Tag Archives: race

Week 6 – Carpentier, “The Kingdom of This World”

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Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of this World was an exciting read. The novel touched upon interesting themes like colonialism, revolution, race, slavery, power dynamics, and, most importantly, magic realism—which I have placed most thought towards while reading. The novel is a masterful example of magic realism, blending the real and the surreal to create a vivid and enchanting narrative. This week’s lecture was also particularly interesting as it focused a lot about magic realism, or “marvelous real,” and how it was proposed in the Prologue of the original 1949 novel.

Professor Jon’s quote, “the idea that fiction can supersede reality, emerges as a more appropriate vehicle for history than does ‘history’ itself[,]” seemed as a spot on description of Carpentier’s work, and an accurate summary of the underlying idea of magic realism (1). While reading the novel, it felt like history and fantasy were being weaved together, creating a surreal and dreamlike setting—where the line between reality and imagination were blurred. While the Haitian Revolution was a historical event, the depiction of it and the events Ti Noel goes through were quite mystical. Still, I spent a lot of time thinking about the idea of magic realism itself—specifically, what exactly it could be. The idea is still unclear to me, despite trying to find a clear example of it within Carpentier’s book. Some of the thoughts I went through include: “Why is magic realism known as a production—or innovation—of Latin American literature?”; “How can we distinguish between magic realism and the more European notion of ‘surrealism’?”

Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed was the way freedom was portrayed. Leading up to and throughout the revolution, Ti Noel remained committed to the cause of freedom, and he participated in the final battle for independence. Ti Noel reflected on the meaning of freedom and the price that must be paid for it. It felt like he realized that true freedom is not just about physical liberation, but also about spiritual and emotional liberation.

Lastly, I would like to read some book reviews—or critiques—on this book just for my own curiosity. It was intriguing to learn about the “conjuncture or interplay between the European and the African, the West and its Other, that gives the real marvellous or marvellous real” (Lectrue 8, 6). Thinking beyond the context of Carpentier’s book and its particular celebration of “African-derived religiosity[,]” I would like to approach magic realism in more of a historical point of view—in a context of comparison between Europe, America, and Africa (6).

Question: For you, were there any particular events or scenes from the book that exemplified what “magic realism” could be?

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?