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Conclusion

Conclusion

I feel like the way I think about literature has changed a lot. At the beginning, I kind of just saw literature as stories. But now, I see it more as something shaped by history, politics, language, and social structures. It is not just about what is written, but also about who is writing, under what conditions, and for whom.

One thing that really surprised me is how important context is. A lot of the readings don’t fully make sense unless you know what was going on at the time. And I started noticing the same themes showing up again and again, like gender, class, power, even in totally different texts. So it feels less like random stories and more like they’re all responding to similar issues.

Also, the quizzes actually changed how I read, which I didn’t expect. Because of them, I started trying to remember a lot of small details, like names and places. And now I kind of do that automatically. But at the same time, I keep thinking, do I actually need to remember all of this? Like sometimes it feels enough to know that a character moved somewhere else, but do I really need to remember exactly where? I feel like sometimes focusing on details makes me lose the bigger picture. So now I’m kind of stuck between trying to remember things and trying to just understand the text.

My favorite book was The Time of the Doves (La plaça del Diamant). I really liked how personal it felt. It doesn’t directly explain big historical events, but you can feel them through Natalia’s everyday life. That actually made it more powerful for me. And the way it’s written feels simple, but also kind of heavy and overwhelming, which matches her mental state.

Looking back, I think a lot of the texts connect through themes like identity, memory, and just trying to survive. There’s also a lot about the gap between what people want and what society expects, especially for women. That’s something I didn’t really notice before, but now it feels very obvious.

Overall, the readings were sometimes hard, but also worth it. Some texts were confusing at first, but after thinking about them more, they started to make sense. I also feel like I’ve become a bit more patient when reading. I don’t see literature the same way anymore. It’s not just something to understand or summarize, but something you question and think through. And I think that’s what this course showed me the most, that literature is actually really connected to real life, even when it doesn’t seem like it at first.

Categories
Blogs Constance Debré Memory

That’s why you shouldn’t date a French stud

The main thing I learned from this book is that “being a dude” is more like a pattern of behavior rather than a biological sex.

When I was reading the parts where she calls the women as “number 1” and “number 2,” I felt quite uncomfortable. At first, I thought it was because the content was too private. However, later I realized that what really made me uncomfortable was the way she described them. Her descriptions felt like a kind of gaze, and the fact that she gave them numbers made it even worse. It made these women seem like objects rather than real people. This feeling became even stronger when she mentioned that she kept a list of the women she had slept with and described it as “a metro map of conquests” (p. 89). This expression made me feel very disgusted because it turns relationships—if they can even be called relationships—into something like trophies.

To me, this behavior is not very different from that of some toxic men. It shows a need to control and categorize others. This made me think that maybe the problem is not about gender itself, but about a certain pattern of behavior. In this sense, “being male” is not about being a man, but about using a way of seeing others that involves power and control. In her relationships with these women, she seems to repeat this pattern.

At the same time, this also made me reflect on my own assumptions. Maybe I should not have idealized relationships between women as naturally more equal or more sincere. Problems in relationships are not necessarily related to gender or sexual orientation.

Another thing that bothered me is her use of the word “fuck.” I feel that this word carries a strong sense of direction and power. It often suggests that one person is more active or dominant than the other. In a relationship between two women, I do not expect this kind of power dynamic in the same way, so it makes the relationship feel unbalanced.

I also find it difficult to accept that she started dating women before her marriage with her ex-husband was completely over. I think this is irresponsible to everyone involved. Even though the book shows that her ex-husband did some extreme things to prevent her from seeing her son, this does not fully justify her actions. I do not oppose her coming out, and I understand that it takes courage, but I still cannot fully understand why this realization came only after marriage and having a child, or why she acted on it before ending the marriage.

However, it is exactly when I find myself making these judgments that I begin to question them. On the one hand, I still feel uncomfortable with the way she handles these relationships and the timing of her choices. On the other hand, I start to wonder whether my evaluation is also influenced by social expectations, especially those placed on women and mothers. It seems that once a woman becomes a mother, her actions are judged more strictly and are more easily seen as failures.

So in the end, I start to wonder, is the problem really her behavior, or the fact that she refuses to follow the roles that society has already decided for her?

