i know my blog is a little late. my apologies but i have been sharing the book. Although the book didnt end with any new found discoveries and was not exaclty a surprise ending, i was still a little surprised to not find anything out about the doctor and what happened to him. Also, although i was a bit surprised at how the major continued on with his life, i wasn’t shocked at all. I feel that what happened in the last part of the novel, really represented the corruption and broken ideals of the government (and not only the american one). I think that this still goes on today in many governments all over the world, including our own.

What suprised me a bit was Julian Norval’s shock as to how he was being treated. This part reminded me a lot of what Lavvy went through with having all his patriotic ideals and dreams broken about this “amazing” government. Obviously with Julian being male and having some influence over others, he was able to recover from the misunderstanding, however only to be forever crushed about the apparent ‘freedom” his government claims to give all its citizens.

My only compaint (or whatever you want to call it) is that although this book did deal with mexico and the USA, it didn’t really give me the impression that it was a chicana writer. Although there were obvious issues about gender and nation, i felt that it had a lot more to do with issues between the US civil war between the North and South.

I would have liked to see the character of Lola develop more and create more of a sense that she is a chicana and the issues that she deals with but specifically from her perspective. Overall, i liked this book a lot because it gave me an idea of how american society worked during this time in terms of gender, race, politics etc…and their relationship with “foreigners.” Good choice john…

My blog is a little late, but better late than never and yesterdays discussion helped me formulate my thoughts a bit more and make them less muddled. First of all, I would like to compliment the class on their very insightful readings of this book. I must admit, when I started reading it, I was a bit confused and frustrated because I think though I appreciated the book for its cultural and historical insights, I failed to see it in the satirical and ironic way that Ruiz de Burton integrates into her tone of writing. I think I was trying to take it more for face value without making connections to the layers of insight and critique that she integrates into her writing.

The notion of double meanings; what you see is not necessarily what you get, is an interesting concept. The Democrat Mr. Norval seems to be one of the few who actually tolerates diversity, though in some ways I question how deep his values actually are. The self proclaimed “pious”, God fearing, and charitable Mrs. Norval openly discusses her intolerance and hatred of all things foreign. Lola who appears on the scene as Black and potentially Indian, thus on the surface lowering her ranks to the lowest status of society at the time is actually of “pure” Spanish decent, almost symbolically mirroring the black stones that are actually diamonds on the inside. The “good” characters of this novel, have in my opinion, substantially less depth than the characters who you are meant to hate. Nothing is quite what it seems and under the surface, assumptions are constantly challenged.

Relating all of this back to our discussion in class, I am still undecided about whether or not this is a “feminist novel”. I see both sides of the discussion. On one hand, if it were a feminist novel perhaps Ruiz de Burton would make more of an effort to portray women in a more positive light. She would try to not just keep women in the same subservient roles of being incapable of intelligent thought and helpless, but rather capable of challenging these assumptions and binding gendered categories. However, on the other hand, in keeping this book in a historical context and thinking of her underlying satirical tone, she almost presents these characters as an avenue of exemplifying the inequalities that existed in society of the time. Like the other aspects of the book, I have come to understand that you can not take this for face value. She is almost presenting these characters to the readers and leaving it up to them to draw their own conclusions of womens position in society during this time.
As a writer she seems to consistently present issues without drawing conclusions, letting the reader do that for themselves. An interesting question that I do not have the answer for would be does a feminist book need to present women as bold, brave, and heroic, or is it simply enough to expose them in the reality of how they were seen at the time?

Although not a “can’t put it down novel” I began to adore the conniving bigots that are Hackwell, Hammerhard and Mrs. Norval after 120 pages, and actually began to dislike the perfect characters of Lola and Julian.  I say this because I feel that none of these open-minded and exceptional people are confronted with any sort of moral dilemma or question of honor, Ruiz de Barton constantly and sometimes not plausibly uses them to evoke sympathy from the reader.  While I felt it at the beginning, it began to run a tad dry after around 250 pages of them being screwed around by either the government or non-Catholic chivalrous ministers turned war heroes.

So I’m joining the stragglers writing this blog on Monday night – it took me awhile to plow through to the end of Who Would Have Thought It? I still find fault with Ruiz de Burton’s writing style, somehow she managed to bog the book down with excess verbiage while leaving central characters undeveloped, but I can say this: If I was a young lady in the U.S. circa 1872, she’d be my first choice to sit down with and rail about the patriarchy over a nice spot of tea. Ruiz de Burton is a fascinating person who I enjoyed catching a glimpse of throughout the novel. This is a woman who has passionate opinions on every facet of the society she lives in – and pulls no punches in calling people out on their ostentation and hypocrisy. Though the writing is lackluster, it is occasionally funny, and provides lots of food for thought.

