Feb
7
Review of Asturias and Carpentier
Posted by: | February 7, 2010 | Comments Off on Review of Asturias and Carpentier
One thing that I found particularly interesting while anayzing the first book was the proffessor`s question on what is real and what isn`t. I found that after reflecting upon what aspects of the book were real, the focus of my reading changed and I was better able to understand the point of the books. For example, it didnt matter anymore why in the world there were three birds talking up in a tree, the greater point was the environment (setting), the athmosphere, the historical events and the cultural way or recounting events (for example dividing time according to the morning, afternoon and evening) that were real and significant in the book. The birds may have been people but afterall the author of the book would not have known the characters and written down word for word their conversations anyways, so it doesn;t matter who the characters are. if they had been people they would have been just as imaginary as the birds!
I took this different mindset into my reading of the second book, which I found to be more reality-based: there were significantly more historical events and characters included, and the distinction of reality versus fantasy became secondary to philosophical reflections in this novel. I found TiNoel’s conclusions at the end of the novel to be extremely moving, since they reflect a past reality that still applies today. Furthermore as we saw in class, it can be interpreted in various different ways. (Without class discussions, for example, I would not have noticed that many interpretations are possible, which is usually what happens with books: each person sees what they want int he book). I therefore feel like the focus of the first book was more the use of fantasy in order to put across to the reader the culture and conflicts of the time, whereas the focus of the second book was to not only to show what historical events and cultural conflicts were like at the time they occurred, but also to make the reader reflect on the situation and the conflicts, both past and present.
