Tag Archives: Literature

Week 14 – Conclusion

SPAN 312C was an enjoyable journey, one that I’m extremely sad about it’s closure. Being an RMST 202 alumni (lol) I was really looking forward to learning more about the themes related to Latin American literature, especially magical realism, from Professor Jon. Reflecting on the past four months, that is certainly what I got out of the course.

First of all, I have to say that I still don’t quite know what magical realism really is. I can’t really define it, nor can I pick it out within a certain book like I can do with other narrative devices. However, one thing I learned was that magical realism should be approached more as a ‘lens’ through which we view certain aspects of a story, and not so much as a literary device. For me, Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was most helpful in giving me a better understanding of what magical realism might be within a book. For example, the fantastical event of the flight to heaven alongside a heavier theme of the book that ‘everything comes to an end’ seemed to me as a good indicator of what magical realism could be. The constant interplay between fantasy and reality seemed to me like the best definition I can come up with magical realism, and it also goes along with the title of our course, “Hopscotch!”

Secondly, a very interesting aspect of a lot of the readings was the use of a child narrator—from Mama Blanca, Cartucho, etc. While at first I questioned the credibility of a child narrator, reading such books made me change my mind. The unfiltered, perhaps naïve, perspective of a child felt more authentic and credible. At times it was gruesome, like the part on “General Sobarzo’s Guts” in Cartucho, but at least it felt like the child narrator wasn’t ‘picking and choosing’ what to include or exclude in the book. At the same time, however, all the books weren’t actually written by children; this realization raised more interesting thoughts. Why did the authors choose a child narrator? What purpose those the child narrator serve? Is there some sort of political agenda that the author wants to spread, secretly, through the narration of a child? While these questions cannot be answered directly, they still feed interesting thoughts and discussions. In a fairness, Cristina Rivera Garza did write, “Sometimes the best informants are women and children” (The Taiga Syndrome, p. 25).

To end this course with a question: What was your favorite book from this course? Why? Were there any aspects of the book that helped you understand magical realism and/ or Latin American literature in general?

Thank you very much Professor Jon and Daniel for making this an unforgettable journey for all of us.

Week 13, Rivera Garza, “The Taiga Syndrome”

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Cristina Rivera Garza’s The Taiga Syndrome was an eye-catching read, to say the least. It was adventurous and mysterious, while also difficult to understand what was going on at times. Simultaneously, the book also had some really resonating quotes that not only intensified the plot of the story, but also made me think—in more abstract terms—about life and our world.

To characterize both the beginning and ending of the story, each ends of the book were mysterious, in I had a strong yearning for more clarification. The very abstract quote written on the telegram, “’WHAT ARE WE LETTING IN WHEN WE SAY GOODBYE?’” was just the beginning of this growing curiosity. I questioned, “who exactly was this man, who hired the detective (our narrator)” and “who exactly is our narrator?” (p. 5). I just wanted to know more about the context—the place, people, and exact situation of the investigation—for my own sense of security. With the lack of this, I think I felt quite lost; I was questioning every advancement I made throughout the book, with a sense of excitement that came from the false hope that all my questions would be answered in a blockbuster ending.

This ‘blockbuster ending’ never occurred. However, the ending still gave me some chills. First of all, I wonder what exactly the ending of the story is. Does the book come to a proper closure? “At the foot of a volcano” (p. 119) is what left me an additional influx of questions. At first, I thought I was overthinking, but after going through the lecture, I think I was going towards the right direction with this book.

“This story that almost literally has no end is not only a fairy tale awry, but also a detective story whose poetics of failure point to the end of sovereignty without obviously establishing any alternatives. We can no longer even escape to the vanishing woods” (Rivera Garza Lecture, p. 1).

