Conclusions

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I’m really glad I chose to take this class. Initially, I just wanted to talk about Borges and Rigoberta Menchu, but I came to really enjoy some of the other works we read. Specifically, Hundred Years of Solitude has really stuck with me. I reference it casually in conversations with other friends and do agree that it should be required reading. The differences in style and themes between Latin American literature and North American or European literature made it a little difficult to understand the stories at first, but eventually I got used to the different storytelling methods. I feel like a focus on magical realism, having an unnamed narrator, or war are some of the main reoccurring themes or writing choices.

The contract grading system is very nice. I’m glad I know exactly how hard I have to work and what I have to do to get the grade that I want. It takes a lot of stress off of me without lowering the work load in comparison to similar classes. Even though I knew kind of what I was getting into, at first it was daunting trying to read a book a week, but slowly I got the hang of it and came to enjoy the amount of reading I had to do. It was nice having lectures online that I could listen to or read at my own pace to supplement the reading that I had to do for the week. The in-class discussions were also nice and I liked talking to my classmates to hear their takes on the readings.

The blog posts felt like a low stakes way of tracking which books you read. I didn’t have to worry too much about trying to focus on the themes or technical aspects of the book and instead could just talk about whatever I found interesting. It really lessened my stress and increased my interest in all of the books. It didn’t feel like I was forced to read the stories in a certain way and instead could just enjoy them for what they were. An extension of that is reading other people’s blog posts. Because there were virtually no guidelines besides a word count, everyone’s blog posts varied in content and focus. All the different perspectives helped illuminate all the texts in new lights and made me understand them better.

I really enjoyed this class and I’ve come out of it with a much better understanding of Latin American authors and the important cultural happenings in that part of the world.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Thursday!

Week 13 – The Taiga Syndrome

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I enjoyed reading The Taiga Syndrome. The writing style was fun, focusing heavily on other senses besides sight. Often, smells or taste were described, bringing me more into the story. Incorporating different senses makes the fictional world or situations much easier to imagine. I assume the attention to detail is tied to the narrator being an ex detective. It was a nice touch that I thought helped give legitimacy to the narrator, even though she never managed to successfully solve a case.

The book is driven by questions. “WHAT ARE WE LETTING IN WHEN WE SAY GOODBYE?,” the questions in the journals, and the overarching questions of “what is the Taiga?” and “where is the man’s wife?” are some of the ones that come to mind. It drives home the book being a noir and having an ex detective protagonist. The constant fairy tale references like Hansel and Gretel or Red Riding Hood also added another interesting aspect to the story. Lots of fairy tales take place in dark, unknown woods, just like the one the narrator finds herself in. However, in her case, her fairy tale follows a story more akin to a Grimm’s Fairy Tale than Disney one.

The way the narrative jumps time, from the past, to the future, and then back to the present, paints an interesting story. The actual story itself also highlights time and how in the forest that the narrator finds herself in, time doesn’t seem to exist or work normally. Through the different time jumps, we’re given just enough about the future that we know something important happens, but we’re not quite sure exactly what it is. The past gives us a vague idea of why the narrator chose to take this case, but not all the details. I thought the vagueness of it all really helped the overall atmosphere of the story. It was eerie and spooky, everything felt off from the old man hiring the ex detective to the village and the forest itself.

I find it interesting that many of the books I’ve read for this class feature a nameless narrator. I’m not sure what the conclusion I should draw from that is, but it makes me focus on the story and themes a lot more than the actual main character. It always makes me feel like the main character isn’t the important part of the story, but instead I should focus on the rest of the world and characters around them.

Question: Did you like nonlinear aspect to the story? Did you feel like it added or took away from the overall narrative?

Week 12 – My Tender Matador

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I actually really enjoyed My Tender Matador. It’s always nice to read a book from a queer perspective as the market is often filled with straight cis men. I thought the inner thoughts and dialogue of the Queen of the Corner were really fun to read and she had a very distinct voice. Even when she had conversations with Carlos, it’s very obvious who was talking and I think that’s a sign of a strong novel. Having characters with distinct personalities and voices really sets them apart from everyone else in the novel and makes them feel more realistic.