I appreciated the diversity of social issues that Ruiz de Burton commented on, both indirectly through characters and directly as narrator. In the second half of the book we find, amongst all of the melodrama, a searing indictment of war that maims and degrades the average man while lining the pockets of the rich, a mockery of the nouveau riche and their superficial lives, and a cynical portrayal of gender relations. Though Ruiz de Burton doesn’t offer any answers to these societal conundrums, she must at least be commended for satirizing them.

Before I found out what the title refers to, that shriek of Mrs. Norval, I thought that it was an apt response to the duplicity of appearances which is a central theme in the book. The little “black” orphan is a white Mexican-American with trunks of gold, the abolitionist and pious Mrs. Norval is in fact racist and has an affair while it is still uncertain if her husband is dead, and the “two worthy reverends” are ruthlessly conniving – who would have thought it? Ruiz de Burton delights in uncovering “rogues” in the most unexpected places.

As to whether she was a feminist is an interesting and difficult question – just because a woman takes a look around and sees the structures that oppress her it doesn’t mean that she’s a feminist. Did she purposely make her critique indirect so that her novel would have greater legitimacy or was she merely writing a clever satire without a single emancipatory urge in her? I can’t answer that but I do know that women in earlier time periods, and in even more suffocating social conditions, have more directly and persuasively shown women’s intelligence and independence. Check out Sor Juana circa 1648 – there’s a woman who doesn’t beat about the bush.

No, it doesn’t feel all over. As many others have noted, Ruiz de Burton leaves much open and unsettled at the end of the novel. It is hard to tell why she would have left so many loose-ends and so much unifinished business. In part it disappointed me, but it also disturbed me, as do all books that are seemingly incomplete. However, this book didn’t seem to gain anything, artistically or otherwise, from ending as it did. In fact it seemed to lose the opportunity to develop themes and characters that had so much potential. I wonder if she simply had trouble deciding how to end the book or if she really had some intention or idea behind how she ended it. I really can’t see how leaving Lola so undeveloped could help the novel, as with several other characters, like Dr. Norval, but at the same time it forces one to really think, to wonder: why did she end it this way, what does it say about Ruiz de Burton’s view of the nation and society she was commenting on, what does it suggest about the hope for change in the US?

What can be said about the book is that it is not very clear or easy to analyze in many cases. The discussion today about whether it is a “Feminist Novel” or not, really showed that it is hard to say either way. It seems to me that Ruiz de Burton created a work that is ambiguous, ambivalent, at times contradictory so that it is not easy for the reader to choose ideologies to adhere to or espouse. Of course, it is easy to see which characters are good or bad in general, but it is not easy to decide what ideas are put forth through the novel. I believe this is because Ruiz de Burton was more interested in capturing and revealing the reality, the cruelty, the hypocrasy, and the corruption of her times, rather than develop ideas on how to change them. Thus, her novel forces us to think and to question our assumptions and those of our society. I agree with one classmate who was somewhat annoyed by the prospect of having to decide whether the novel was a “Feminist Novel” or not. Such decisions are really a way to pigeonhole a novel and remove the complexity that Ruiz de Burton developed in it. Our discussion today evinced perfectly how the novel effectively reveals the inequalities between men and women in this period, and the ignorant assumptions of so many people, both men and women, concerning the status of women, without being easily categorized as a feminist novel. This, again, makes one question further the issues in the novel. Is Ruiz de Burton trying to justify the treatment of women, is she defending them and attacking the status quo? She presents the opinions and ideas of the different sides, never definitively siding with any of them.

I know I’m starting really late on my responses, but better than never. I have found it very interesting to listen to everyone’s thoughts on the novel so far as my own thoughts have been relatively unformed. I have had trouble deciding many things about the novel, such as the basic question of is it good, to questions such as what is Ruiz de Burton trying to do or say, if anything (is it a so-called Feminist novel, is her goal to create change in US society and culture, etc.)? As I tend to think of novels first and foremost as works of art, or at least from the standpoint of their artistic qualities, I did not especially like the novel in the early stages of reading it. However, there is of course much more to literature and, namely, novels than aesthetics. This novel forced me to think more complexly and subtly about the merit of a novel, for, though I do not think Who Would Have Thought It? is the most brilliant novel written in the US during this period in terms of artistic and literary merit, it is not only very unique (a Mexican American woman’s commentary on one of the most historic and foundational regions of the Protestant US), but is an intriguing work when placed in the context of the time in which it was written, in terms of race issues, gender issues, ideas about the US government and history. Not only was Ruiz de Burton an amazing woman and person whose life was interwoven into one of the most important parts of US History, but I have found her boldness, her perceptiveness, her brilliant irony, and her great ability of revealing the hypocrasy and falsity of many “American” national myths, “American” identity and society, refreshing and enlightening. I could go on about the quality of the novel, but what interests me more about this novel is its perspective, that of its author and the various perspectives she presents and represents in the novel.