Like what Professor Jon stated, I also thought the book “almost literally has no end” (Rivera Garza Lecture, p. 1). In a literal sense, the quest to the Taiga forest the begun at the start of the book did come to an end, albeit a failed one. However, although I’m not sure exactly why, I keep getting a sense that there is something more left to the book; and Professor Jon’s quote—“Had his first wife really “died in an accident, years ago” as he is rather too quick to tell the narrator (15)? Is the detective missing the real case, right under her nose?”—added to this feeling (Rivera Garza Lecture, p.7).

Question: Personally, do you think the story came to a proper closure? Why do you think so? What makes a proper ‘ending’?

Week 11, Bolaño, Distant Star

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Roberto Bolaño’s Distant Star was an intriguing novel. The book’s narrative style felt innovative, weaving a chilling story of political extremism, artistic ambition, fascism (though I still struggle to grasp this idea), and the destructive forces of love. Bolaño’s use of a fragmented, non-linear narrative structure created a sense of disorientation, perhaps mirroring the chaos and uncertainty of the novel’s historical and political context. At the same time, Bolaño’s character development and dialogue helped me empathize with the novel’s flawed and damaged protagonists, even as their actions became increasingly brutal.

Professor Ryan Long, during the conversation video with Professor Jon, pointed out the specialty of Bolaño’s narrative style. He stated:

“It’s really interesting that the novel sometimes uses the first person plural, you have a first person singular narrator who sometimes uses first person plural and sometimes it seems like he’s referring to himself and Bibiano kind of working together through these correspondence, but you could also imagine that it’s the first person narrator and Arturo kind of having a conversation; the novel has a really strong oral quality as if its narration were a conversation at times” (10:20 ~11:20).

This quote interested me because I didn’t perceive the narrative style to be sort of a ‘conversation’ or ‘collaboration’ until suggested by Professor Long. I’m not sure if having this insight would change my perception of the book or the credibility of the narrator, but I wonder if there would be any change in my reading experience if I were to go back to the book with this new thought.

Furthermore, one of the most striking aspects of Distant Star was the way that Bolaño used different narrators and perspectives to create a complex and multifaceted portrayal of the novel’s central character, Wieder. Initially introduced as a charismatic young poet, Wieder gradually becomes a murderer, obsessed with the coup. However, Bolaño never allowed me to see Wieder solely as a villain; instead, the readers were shown glimpses of his vulnerability, his fear, and his twisted sense of love, which made him a complex figure.

Reading this book reminded me of Roberto Bolaño’s other novel, Amulet, which I read last year in RMST 202. For a very quick context, in Amulet, the narrator is a woman who is held captive in a public bathroom during the Pinochet coup. Thinking of the two novels side to side, both novels explore the legacy of political violence and repression in Latin America, and both use innovative narrative techniques to explore themes of memory, identity, fascism, and artistic ambition. However, while Amulet felt like a more straightforwardly structured novel, Distant Star felt more fragmented and complex.

Question: Although this book is fiction, how credible was the ‘unnamed narrator’ for you? In comparison with Menchu last week, were there any narrative styles/ techniques that made the narrator of Distant star more (or less) credible?

Week 9, Vargas Llosa, “Captain Pantoja and the Special Service”

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Mario Vargas Llosa’s Captain Pantoja and the Special Service was an eventful read. The book—both directly and indirectly—dealt with heavier themes of colonialism, discipline and control, sexuality, prostitution, and corruption, while simultaneously providing comedy.

The first thing that stood out to me was how corrupt the military was. This was most explicitly shown to me in Father Beltran’s statement, “’And do they call rape a ‘misfortune’ nowadays?’ […] ‘Because that’s what it was: rape’” (16). Additionally, the corruption was evident once more when General Victoria, despite acknowledging that “’what the recruits tried to do to the lady [was] very wrong,’ […] hedges, smiles, salutes” (18). While these two quotes got me confused whether or not this book was going to be comic or just straight up disturbing, the first instance of comedy came by from this quote: “It has to be the heat, the climate, don’t you think?” (18). This statement by Tiger Collazos just got me laughing in disbelief; it was an ‘are you serious?’ moment. In this way the comedy used by Vargas Llosa in this book seemed unconventional, definitely not the same type of comedy as used in regular comic books. At the same time, however, it didn’t also feel like the conventional ‘black humour’ either. In my opinion conventional black humour is more explicit—straight up making fun of a ‘dark event’—while the comedy in Captain Pantoja was more satirical.

