an authentic awkward adolescent experience combined with the beautifully described scenery create an excellent atmosphere of beauty and embarrassment that i think represents adolescence so well. But then it is all cut off by Agostino’s weird Oedipal thoughts.

Week 3, Paris Peasant

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Paris Peasant was an incredibly unique literary experience that left me in a haze of contradicting emotions and thoughts. As was stated previously in the lecture Louis Aragon does this through putting aside traditional narrative convention altogether in favour of allowing artistic expression to be at the forefront of his literature. I was struck with how such a seemingly nonchalant text, in the sense that there no traditional plot structure, was so emotionally evocative and enticing. I really felt emotionally connected to that little arcade in Paris even though I have never been to France. As I think back to this my reading of this text I really think this piece was more of an experience than a story. We as readers are brought into a place and are just allowed to feel and interpret without the intervention of the ever driving plot, although as an aside Aragon does intervene in the sense that we are experiencing this through his worldview,. As a piece of literature this fact leaves me both in awe of the execution and slightly dissatisfied. Although I believe that dissatisfaction to be more of a conditioned response to a story “without purpose” than an actual critique. The awe comes from the fact that this piece was so entertaining while seemingly being about nothing. I will say as another aside excluding the emotional characteristics of this piece I felt this story reminded me a lot of the sitcom Seinfeld insofar as a seemingly mundane topic hides excellence in its craftsmanship.

The emotions and feelings elicited throughout the text are a jumble of extremes. These ideas and feelings can swing rapidly from section to section as well as within. Yet they are all underpinned with a level of dissatisfaction and alienation that plagues Aragon’s world. Aragon is grappling with a society predicated on ever expanding and renewing consumption. This is personified through the deteriorating arcade with all its little idiosyncratic details and a slew of both reputable and disreputable inhabitants. This is a leftover from a bygone era of the city that doesn’t align with the modern standard.  Yet Aragon revels in this stagnant place and all its well worn and character filled charm. Through this he clearly rejects a capital fueled consumption freight train of a life instead pushing an understanding of life not grounded in the real and physical but through whimsy and passion and raw sensual experience.

Week 1 Who is Ross

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Hello all,

I’m Ross obviously a second year English Lit student from the frozen wasteland that is Edmonton. I would consider myself a fairly well read person but I have not really expanded my horizons from traditional American/English literature and am I’m really excited to do so. As far as personal readings go I’m a huge Ursula K Le Guin fan and love most if not all fantasy.

As far as my expectations go I am very excited to work within a discipline that has very few boundaries. Although the so called romance world is such a broad geographical category I would say that one thing it is not is centered around North American cultural and literary norms. I am really excited to explore the differing cultures of the romance world and see these differences highlighted in the texts. With other literary studies that I have done the worst part to me is being constrained to a certain genre or location for the texts. Even though obviously Romance literature is a category it is fluid and I am excited to learn about its commonality and just how diverse the prose really is.

In response to the lecture and these so called mongrel fields I believe the most important starting point is a discussion of our ideas of categorization. Are all categories and our attempts to divide expression, specifically within this instance literary expression, inherently arbitrary? How can we effectively divided context from the  unnecessary stratification of our world? Honestly I am not entirely sure, with the Romance world’s unifying characteristic being their languages evolved from a common empire who’s heyday was almost 2000 years ago, the scoreboard is showing Arbitrariness 1, Categorization 0. Yet I have not read any of the texts so to continue the previous metaphor were still in the first quarter got a lot of game left to see if this whole Romance world thing isn’t just some made up hoopla.