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Blogs Childhood Ferrante Friend

Between Possibility and Reality

When I first started reading My Brilliant Friend, I thought the “brilliant friend” was Lila. She stands out as exceptionally intelligent, sharp, and fearless, someone whose brilliance seems to surpass everyone around her. Compared to her, Lenù feels more ordinary, more hardworking than gifted. But as I kept reading, I started to realize that the title doesn’t only refer to Lila, but refers to both of them. In a way, they are each other’s “brilliant friend.” (Especially when Lila actually told Lenù “you’re my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls”(p.312) )

This understanding really changed how I saw their relationship. Rather than a one sided admiration, their bond is deeply reciprocal. Lenù is always thinking about Lila, comparing herself to her, trying to catch up or prove something. At the same time, even when Lila isn’t in school anymore, she still has this strong presence in Lenù’s life. So it feels like their growth is always connected, even when they’re on completely different paths.

When the story focuses on how Lenù continuing her education, especially with her teacher pushing and supporting her, it honestly felt a bit like a typical “inspirational” story. Like, a girl from a poor background gets a chance, works hard, and slowly moves up. It’s encouraging, but also kind of familiar, and even a little cliché at times. But whenever the story shifts to Lila, the tone changes dramatically. There’s this heavy sense of being stuck. Even though she’s probably the smartest person in the neighborhood, she doesn’t get the same opportunities. Instead, she’s forced into situations where she has to compromise and give up parts of herself. It’s frustrating to read, because we can clearly see her potential, but there’s no real way for her to fully use it. That contrast made me think of them as representing two different possibilities. Lenù is like what happens when talent is supported and allowed to grow, while Lila shows what happens when that same kind of talent gets trapped by reality.

Lenù’s desire to succeed is often driven by a need to keep up with, or even surpass Lila. In this sense, Lila’s presence is essential to Lenù’s development. Even though Lila remains physically and socially confined, she continues to exert a powerful intellectual and emotional influence on Lenù. Their connection is marked by admiration, competition, dependence, and even subtle tension.

Ultimately, I came to see Lila and Lenù as embodying the interplay between ideal and reality. Lila represents a powerful but unrealized possibility, while Lenù represents a path that, although more achievable, is shaped by compromise and external validation. Together, they create the central tension of the novel.

The title My Brilliant Friend becomes deliberately ambiguous. It is no longer about identifying who is truly “brilliant,” but about understanding how their brilliance exists through each other. Their friendship is not just a bond, but a mirror, one that reflects both what they are and what they could have been.

Categories
crime Piglia Robbery

Just Paper

After reading Money to Burn by Ricardo Piglia, I kept thinking about a phrase people often say to children: “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” Parents usually say this to their kids in order to remind them that money is hard to earn and shouldn’t be wasted. But after reading this novel, another thought came to my mind, money may not grow on trees, but it is made of paper. If money is just paper, why does it have such a powerful influence over people’s lives?

One of the most striking moments in the novel is when the gangsters burn the stolen money. Normally we would never imagine something like that happening, because money feels extremely important in everyday life. People work, study, and plan their futures largely because of money. It buys food, housing, time, and sometimes even a sense of security. In many ways, money is what allows the whole society to function, as it makes trade, wages, and economic systems possible.

At the same time, money is also a very contradictory thing. While it keeps the system running, it also constantly pushes individuals toward obsession or even madness. People compete for it, sacrifice their time and energy for it, and sometimes commit crimes because of it. The gangsters in the novel risk everything to steal the money, but in the end they decide to burn it. That moment is shocking to me because it suddenly reveals how fragile money actually is. After all, it’s just paper that can turn into ashes in a few minutes.

What makes this even more interesting is that the story is based on a real historical crime, but in the real case the money was probably never burned. The money was never recovered, but historians believe the burning scene may have been invented by Piglia. That means the most memorable part of the story, and even the title Money to Burn, comes from something the author added himself. By adding the burning money scene, Piglia turns the story into something more symbolic. Robbing money doesn’t really challenge the system of money, because robbers still believe money has value. But burning money is different. Burning it suggests that the thing everyone desperately chases might ultimately be nothing more than paper. The novel made me realize that the power of money doesn’t really come from the paper itself, but from the fact that everyone collectively believes in it.