Secondly, as a student currently enrolled in a Holocaust studies course, I found some parallels between the events and themes laid out by this book and those of the Holocaust—albeit on different degrees. A key theme of the book was abuse of power, which is also a central theme of the Holocaust. In both cases, those in power use their authority to exploit and oppress those who are vulnerable. In the book, Captain Pantoja’s project essentially commodifies women who work in the brothel; their welfare is of little concern to the military. Similarly, during the Holocaust, the Nazi regime used its power to systematically persecute and murder millions of Jews, Romani people, disabled individuals, and others deemed ‘undesirable’; the Nazis treated their victims as subhuman, and their welfare was of little concern to those in power. Moreover, Captain Pantoja’s attempt to defend himself with the “fact that he was only following orders” was a very similar behaviour shown by many German officers post-Holocaust (Vargas Llosa Lecture, p.8). After the events of the Holocaust, many German officials tried to justify their acts and avoid responsibility by stating they only did what they did because they were told to do so. To take this argument for its face value or disregard it is beyond the scope of my reflection today. However, connecting this book with the insight I have on the Holocaust made me reflect on how literature can be a powerful tool to explore complex and difficult—‘hard to speak’—topics.

Question: Did Vargas Llosa’s style of comedy work for you? Or were you more disturbed by it?

Week 8 – Garcia Marquez, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” II

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Extending from last week, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was a fabulous read that brilliantly sewed together fantasy, abstraction, philosophy, and reality. Engaging in the latter half of the book, what stood out to me most was the cyclical nature of time and the inherent connection between people (civilization) and their environment. Using magical realism almost as a literary tool in depicting the events of Macondo, the book raised thoughts and questions about the notion of ‘solitude’ in both an individual and societal scale. Lastly, engaging with the ending, the closure of the book felt cataclysmic. While there were certain parts throughout the book that perhaps mildly foreshadowed Macondo’s fall, the ending was still quite shocking for me because it felt sudden and unexpected; it left me with a feeling of emptiness, perhaps something close to ‘solitude’.

Undoubtedly, magical realism was central to the novel, effectively blurring the line between reality and fantasy. The novel was filled with impossible events, such as a woman who ascends to heaven. While the theme of magical realism still feels abstract and sometimes daunting, the use of magical realism made this novel more accessible and enjoyable, and it also made it more profound. For me, it was a way to explore the larger—and perhaps ‘heavier’—themes of the novel, such as the nature of time (e.g., everything comes to an end) and the mutual relationship between a civilization and its environment. While ‘magical’ imagery like Remedios the Beauty’s flight to heaven gave the book a more fantasy-like feeling, the book also balanced this playfulness with a philosophical point—as reflected in a quote that resonated with me, “the secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude” (216). This constant negotiation and renegotiation between fantasy and reality was at first confusing, but going back to the book, this is what truly made this book a masterpiece. In this sense I totally agreed with Professor Gerald Martin when he stated—in the conversation video—he “didn’t know what to say about the book” (3:28). The book was certainly a master of play, “playing with time” as described by Professor Beasley-Murray and “playing with the fact that we’re reading the book[,]” as Professor Martin had put it (9:10; 10:00).

Question: Who was your favourite character from the book, and why? Please specify as there are a lot of repetitive names.

Lastly, I would like to end by reflecting on solitude. Apart from the earlier direct quotation, one other quote touched upon solitude: “He [Melquiades] really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude” (53). Growing up as an only child, I thought I understood what solitude meant. However, at the same time, I still don’t understand what it is and how to properly cope with it.