I really liked how the main character was someone who wasn’t really involved in the politics going on around her. It’s interesting to see how someone who’s been scorned by society during political turmoil. It’s an interesting perspective on such a big event like an attempted assassination of PInochet since they were just a bystander and not someone directly involved. I also liked to try to guess what was in all the boxes that Carlos and his associates brought to the Queen’s house.

The relationship between Carlos and the Queen of the Corner was interesting to see develop. In any other scenario, the Queen would’ve had the power in the relationship. She had a house that Carlos relied on and she was older. But in this instance, it always felt like emotionally, Carlos had the power. And I was sad, yet hopeful, watching the Queen finally having someone to love in her life and trying to woo this young man. But I feel like, throughout the entire book, it was obvious that nothing was going to come from it. It was always going to end in heartbreak. The Queen knew it too. Whether it be because Carlos never actually liked the Queen in the same way she liked him or that he would never choose to be with her, their relationship was doomed to fail.  And if Carlos never liked the Queen back, then it was scummy how he led her on and used her for her house. I think the ending did show that Carlos cared at least somewhat about the Queen, but in the end, it was never meant to be.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story. The characters were strong, in personality and character, and the relationship between the Queen and Carlos was fun to read about. I also can’t be the only one reading Pinochet as gay in this story.

Question:
What did you think about the power dynamic between the Queen and Carlos?

Week 11 – Distant Star

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Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño is a novella about the political upheaval in Chile through Pinochet’s fascist regime with a focus on the (fictional) poets at the time. I found the formatting of the short story a little difficult to read, but it was an interesting stylistic choice. Not having the dialogue stand out from the rest of the paragraph by giving it its own lines made it hard to read. The long blocks of text were daunting and uninviting. Normally having line breaks and some white space makes reading a lot easier, but Distant Star did not want to do that. It detracted from the reading experience, but I respect the stylistic choice. It didn’t take away from the story though. Another part of the writing style that was noticeable was the lack of name for the narrator. Distant Star is based on be the last chapter of Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas, but when only looking at Distant Star, the narrator remains unnamed. There honestly really wasn’t a need for the narrator to have a name as the center of the story was Carlos Wieder.

I like how the story focused on the artists and poets during political unrest. I feel most of the time, novels and stories covering these times focus on the soldiers or the ordinary citizens of the counties at war. The story really emphasizes the role art plays in political upheaval. In regards to the question in the lecture about whether the photographs in Wieder’s exhibition were art or not, I think it’s a complicated question. The purpose of art is to tell a story and evoke an emotional response in the viewer. I think the photographs did both of those things. And unlike snuff films or disturbing films which more often than not just want to show the most gruesome or horrific scenes for no reason other than shock value, I do think Wieder had a purpose with his photographs. He wanted to expose the atrocities Pinochet’s regime were committing. It’s one thing to order someone to kill another person, it’s another to see the aftermath. And he expects the reactions of the audience, as is shown in the description that only Wieder himself showed “no sign of fatigue, with a glass of whisky in his perfectly steady hand, contemplating the dark cityscape” (93). So in my opinion, it is art, and it is effective.

Question:
How did you feel about the formatting of the novella? Did it add elements to the story that would’ve been left out had it been formatted normally?

Week 10 – I, Rigoberta Menchu

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I studied Rigoberta Menchu and Guatemala in high school, so I wasn’t going into this novel completely blind. I knew there were controversies around this novel and Menchu’s retelling of her life events. However, I think that it doesn’t actually matter that much. The truth of the matter is that the indigenous people of Guatemala were discriminated against and faced horrible treatment by the government. Even if Menchu was exaggerating or making up parts of her life, it doesn’t discredit the atrocities the people faced. This book and all of her work brought all the issues to the forefront and I think that’s a good thing. Sometimes dramatizations of life events are necessary to evoke an emotional response from others, which helps spur them into action. It’s one of those instances where you have to ask “do the methods justify the means?” and in this case I think they do.