It’s true that money requires labor and effort, but it is also true that money is just paper. What really gives it power is the trust and belief people place in it. By inventing the scene of burning money, Piglia almost forces readers to see this contradiction more clearly. Sometimes fiction can reveal something about reality that the real story itself cannot show.

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Blogs Childhood Duras Memory

Not Quite Lolita: Reading The Lover

While reading The Lover by Marguerite Duras, I was immediately struck by the unusual relationship of the story. The novel describes a relationship between a fifteen year old French girl and an older Chinese man in colonial Vietnam. Because of the large age difference, the story initially reminded me of another well known novel, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Both stories involve a relationship between an older man and a young girl, which immediately creates a sense of discomfort for the reader. However, as I continued reading, I realized that Duras approaches this theme in a very different way, focusing less on scandal and more on memory, social context, and the complexity of identity.

One of the most striking aspects of The Lover is its reflective narrative tone. The story is told by the narrator many years after the events happened, which makes the relationship feel more like a memory than a dramatic event. The narrator does not simply describe what happened, but also reflects on her younger self, her family situation, and the colonial environment in which she grew up. This distance in time gives the story a quiet and sometimes melancholic atmosphere.

The relationship between the young girl and the Chinese man is also shaped by social and historical contexts. The girl comes from a poor French colonial family, while the man is wealthy but marginalized because of his race within the colonial society of Vietnam. Their relationship therefore contains multiple layers of power, including age, race, and class. This complexity makes the story feel less like a romantic narrative and more like an exploration of identity and social structures.

Thinking about Lolita while reading The Lover made me notice the importance of narrative perspective. In Lolita, the story is controlled by Humbert Humbert, whose voice attempts to justify and romanticize his obsession. In contrast, The Lover is narrated by the woman who experienced the relationship herself. Her voice is more reflective and self aware, which changes how the reader understands the events.

Overall, reading The Lover made me think about how memory, desire, and social context shape personal relationships. Although the story reminded me of Lolita at first because of the age difference, the two novels ultimately create very different meanings. The Lover is more about how a young girl’s experiences are shaped by colonial society, family hardship, and the passage of time. Through its fragmented narrative and reflective voice, this novel transforms a controversial relationship into a meditation on youth, memory, and the complexities of personal history.

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Blogs Uncategorized

A Dinner Never Served

When reading If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, my strongest impression was that I was constantly moving between different universes. The transitions were sudden and unexpected, almost like shifting through dreams. Each time I became fully immersed in a story, it would abruptly stop and another novel would begin. The experience felt like going to a restaurant where the waiter serves a nice dish, and just as I’m about to take my first bite, I’m told it was brought to the wrong table and taken away. Calvino keeps presenting new “dishes” and then removing them without hesitation. Meanwhile, the “I” in the novel travels from bookstores to universities, cafés, and even to South America in search of the unfinished novel, only to end up with ten beginnings.

Interestingly, the titles of these ten novels can be linked together to form an opening of yet another story. (If on a winter’s night a traveler outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo looks down in the gathering shadow, in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect. On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon, around an empty grave, what story down there awaits its end? )

While reading, I also noticed several metaphors. One is the “winter night.” A winter night is usually associated with coldness, loneliness, and silence. In this sense, i think it represents the inner space of reading. Reading can be a solitary act, especially late at night when everything is quiet and there is only a dialogue between the reader and the book. Another metaphor is the “Other Reader.” Although reading is often seen as a personal activity, in this novel it also becomes social. People connect through reading the same books and sharing their experiences and opinions, suggesting the existence of a reading community. Finally, the relationship between writing and reading is particularly interesting to me. Writing is a creative act, while reading is the interpretation of that creation. Meaning is formed through the interaction between author and reader. The author writes to call upon the reader, and the text only gains meaning when it is read.

However, there is one reason why I could not fully immerse myself in the novel. The original text assumes the Reader is male, which positions female characters to some extent as objects to be observed or pursued. This assumption made it harder for me to completely identify with the “you” addressed in the novel. If the story were narrated from Ludmilla’s perspective, she would no longer be “the Other” or merely a projection of reading desire, but instead an active subject.

Therefore, my question is: if the story were written from Ludmilla’s point of view, what differences might it bring?