I wouldn’t say that the end was a complete let down, I enjoyed the book from beginning to end. It wasn’t the most clever ending either but I felt that it stayed true to Ruiz de Burton’s writing style by keeping the trick that was being planned secret until the plot itself played out. Surprises are always good.

So i know my blog is late but in a way i’m glad it is because today’s discussion changed the way i am viewing the novel.  I don’t really have a thing for mrs. norval, or for lavinia or any of the other women in the book.  what i don’t like is having to define the novel as being from a feminist or non-feminist point-of-view.  I just don’t think Ruiz de Burton wanted future generations to look at her story as being about the power that women do or do not have.  I really see this novel as being about people and the state of the world at the time and how everyone coped with their situations.  Yes, the women in this novel play very central roles, and have a lot of power (whether it is acknowledged by the men or not) and they all know their own strength (ex 1: [pg94] mrs. cackle admires mrs. norval and the wives of the ‘divines’ and looks up to them because they are stronger women than she.  it takes dr. norval’s generosity to bring mrs. cackle – and her family – to the same status as the other women, but she still views them as the more affluential and reports back to them regularly.  ex 2: [pg 51] ruth knows that her father has no real power in the household and that she ‘enjoys managing her mother’ because she holds the actual power within the family).

I have, since my last post, managed to acquire Ruiz de Burton’s ‘Who Would Have Thought It?’ from the bookstore. I power read, and finished it this weekend. Overall, I would say I was pleasantly surprised with the novel. I had a bit of a different experience as we had discussed the novel before I’d had a chance to read much of it. This did, however, give me a chance to read it more critically, and ask myself the questions that we had addressed in class.

I’m feeling highly unsatisfied by the end of the novel. A lot of loose ends are left flapping in the breeze. And that nice grunt of satisfaction I emit when I finish a book refused to rise to my lips.
I’m not saying all literature has to have a neat, perfect ending in which everyone gets what they deserved and all plot lines are closed. Authors may use their artistic license as they please. But I certainly expected the classical Jane Austen-style writing of Ruiz de Burton to deliver as it had promised.
Mr. Hackwell sort of fades into the horizon, his retribution seeming mild. I wanted to see him suffer….he was no ambiguous, conflicted villain; he was clearly possessed by greed and lust, he was capable of the worst treachery without thinking twice. He should have been disgraced in front of society, made to plead and cry and feel the pain he inflicted upon others.
The reunion and imminent romantic bliss of Julian and Lola was left largely unmentioned, apart from a few basic sentences. The whole novel, I longed for them to have some explosion of passion and joy after so many trials…I’m not saying I wanted a sex scene (it can’t be expected from a book like this, sadly), I just wanted all their goodness to come back to them, for them to be rewarded for being so pure and kind and moral.
The return of Doctor Norval, the beloved and benevolent patriarch, was hardly described. The mystery of his disappearance was left a mystery. His reactions to all that had happened in his absence, which I awaited eagerly, were omitted. He was such a big character in the first half that I expected much, much more.
On a lesser level, the weak and greedy Cackles continue their shenanigans in the government without any recognition of their blatant idiotic political ladder-climbing, and Ruth gets to marry a rich Cackle and continues with her superficial life.
Only Mrs. Norval losing her mind satisfied slightly my hunger for retribution. Even in her insanity, the kind Doctor protects her and keeps her from going into a mental institution.
And don’t ask me WHAT was the deal with the last few pages…..Ruiz de Burton’s political commentary getting out of hand and taking over the plot and becoming tedious. A bit of a disappointment.
But maybe Ruiz de Burton’s intent was for us (or people in those days) to see that this stuff would continue on and on…that the bad guys don’t always get what they deserve and neither do the good guys. That corruption and materialism and inequality are realities that transcend all time periods. And I see her point. I just wanted a Hollywood ending.