Week 4 – Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

3 Replies

I’m normally not one to read poetry. I find it pretentious and, frankly, confusing but I understand that poetry can convey ideas and concepts that can’t be captured in novels or stories. I just personally don’t enjoy reading it.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda is a collection of poems with a focus on love and nature. Seeing as they were love poems, and I don’t have much experience with critically reading poetry, I judged some of their content by how I would feel had someone given me the poems. Other poems I just read and tried to figure out how clearly the emotions were conveyed.

I found it impressive that Neruda could find so many different ways of writing about love. While the subject itself got tiring after a while, I was impressed that he could keep finding new ways to describe what it meant to him. He explored the different emotions love can conjure, from longing to anger to sadness. However, some of the comparisons and observations didn’t really make sense. In the poem White Bee, Neruda writes “Your breasts seem like white snails,” which I don’t think I’d take as a compliment. In fact, I’m not even sure what that means. In Girl Lithe and Tawny, Neruda writes “your mouth that has the smile of water,” which again, I’m not entirely sure what that means. I think it’s a compliment, but I don’t know what is trying to be conveyed. Obviously, this could be a translation error, so maybe in the original text, it made sense, but the version I read made these lines confusing.

While the title itself is a little bizarre, Your Breast Is Enough is one of my favorite poems from the collection. The phrasing and descriptions drawn between nature and the subject of the poem are quite sweet and flattering. It really gave the impression of Neruda looking forward to the subject’s presence and dreaded them leaving. The line “in you is the illusion of each day” really gave the impression that Neruda genuinely saw a future with or, at the very least, looked forward to each day with whoever he was talking about.

In the end, the poems turn to a somber note and in Tonight I Can Write, Neruda writes about losing a lover. Not in the sense that she died, although the beginning certainly felt like that, in the sense that she moved on and found another person. I actually thought the poem really captured the feeling of having someone you loved move on and you yourself moving on, but still remembering what it felt like to love them. That poem led into the final one, A Song of Despair, which further highlights the sadness previously expressed. Neruda really focuses on the sea, especially its destructive force. He’s able to clearly convey the turmoil he went through and the pain that love caused him. The entire work really showed all the sides to love, the good and the bad, and while I don’t enjoy poetry, I found it interesting to read.

Question:
Do you like reading poetry? Why or why not.

Week 3 – The Underdogs

2 Replies

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela tells the story of a group of commoners who were dragged into the Mexican Revolution and how their mindsets change throughout the course of the war. I think it was based off of the author’s own experiences during the war, so that adds a level of authenticity to the whole story. I quite enjoyed the story and seeing how the once average person slowly transformed into the ones they originally despised.

The lecture about the book brought up interesting points that I hadn’t explicitly noticed, specifically the moments of glory and the moments of melancholy. The story will go from Demetrio and his compatriots mowing down soldiers to him dejectedly riding his horse. I thought the switches between the two moods shows the horrors and stress of war, where one feels like a hero in the midst of battle, but after the events are over, you don’t really know what else to do.

The portrayal of women in the story was not great, but treatment of women has never been great. I assume some of what was described was inspired by real events. Situations with Camila were hard to read in general, but especially those when she refused to work alongside War Paint. In those scenarios, I always believe in women helping each other because no one else will. Seeing Camila just reject help from War Paint at every instance was painful, especially because she was genuinely trying to help. The treatment of women throughout the story was horrible, but adds to the overall commentary on war. Civilians, women, and children are often the unfortunate souls caught in the crossfire and aftermath of war, reinforcing to the “underdogs” theme of the story.

The story starts with Demetrio fighting with rebels in the Mexican revolution and follows his character arc as he raids and sacks civilian houses. He and the rebels became those that they were fighting against and it was sad to read about. The evolution of the characters throughout the story was interesting to read about, as it didn’t follow the normal character arcs. Instead, the characters became more and more like the enemies they were fighting and it was harder to condone the actions they partook in.

The last few moments of Demetrio’s life show how he took pride in his own individual ability instead of thinking about he’s fighting for the people. At the end of the day, The Underdogs focuses on how war affects the general population as well as the individual. War changed Demetrio from a man who cared about his family to ditching them when he is reunited.