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Blogs Memory relationships

Becoming the doll

This is my favorite novel so far! I really like how the story is told in a straightforward way, without constantly jumping back and forth between the past and the present. The narration feels simple, but also very comfortable to read, just like the protagonist Natalia herself. She is an ordinary woman, but she feels very real and relatable. The novel is filled with many metaphors, which give deeper meaning to what initially seems like a calm and simple story.

Of course, the most obvious symbol is the connection between Natalia and the doves. However, what attracts me even more is the way Natalia repeatedly stops to look at the dolls in the oilcloth shop windows. This detail seems small and easy to overlook, but the more I read, the more crucial it feels. Natalia does not just glance at them, but she stops and looks at them for a long time. The dolls are placed behind glass, wearing beautiful clothes, completely still. They look like people, but they have no life. This makes me feel that Natalia is not simply looking at an object, but unconsciously confronting something that reflects herself.

I think the dolls symbolize Natalia’s gradual objectification. A doll is something that is made to be looked at, displayed, and owned. It does not exist for itself. Similarly, in her relationship with Quimet, Natalia slowly loses control over her own life. Quimet gives her a new name, Colometa, instead of calling her Natalia. This is not just a nickname, but a way of redefining her identity. He reshapes who she is, turning her into someone who belongs to him. Natalia rarely expresses her own desires. She mostly follows and accepts things, even when she feels uncomfortable. This makes her seem like one of the dolls in the window. She still exists, but her identity and position are determined by someone else, not by herself. The dolls remain frozen in place. They do not change, and they have no freedom. In the same way, Natalia’s life gradually becomes more confined and repetitive. She is trapped within marriage and daily routines, slowly losing her sense of possibility. She does not disappear, but her existence becomes more passive, as if she is being placed somewhere rather than choosing where to go.

What makes this especially sad is that this transformation does not happen suddenly. It happens slowly, over time. Natalia does not realize that she is becoming like a doll but simply moves step by step into that position. This is what makes the metaphor so powerful. The doll is not a violent symbol, but a quiet and accepted state of being. Natalia is not forced into becoming this way. Instead, she is gradually shaped by her relationships and environment. Because of this, the dolls do not only represent her vulnerability, but also show how her subjectivity is slowly diminished.

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Blogs Childhood Memory Zobel

Dull Sensitivity

While reading Black Shack Alley, I kept feeling that what moved me the most was the fact that the world is seen through a child’s eyes. This is not a world that has already been explained or analyzed, but one that is simply felt. Children do not always understand what is happening around them, yet they are often far more sensitive than adults to atmosphere, emotion, and relationships.

I think of this way of seeing as a kind of dull sensitivity. Children may be slow to assign meaning or judgment to events, but they are extremely alert to the presence of the world itself. Their perception is shaped by adults, yet it does not immediately turn into the clear value systems that adults rely on. For instance, when old Médouze dies, José is unsure whether this moment is meant to be sad or joyful. Some people are crying, while others are joking, telling stories, and keeping the gathering lively. As readers, we are quick to label the scene as one of mourning. But for José, it is emotionally confusing and difficult to categorize. He is not indifferent, but simply does not know how to name what he is feeling.

A similar gap appears in the way children perceive labor. For adults, going out to work means exhaustion, repetition, and the gradual wearing down of the body. For children however, adults leaving for work can mean freedom. It opens up an empty period of time, time to wander, to play, to watch the world unfold. From this perspective, poverty does not immediately register as a social problem, but as part of everyday life. Life is difficult, but it is not constantly oppressive. There is still movement, noise, warmth, and intimacy between people.

Because of this perspective, the novel never feels as if it is trying to lecture the reader. Zobel does not ask José to explain injustice or condemn it. Instead, he allows the child to live within it without fully understanding it. Ironically, this makes the adult world feel even more brutal. José notices his grandmother’s hands long before he understands what they represent. Only later, when he recalls their cracks and deformities caused by years of labor, does their suffering fully come into view. Growing up, in this sense, is not about finding answers, but about losing a more immediate, instinctive way of seeing.

For me, Black Shack Alley is not a novel that argues a point, but one that reshapes perception. It reminds us that the child’s world is not shallow or incomplete, it simply operates differently. Children do not lack understanding, but lack the adult language used to explain pain. And it is precisely in this undefined space that the reality of life reveals itself most clearly.

