Tag Archives: memory

The Shrouded Woman Over There

Bombal’s The Shrouded Woman is my third book of this course. It is almost February, time really does fly.

Anyway. Prof said last week that The Shrouded Woman might be a response to Breton’s Nadja. I can see why he said that. Surrealism wants to unleash the unconcious mind; modernism challenges readers to approach from a different perspective (a very brief summary of based on my little understanding). This story begins from the “unconcious mind point-of-view”, the corpse, or should I say spirit of a deceased woman. She names her family one by one but ultimately, this story is about her thoughts and experience with love. I wonder if narrating events from a third person view is a modernism thing, I think it’s fairly useful for providing more insights without the risk of ruining the character’s image. The narrator would ask questions to guide the reader’s thinking.

Why then did she bring out that shyness in her? Because of her gestures, perhaps. Those gestures always so harmonious and sure. None of them ever seemed out of place like her own. They never remained in suspense…No, she didn’t really envy her!

I believe, I shouldn’t call her a narrator. Maybe a commentator? Play by play announcer? Bombal’s writing style is also heavy on imagery, the details between the lines are nice. Though not on purpose, but I rarely read books by female authors. I’d say it’s pretty refreshing especially after Proust and Bombal. Not locked into the mind of one character also makes reading so much easier.

In my judgement, this book is not a respone to Breton. This is just a last goodbye tour of a dead woman, something she has to do before peacefully letting go of her mortal life. I’m not sure if she settled for what she had in the end, or something just clicked. To me, she didn’t get the love she wanted, for one reason and another.

Question: If you get the chance to review your life after you have passed, how important is love?

Proust’s Combray confuses me

Hello viewers (in James May’s voice). I did a quick scroll on the blog page and so far almost every post about Proust has been negative. I share similar feelings, so I will try to explain it. The story starts by reminiscing the childhood of the protagonist on a sleepless night. The child is a member of an upper class French family, evident by the fact that they have servants, and multiple residences. An emphasis is placed on the child’s bedtime “ritual”, a goodnight kiss from his mother. His father finds it absurd, and usually becomes irritated. The child longs for his mother’s attention and affection.

Now, why do I not enjoy reading Combray? First, I know this story is told from a child’s perspective, but with all the mental analysis and descriptions added by the author, this obsession with “mother’s kiss” weirds me out. After 50 something pages, I still think to myself, “what was the point of all that?” Second, a child that cannot sleep without his mother probably doesn’t think that much (am I missing something?). Wait — hold on. In order to write this blog post, I have re-read part one of Combray a few times, and I am starting to get the gist of it. When you think about the past, everything tends to be slightly exaggerated. For example, a Filet-o-Fish used to be $2.50 ten years ago, which simply isn’t true. The emotions of every character is heavily exaggerated by the author because he is trying to tell the story through the child(again). This kid, who wants the affection of his mother, naturally portrays his father as the bad person.

“My father was constantly refusing me permission for things that had been authorized in the more generous covenants granted by my mother and grandmother because he did not bother about ‘principles’ and for him there was no ‘rule of law’.

While in reality, his father is most likely just a normal, sane person. That’s why the child is so surprised his father allows him to sleep with his mother. However, know that does not make reading this book more enjoyable, at least for me. But, it certainly piqued my interest as I find the way Proust describe these mental battles pretty unique.

Question: Have you ever caught yourself altering memories of the past?