{"id":34,"date":"2023-04-10T19:27:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T02:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/?p=34"},"modified":"2023-04-10T19:27:26","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T02:27:26","slug":"week-13-rivera-garza-the-taiga-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/2023\/04\/10\/week-13-rivera-garza-the-taiga-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 13, Rivera Garza, &#8220;The Taiga Syndrome&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cristina Rivera Garza\u2019s <em>The Taiga Syndrome <\/em>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\u2014in more abstract terms\u2014about life and our world.<\/p>\n<p>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, \u201c\u2019WHAT ARE WE LETTING IN WHEN WE SAY GOODBYE?\u2019\u201d was just the beginning of this growing curiosity. I questioned, \u201cwho exactly was this man, who hired the detective (our narrator)\u201d and \u201cwho exactly is our narrator?\u201d (p. 5). I just wanted to know more about the context\u2014the place, people, and exact situation of the investigation\u2014for 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.<\/p>\n<p>This \u2018blockbuster ending\u2019 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? \u201c<em>At the foot of a volcano<\/em>\u201d (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.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThis 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\u201d<\/em> (Rivera Garza Lecture, p. 1).<\/p>\n<p>Like what Professor Jon stated, I also thought the book \u201calmost literally has no end\u201d (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\u2019m not sure exactly why, I keep getting a sense that there is something more left to the book; and Professor Jon\u2019s quote\u2014\u201cHad his first wife really \u201cdied in an accident, years ago\u201d as he is rather too quick to tell the narrator (15)? Is the detective missing the real case, right under her nose?\u201d\u2014added to this feeling (Rivera Garza Lecture, p.7).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Question: <\/strong>Personally, do you think the story came to a proper closure? Why do you think so? What makes a proper \u2018ending\u2019?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cristina Rivera Garza\u2019s 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\u2014in more abstract [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[81,5,6,82,80,32,83],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rivera-garza","tag-adventure","tag-latin-america","tag-literature","tag-mystery","tag-sex","tag-sexuality","tag-urbanization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}