Question: What does solitude mean to you? For you, is solitude good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant?

Week 7 – Garcia Marquez, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” I

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Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was a book that I really looked forward to reading. Truly, it was a masterpiece of magical realism, exploring multiple themes relevant to our study on Latin American literature. However, to stay aligned with our lecture content for the first week engaging with this book, I focused on the themes of chance and order, as well as repetition and novelty. Through the lives of the Buendía family, García Márquez explores the cyclical nature of time, the fragility of human existence, and the role of chance in shaping human destiny.

Throughout the novel, García Márquez shows how unexpected (chance) events continue to shape the lives of the characters. The Buendía family is constantly subjected to unexpected and unpredictable events, such as the arrival of a plague of insomnia, a flood that destroys the town, and a massacre of striking workers. These events exemplified how chance can disrupt order and create chaos, and how the characters are forced to adapt and respond to these events to survive. As stated by Colonel Aureliano Buendía, “a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can” (259). To me, this line emphasizes the role of chance in determining the timing of death, and how a person’s fate is ultimately beyond their control.

In addition to chance, García Márquez also explores the theme of order and repetition. The novel is structured in a cyclical manner, with events and characters repeating themselves over the course of the century. The Buendía family is plagued by incest, and the same names and personalities are repeated across generations. However, despite the repetition and order, García Márquez also introduces the theme of novelty. The arrival of Melquíades and the gypsies brings with it new knowledge and technologies, such as the magnifying glass, the telescope, and the microscope. These innovations bring change to the traditional way of life in Macondo and introduce new possibilities for the characters. In a way, it seemed as if García Márquez used the theme of novelty to show how the characters can break free from the cycle of repetition and order.

Lastly, reflecting on the length of the read, I enjoyed the “lostness” of the book. It was a “pleasurable lostness” for me. Perhaps that was because I allowed myself to stop seeking “hidden messages” and not create “force connections”. In a way, I just ‘flowed’ with the contrast between “chaos and order” throughout the book.

Question: Were there any events, people, or objects within the book that seemed “magical”? What reminded you of “magical realism” throughout the book?

Week 5 – Borges, “Labyrinths”

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Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths introduced me to a world of imagination, creativity, and philosophical reflection. The selected stories in this book captivated my mind and challenged my understanding of reality, truth, and existence. Personally, it felt like Borges presented a ‘labyrinth of ideas’ that could lead to a deeper appreciation of life’s mysteries and human experience—perhaps in the simple form of play. The themes of temporality, existence, language, and the interconnectedness of things were explored in a labyrinth of ideas that were both confusing and enlightening. In any case, Borges’ writing is a masterpiece that captivated my mind and left a lasting impact on my thoughts and perceptions of the world.

One of striking stories in the book for me is “The Garden of Forking Paths.” Borges uses this story to reflect on the idea of time and how it influences our lives. The protagonist, Dr. Yu Tsun, is searching for a way to escape the consequences of his actions, but he eventually realizes that his fate is predetermined. Borges writes, “I felt, then, that I was the chess piece of some unknown player, and that my pilgrimage through time was regulated, down to the minutest detail, by an incalculable number of causes” (25). This exposed me to the idea that our lives are, in a way, predetermined, and that our choices are limited by causality.

Another thought-provoking story is “The Library of Babel.” Borges writes about a universe that is a library, containing every possible book and every possible combination of letters. The protagonist, a librarian, reflects on the infinite nature of the library and the meaning of existence. Borges states, “There is no combination of characters one can make—disregarding figures, spaces, punctuation marks, and so forth—that the divine Library has not foreseen and that in one of its secret tongues does not hide a terrible significance” (54). This statement emphasized the idea that everything in life is connected and that there is a deeper meaning behind everything we do. However, a counter-thought to this also arises. Is there a deeper meaning behind everything?