The title itself is in reference to how the people of Mexico will always be the “underdogs” and they’re the ones who end up suffering at the hands of those that rule the country.

Question:
What do you think the portrayal of women does for the story? Does it show a woman’s place in the revolution or does it serve as something more for the story?

Week 2 – Mama Blanca’s Memoirs

1 Reply

Mama Blanca’s Memoirs was an interesting read, namely because it was just recounting memories of a past filled with happiness and joy. Typically, when I read memoirs, they’re filled with sorrow and failure, so reading something that just felt like a nostalgic memory threw me off for a bit. It almost felt like I was reading something with no point, as the main character, Blanca Nieves, never really goes through a proper “character arc.” At the end, she does realize that all things change, but I wouldn’t say she went through a drastic personality or mindset change.

But as I listened to the lecture and thought about the memoir more, I began to appreciate the simplicity and beauty of such a nice childhood, where it felt like the entire world centered around Blanca Nieves. I think the fact that it was published in Paris, contrasts the content of the story, making the commentary between countryside and city more apparent. City folk oftentimes think of the country side as less civilized or sophisticated as the city, but the memoirs clearly show the benefits of living in the country, specifically if you’re wealthy enough to own servants and hired hands. Maybe that was the reason why the unnamed editor published the work, to show a different perspective to city life.

Putting emphasis on not taking the story at face value and imagining what could’ve happened also helps add another layer to the memoir. Thinking about the perspectives of the other characters like Evelyn or Daniel completely changes the story, probably painting the events in a more somber light. Of course Blanca Nieves felt like the entire world centered around her. In a way, it did. But for the hired help or servants on the plantation, life would’ve been a lot less fairy tale like and more hard labor with little reward.

Another part that got a lot of emphasis in the story was names. However, only names that were important to Blanca Nieves as a child. Governors and generals are never mentioned, but all of the cow’s names and their young are named and described in great detail. The entire memoir puts emphasis on names from the very beginning, and the fact that the only names deemed important enough to be mentioned are ones that would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. But to a child, that’s their entire world: the cows and the hired help.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. I liked the simplicity of life through a child’s lens. Oftentimes, we get too caught up in the future and what comes next, so reading about someone just enjoying life was refreshing. It’s always good to take a step back and appreciate everything for what it is.

Question:
Why do you think there is such an emphasis on naming throughout the memoir?

Week 1 – Introduction

5 Replies

Hi! I’m Sophie and I’m a second year and majoring in English. I’m originally from Los Angeles and have been enjoying the changes in seasons as it’s making my year more interesting. No more sun year round. I decided to come to UBC because Canadian universities are cheaper than out of state schools, for some reason. The public transportation here is great and the trees are pretty cool. Having water is pretty nice as well.

In high school I was inspired by a teacher to get into Latin American literature. I studied Borges in Spanish class and I thought this was a good class to further my knowledge on Latin American literature. The South is my favorite work from him and I’m excited to go over his work again. His commentary on philosophy and life was fascinating to read about and dissect. I also studied Rigoberta Menchu in high school, so I was happy to hear that we’re going to cover her impact on Guatemala. I know there are reports that she faked some of what she wrote in her book, so I’d be interested if we talked about that and the potential ramifications it might have had on the current political landscape of Guatemala.

I’ve done something similar to the contract system in a different class and it worked well for me, so seeing it implemented in this class is a pleasant surprise. I like setting goals for myself and getting to chose the works I want to read, so I don’t have to force myself to trudge through works I find uninteresting.

In terms of the first lecture, I thought talking about play in the same conversation as literature was insightful. I never associated the two terms together and attempting to talk about the two was a fun topic to think about. Changing my mindset and approach to literature and viewing it as play will be an interesting challenge, but presumably beneficial in the long run. The course seems quite fun, even with all the readings, and I’m looking forward to talking with y’all this term.

Discussion Question:
What is your favorite Latin American food to eat? Tacos and burritos don’t count. 😉