Looking at the contents of the novel without trying to figure out if they’re true or not, the events that happen are pretty horrendous. The death of her brother and mother were scarring and horrible. The graphic detail really sold how horrible the Guatemalan army really was. I did find it interesting how Menchu used Christianity and the Bible. She and her community didn’t necessarily use it as a religion, but more as stories to look up to and use as guidance. Honestly, a much healthier way of using the Bible than some devout Christians nowadays. I also found it interesting the way the chapters were laid out. The chapter about marriage was surprisingly long and in the end, it’s revealed that Menchu doesn’t actually want to get married due to fear of losing her spouse and children. I thought it was interesting how much effort she put into explaining a practice that she herself would never get to experience. She explains a lot of her culture and practices in great detail and I found them all quite interesting, especially the connection her people have with animals. I really enjoyed the care she put into explaining everything.

And in the lecture, it’s brought up that she does keep “secrets” and doesn’t reveal everything about her culture. Seriously though, I don’t really see a problem with that. If she doesn’t want to reveal every bit of detail about her identity and culture, I don’t understand what the problem with that is. Her culture has obviously faced a lot of discrimination and they’ve fought so hard to keep it alive, and so exposing everything to the general public would probably lead to unintended consequences. I don’t think we have any right to demand that she not keep secrets. Overall, I found the novel to be horrible and sad, but at the same time informing and inspiring.

Question:
Even though the truth of the novel has been brought into question, do you think that the novel should be mandatory reading, like what Stanford did?

Week 9 – Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

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Captain Pantoja and the Special Service is a satirical novel about the Peruvian army and their sexual habits. I really enjoyed the way the novel was formatted, with the story being told through different mediums, like reports in the army, letters between sisters, radio shows, and more. It gave perspectives to the story that you wouldn’t otherwise see, like the regular townsfolk or personal accounts from the prostitutes. I specifically liked the letter between Pochita and her sister at the beginning. It felt so genuine and like actual communication between two sisters. I really enjoyed reading it.

The comedic elements of this book were either hit or miss for me. The entire comedic premise was a little iffy at first, but in the end, I came around to it. I was honestly happy to see that rape and sexual assault weren’t viewed as something normal or good. The solution was a bit odd and not something I necessarily agree with, but I guess that’s what makes it comedic and the formal way it was treated made it all the more funny. Timing how long sex normally takes and then giving the soldiers a specific amount of time to be with a prostitute was a good bit and made me chuckle. The times the soldiers put up was a good little inclusion and then performing experiments to see how much faster the soldier would finish if given a pornographic novel beforehand was a good bit of comedy. However, there were parts I didn’t enjoy as much. The whole ass surgery part just was uncomfortable and felt like a joke a child would tell.

Some of the terminology used made me laugh. Seeing “cuckolded” (55) in the novel made me laugh, just because it’s used in the internet culture. The meaning has changed a bit, but still made me do a double take. Another word from modern day internet culture I saw was “harem” (145). Maybe the translators had a prophetic sense of what terms internet culture would use, but I enjoyed the language. Also other times language played an important role was the use of “specialists” instead of prostitutes. It really just added to the comedic aspect to the book. SSGFRI (Special Service for Garrisons, Frontier and Related Installations) was also a good aspect that added to the whole military treating this prostitute solution with far more seriousness than it probably deserved.

Question:
Did you find the book’s comedic aspects funny?

Week 8 – One Hundred Years of Solitude pt 2

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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a bizarre, but enjoyable read. I enjoyed the magical aspects that give the world a bit of spice while also playing an important part in the inner workings of the town. I enjoyed the explanation for Melquiadez’s room where time could “splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room” (348). I like that as an explanation for the state of the town. The rain lasted far longer than any rain should, and I feel like that was when time had splintered off for the entire town. From then on, Macondo just became a ghost town with a few residents still left.

There was a much larger focus on nostalgia in the second half of the book. However, as much as the characters reminisced about the past, things weren’t as great as they remembered it being. When you remember something, it always seems better than it actually was. I feel like that’s the way a lot of us think about our childhood, from shows to music to just life in general. Of course, were they actually better back then? I don’t know, but that’s just the way memory works.