Language also plays an important role in Borges’ writing. In the story “Funes the Memorious,” Borges writes about a man who has a perfect memory but is unable to comprehend the abstract nature of language. Borges writes, “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract” (103). Borges highlights the idea that language is an abstraction that allows us to understand the world around us, but it also limits our understanding of reality.

Question: Did the book affect your perception of the world—or of language or temporality—in any way? If so, how? For you, did the book feel confusing and overwhelming, or creative and imaginative?

Week 4 – Neruda, “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair”

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Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair was a beautiful read. As I watched the lecture video before I read the book, I was able to set aside the controversies surrounding the author and focus solely on the work itself. Accordingly, I will only reflect on the work itself and the author as he is—directly or indirectly—represented within his work.

My first interest was the translation of Neruda’s poems. Although the English version was beautiful, resonating, and—at times—heartbreaking, I constantly wonder how accurate W. S. Merwin’s translations are. I have no doubt that Merwin is a superb translator; however, there are words, tones, and nuances that just cannot be translated accurately. Moreover, translation in itself is a new form of representation; the translator ultimately decides—based on his own perspective—what words fit best for a certain translation. I wonder how different Neruda’s untranslated version is from the English version.

Throughout the chapters, I found it interesting that I kept reading with an emphasis on the words “I” and “My.” Throughout the first half of the book, the narrator uses the words “I” and “My” a lot. This tendency is only disrupted in chapter 4, when the tone shifts—as if the poem was addressed to a third person, many uses of “our” and “her” instead of “I” and “My.” In line with the lecture, the fact that I kept reading with an emphasis on these words revealed to me that these poems are extremely one-sided—as in, it only shows ‘his’ side of the love story. Reasonably inferring that this is a heterosexual relationship, ‘her’ perspective is nowhere to be found. Even in places where we might be able to assume ‘her’ perspective, that too is a conscious representation of the male narrator. Relating back to the idea that “history is written by the victors,” these poems were written by one side of a two-way relationship. This left me wondering what she might think of these poems… Considering the frequent mentioning of a “toy doll” and the overall desperation/ resentment shown by the narrator, I wouldn’t be too pleased to read the work if I was ‘her’.

Solely as a literary work, this book is just mesmerizing. The quality of the poems (lines, rhymes, metaphors, imagery, etc.) are just amazing. I am not so much into poetry but some lines just resonated with me. My top two favourites were: “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees” (46-47); “The biggest stars look at me with your eyes” (58). As a poetic work, I think there are multiple ways the reader can approach this book. Whether that is to take it in face-value or try to find some ‘hidden message’ (perhaps a political message), these different approaches would entail different interpretations. I think that is the beauty of poetry—and literature in general.

Question: What is your most favourite line or phrase from the poems in the book?

Week 2 – de la Parra, “Mama Blanca’s Memoirs”

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Teresa de la Parra’s Mama Blanca’s Memoirs was a pleasant read filled with feelings of childhood, memory, and nostalgia. Additionally, the book also fed thoughts on accuracy—and distortion—of representations, different perspectives within narratives, and the nature of storytelling. Lastly, Teresa de la Parra’s book provided an interesting—perhaps inaccurate, to an extent—depiction of the realities of a plantation farm in nineteenth-century Venezuela.

First of all, the foreword to the book gave me a lot of points to think about. As mentioned in the lecture content for this week, it stood out how the publication of Mama Blanca’s memoirs by the un-named editor was a “betrayal”. The editor and Mama Blanca seemed to have a very strong bond built upon trust, despite the significant age gap—the editor stated how Mama Blanca, in regards to age, was “a person who might have been my great-grandmother” (7). While the relationship seems unconventional based on people’s “judgement on outward appearances[,]” I thought the relationship between the editor and Mama Blanca was a precious relationship built upon kindness, love, and trust (7). To a certain extent, I can relate to this special type of relationship with an elder. I have somehow developed a very precious relationship with my middle school teacher and now we have a family-like relationship built upon sincerity, support, and mutual respect. Knowing how precious these types of relationships are, I wonder why the editor decided to publish Mama Blanca’s memoirs. Although Mama Blanca was dead by the time the editor published the memoirs, it was still breaking the trust that the former gave to the latter. Was there something about the memoirs—about Mama Blanca’s life—that made the editor feel compelled to publish it, despite that meant a “betrayal”?