Categories
Blogs Moravia relationships Uncategorized

Evil under the sun

While reading Agostino, I kept having this strong feeling that the novel is full of GAZES. It never explicitly talks about “looking” or “being seen,” yet almost every uncomfortable moment in the story seems to come back to it.

Even the setting already hints at this. The story took place on a beach, which may look relaxed and carefree, but is actually quite anxious as it offers almost no place to hide. On the beach, people are always visible, their body, who they are with, where they stand next to others. That constant exposure, being surrounded by other people’s eyes, runs quietly through the entire novel.

In this environment, the mother is never a neutral presence. From the very beginning, she is someone who is looked at, not only by Agostino. The novel repeatedly emphasizes her beauty, her body, and her ability to attract attention. She appears more often as “a beautiful woman” than simply as a mother. Strangers look at her, the young man looks at her, and these gazes are not suddenly appeared but something that has always existed. What made me uncomfortable is realizing that Agostino himself has already internalized this way of looking. He knows that others would envy him for walking beside such a beautiful woman, and he even seems to take a quiet pride in that envy. This suggests that his gaze toward his mother is never completely innocent.

The mother is therefore always surrounded by multiple gazes. She exists within the mother son relationship, but she is also constantly shaped by the looks of strangers, men, and the public space around her. The beach makes all of this impossible to ignore, as if every gaze is laid bare under the sunlight. When her body and attention begin to be truly taken over by others’ eyes, Agostino starts to feel unsettled. It is not that he suddenly realizes his mother is a woman, but that he realizes she no longer belongs only to his gaze.

In the first half of the novel, the intimacy between Agostino and his mother is sustained through looking. He stays close to her, watches her, follows her, as if as long as his gaze remains, she still belongs to him. This way of looking gives him a strange but stable sense of security, allowing him to pretend that even in such a public space, they still share a small, enclosed world of their own. But the moment his mother begins to respond to someone else’s gaze, that world collapses.

It is only then that I began to understand that what Agostino truly loses is not his mother herself, but a way of confirming himself through looking at her. For him, gaze is a way of defining intimacy, position, and reassurance of knowing whether he still matters.

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relationships

I/SHE ?

What struck me the most in this book is how often Bombal shifts the narrative perspective. At first, I thought it was just a stylistic experiment, but the more I read, the more it felt like something much deeper. The constant switching between first person and third person narration doesn’t feel random at all. Instead, it feels like Bombal is showing how a woman keeps losing and only briefly regaining her sense of self. It’s almost exhausting in the same way the protagonist’s experience is exhausting.

Whenever the first person “I” shows up, it usually feels very intimate. These moments are tied to the protagonist’s inner world, her memories, emotions, fears, anger, and desires. In these sections, she finally feels like a real person instead of just a role. She’s not someone’s wife, daughter,or a woman being watched and judged. She’s just herself, thinking and feeling. But the frustrating part is that this “I” never lasts long. Just when it feels like she’s starting to exist fully as a subject, the narration slips back into the third person. She becomes “she” again, someone being looked at, described, and defined by others.

This back and forth felt really familiar to me, because it mirrors how women often experience the world in real life. When a woman is alone with her thoughts, she can exist as a full subject. But the moment she steps into social space, the moment she becomes visible, that visibility turns her into an object. Other people’s expectations, judgments, and gazes take over. The novel’s constantly interrupted rhythm creates a strong sense of fragmentation. It’s not that the protagonist has no sense of self, but that her self is never allowed to stay intact. It keeps getting interrupted, overwritten, and pushed aside.

What unsettled me even more is that this doesn’t stop after her death. She loses the ability to act, but her consciousness actually becomes clearer. The first person “I” appears more often, and she finally reflects on her life, her marriage, her family, and love on her own terms. At the same time, though, the third person perspective doesn’t disappear. Her body is still watched, talked about, and claimed by others. Even in death, she can’t fully escape being narrated.

By the end, what really stayed with me is the idea that women don’t automatically get to occupy the position of “I.” Subjectivity isn’t something that’s simply given, it’s something that has to be fought for again and again. And even then, it’s fragile, constantly at risk of being taken away.

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