I really enjoyed the emphasis on the cyclical nature of the family and the town. It reminds me of another one of my favorite series Wheel of Time with the focus on time repeating and new periods coming and going. It was interesting to read through a whole “cycle” of time (that wasn’t 14 books long) and seeing how the inhabitants of the town slowly forgot their past, returning to the beginning again. The naming conventions were also a very effective way to show how the family could never move on, continuously naming their children after their ancestors and also always ending up with other family members. And Ursula’s fear finally coming true at the very end was a neat touch. The ending wrapped up the story nicely, completing the Buendia family arc and answering my question about the title of the book. The entire family lived in solitude, both in the sense that the town was isolated from the rest of the world (even with the brief banana plantation) and in the sense that the characters themselves were isolated from each other. There never really seemed to be true connection between characters any more than lust or hatred or just because they were family. The parchments being only 100 years old though confuses me about the whole timeline of events because I would’ve sworn that more than 100 years had passed, but it could just be the nature of the storytelling itself. Overall, I surprisingly enjoyed the book even though it was a little confusing and weird at times.

(Justice for Gaston. Did not deserve what happened to him. I don’t know how I would react if my wife cheated on me with her nephew (?) but I’d need therapy.)

Question:
Do you agree that this should be “required reading for the entire human race?” (as a New York Times book review said)

Week 7 – One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Since we have to post two blog posts on this story, this will just be on the first half (I haven’t finished the book yet). The story has been easy to read so far, although some of the events that’ve happened are a little concerning. The amount of incest and pedophilia is kinda insane? Every time it happened, I was caught so off guard. And it kept happening. The worst case was definitely Remedios Moscote and Aureliano Buendia. Don Apolinar Moscote said to Jose Arcadio Buendia that:

“We have six other daughters, all unmarried, and at an age where they deserve it, who would be delighted to be the honorable wife of a gentleman as serious and hardworking as your son, and Aurelito lays his eyes precisely on the one who still wets her bed.” (69-70)

When I first read that last part, I thought it was a joke. But then, it is confirmed that Remedios does still wet the bed (79). He’s attracted to a child and everyone’s kind of…okay with it? I understand that these were different times, but even with that, she hadn’t reached puberty when he proposed to her, so biologically it doesn’t make sense. And then afterwards, Aureliano becomes a redeemable character through the war. But I can’t forget that he married a child. (Which, when he starts to lose his memory, he remembers her as his daughter ?! )

I tried to look past all the bizarre family relationships and focused my attention on the title One Hundred Years of Solitude. The times when solitude were brought up in the story itself were in reference to Melquiades returning from death (49), Colonel Aureliano Buendia with power (166), and Rebeca losing her husband and locking herself in her house (220). The first two instances made solitude seem undesirable and lonely, where death and power separates one from everyone else. However, in the case of Rebeca, solitude was wanted. She deliberately separated herself from the rest of society, encased in grief and mourning. How there are one hundred years of solitude, I’m unsure. The only times that specific time period were called out where when it was mentioned that Ursula was a hundred years old and when the ghost of Melquiades told Aureliano Segundo that no one could read the manuscripts hidden away unless they were a hundred years old. Maybe the other half of the book will make the title more clear, because as of now, neither of those options seem very good.

The hero of this story so far is Ursula, by far. She tries her hardest to keep the household together and raise all the kids right. Honestly, she might be the only family member that is “normal.” Every other person had something a little bit off about them, from eating dirt to running away from home and coming back to marry your adopted sister to being beautiful but stupid. Speaking of which, what was the point of Remedios the Beauty’s character? I really don’t understand why she was in the story. She served no purpose, didn’t drive the plot forward, and just ended up levitating into the sky. She was beautiful, unintentionally killed four people, and that was that.

Question:
Do you think Remedios the Beauty’s character was helpful to the story? If yes, please explain because I feel like she wasn’t.

Week 6 – Pedro Páramo: A Novel of Mexico

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I found the story quite confusing to read with all the time jumps and character switches. It really put the “ghost” in ghost town (that was awful I know). Having one of the narrators, Juan Preciado, die in the middle was also quite unexpected, but at the same time, maybe I should’ve seen it coming. The entire beginning of the story is about him being haunted by the inhabitants of this abandoned town.