Second, the fact that Mama Blanca was relatively privileged—being the daughter of the owner of a sugar plantation in Venezuela, part of an upper-class family—made me question the accuracy of her representation of the realities of sugar plantations in nineteenth-century Venezuela. For Mama Blanca and her sister Evelyn, “the mill was a club, theater, city” (84). The mill “seemed heaven” to them, which is quite different than what we normally would imagine when thinking of a mill. While Mama Blanca knew that “[p]eople did not gather at the mill to amuse themselves[,]” she nevertheless depicted the mill as “full of life and color” (86). This representation of the mill as “heaven-like” seems to reflect more about Mama Blanca’s social class and privilege, rather than providing an accurate representation of the realities of the mill. On a wider perspective, this reminded me that a story is a form of representation and image construction that is heavily built upon the author’s point of view.

Question: Mama Blanca stated that she sometimes “demanded an ‘old story,’ but stipulating tyrannical changes that reflected the varying states or desires of [her] spirit” (32). Do you have any experiences of allowing your imagination and feelings to create new endings to stories?

Week 1 – Introduction

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Hello everyone! My name is Daniel Choi, I am a third-year arts student majoring in International Relations and minoring in Law and Society. As evident from my minor, I am interested in law and how it affects—and, in turn, how it is shaped by—society. I am by no means a natural reader—if there ever is such a person. While I cannot describe reading, especially academic reading, as “enjoyable”, I can confidently say that Professor Beasley-Murray’s previous course (RMST 202) taught me that academic reading could in fact be interesting and engaging.

RMST 202 was about literatures and cultures of the Romance world. As such, the central question of the course was, “What is the Romance world?” “What is Romance studies?” Although there isn’t one definitive answer nor a clear definition, this intrinsic obscurity and abstraction was what made the course extremely interesting; it allowed us to be limitless in our approaches to the diverse texts, helping us keep our thoughts open to the new ideas, imagery, and symbolism that the books introduced to us rather than actively seeking for “hidden messages” based on our own presumptions. This unique approach was what helped me grow as a student and reader. It allowed me to find meaningful links between literature and life, literature and time, as well as interesting connections and contrasts between the texts and between related themes such as surrealism and modernism.

Watching the introductory lecture, a lot of SPAN 312 seems to have the same theoretical approaches to RMST 202. While the background context of a story is emphasized, the focus of our analysis is not limited to just context; as Professor Beasley-Murray stated, “we are not doing history here.” It is the unique focus on the “distortion, elaboration, invention, mystification, [and] fabrication” of literature that excites me. I mean, where else would we be allowed to adopt such a fascinating approach? It is certainly a new way of approaching texts, but once your focus falls into what Professor Beasley-Murray calls the “gap between representation and the real,” it will certainly open up a new journey.

Specifically for SPAN 312, I am excited to start thinking about the idea of Latin America and Latin American literature. Similar to Romance studies, I do not think there is one clear definition of Latin America. It could be thought of through multiple methods—for example, through geography, shared cultures and history, etc.—but it nevertheless does not provide an accurate definition. Rather, like the notion of “magic realism”, it only seems to be limiting the scope of our analysis. While having these thoughts and ideas in mind, I hope to allow myself to go beyond the limits of these approaches and find new, meaningful connections and disconnections between the texts that we read.

Question: What does Latin America mean to you? Do you have any past experiences related to Latin American literature? If so, in what ways do you think your experiences will affect your approach to the readings?