One of the quotes that stuck out the most to me was: “It’s been so many years since I’ve raised my head that I have forgotten about heaven. Even if I had, what would it have mattered? Heaven is so high up, and my eyes so weak, that I was happy just to be able to see the earth.” (I’m reading off of a PDF so I don’t know the exact page number) said by Dorotea to Juan Preciado. Even though I can’t exactly relate to Dorotea’s longing for a child, the feeling of never being able to achieve what you desire is something I think every person has experienced. It’s such a depressing quote, yet it fully describes the feeling of wanting something with your entire being and knowing that you can never get it, so you force yourself to be content with what you have.

Dorotea also felt like she was always the butt of the joke. In one instance, Father Renteria called her a clown. She was drunk and explained that she was at Miguel’s funeral: “I was just at Miguel’s funeral, and they kept on giving me something to drink until I turned into a clown.” Father Renteria replies with: “You’ve never been anything else, Dorotea.” Which is… a little out of pocket ??? But then she tells the Father that she had been the one who had gotten the girls for Miguel so maybe it was justified.

A concerning theme that’s been reoccurring in a few of the works I’ve read for this class, like Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda and The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution by Mariano Azuela, have always had women as the accessory. They’re always getting dragged around by the men, objectified, and not given a voice. They must bend to the will of the men and aren’t treated as humans of equal standing. I know that women weren’t treated well, but it’s one thing to know that and another to read about it. And not read about it in a way where the book directly focuses on the treatment of women, but instead just casual mistreatment that’s seen as totally normal. From Camila being forced away from her home to Susana San Juan being held by Pedro Paramo to be his wife, the women are treated as accessories to the men and it’s honestly quite depressing.

Also the pettiness of Pedro Paramo is unmatched. ” ‘I will cross my arms, and Comala will die of hunger.’ And that’s what he did.” I respect it.

Question:
Why do you think Juan Rulfo jumped between times and perspectives while telling the story?

Week 5 – Labyrinths

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I studied some of Borges’s works in high school, so it was nice to revisit them again. I always enjoyed his writing and the way he plays with reality. He explores time, memory, language, and perception through his short stories.

One of my favorite stories was “Funes the Memorious.” I always wish I had a perfect memory, I think every student does. But Borges takes a photographic memory and pulls it to its extreme. Funes is unable to think. All he can do is remember. Sure his memory is impressive, but he fails to understand the reasoning behind why things are the way they are. He creates his own counting system, which doesn’t make any sense. It just requires memorization, as opposed to actual numbers which rely on math and patterns. He names things differently depending on the time of day and which way they’re facing. He fails to understand the reasonings and patterns of the world and instead relies solely on his memory. He lives entirely in his own head and not in the real world. I thought the exploration of how a perfect memory could drive someone mad was well done and interesting. Memory isn’t the thing people should value. We should value understanding and common sense and being able to recognize the patterns that dictate our world.

My favorite Borges story is “The South.” While it wasn’t included in Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, I still felt the need to revisit it. The story is another example of Borges playing with perception. I enjoy westerns, so maybe I’m biased in thinking the story is one of his best. The story can be read in two ways: either the events actually happened or it’s the imagination of a dying Dahlmann. While he’s dying in a hospital to a frankly embarrassing injury, he conjures up an honorable death for himself, so he can pass on peacefully. He uses this alternative death to regain some self-respect and to go out fighting. It honestly could be read as either a true telling of events or a fever dream, and that ambiguity makes the story so interesting to read.

“Borges and I” is an interesting piece comparing the author with the actual person. I think it holds up really well, especially now when social media and the internet are so integrated into our lives. No influencer or creator is who they appear to be on social media. Everyone has a mask that they put on just for the camera. That is what “Borges and I” is about. He writes about how Borges and himself have a lot in common, but Borges tends to over exaggerate. The ending conclusion is that he will eventually lose himself to Borges as Borges will be the only one out of the two to persist through time. The author will live on through his works, but the actual Borges will fade from memory. It’s an interesting commentary that is still relevant to us nowadays, although in a different form. 

Question:
Why do you think Borges was chosen as one of the mandatory authors?