Month: March 2026

Categories
Faces in the Crowd

Everything Everywhere All at Once

“Then I go back to the novel. A vertical novel told horizontally. A
story that has to be seen from below, like Manhattan from the
subway.” (122)

“Or a horizontal novel, told vertically. A horizontal vertigo.” (125)

Getting into the book was a bit difficult for me. It reminded me of Andre Breton’s Nadja due to what felt to me like a disjointed book. After taking a LONG break, I realized about halfway through the book that this was actually being told from two different perspectives: the woman’s and Owen’s perspective. To this effect, I tried (and failed) to mentally construct some sort of plot line and timeline to the book. It went a little like this:

  • Are they going to meet? (no, he’s dead–no wait he’s alive?)
  • Is her husband the other perspective (yes, no, maybe???)
  • Are the characters like Moby real, or are they ghosts? (I don’t know, I give up!)

I don’t particularly enjoy not knowing exactly what’s happening, and to me, it felt like I was in a frequent state of confusion. Indeed, reading it was like experiencing vertigo, it was like I was at a consistent loss of balance–of understanding the stories I was being presented with. However, something that I did really like was the mirrored moments. To me, it showed in a sense, how time was changing the characters. For example, in the beginning the woman’s (or Owen’s?) legs are strong and slim (8) and then later they are like “two elephants’ trunks” (121). Also, the manner with which the notes written by the woman somehow transition into a real, experience as narrated through Owen’s perspective was very interesting to me. For example, the part where the notes taken by the woman about Owen are then later translated are so interesting. On page 40, she talks about how Owen would weigh himself in the subway because of his belief that he is integrating. Then, this is confirmed on page 69 when he talks about how he weighs himself, believing that he was disappearing slowly. Beyond this however, was just the utter feeling of confusion because of the sense that time was not an actual constraint here. She was just fluidly moving through time, with a focus on the characters.

My favorite part of the book (the part that I actually understood most), was the end of the book following the earthquake. The two were experiencing such different things and somehow their experiences were overlapping. For example, the mother, the son, and the baby hid under the table; and simultaneously, Owen laid on the table and knew that there were three cats below him. It kind of reminds me of the movie everything everywhere all at once

To me, this leads me to asking the question: are we in the present, the past, the future, or are we just experiencing these things all at once?

Categories
The book of chameleons

Dreams

” ‘I have no name,” I replied quite frankly. “I am the gecko.”
“That’s silly. No one is a gecko!”
“You’re right. No one’s a gecko. And you – are you really called Felix Ventura?” My question seemed to offend him. He lay back on the bench and his eyes disappeared into the incredible depths of the sky.” (80)

First, I’ll say that I quite enjoyed this book!  I liked that there was actually positive black representation, because to me this meant that this book would be something to really enjoy and analyze.

That being said, the premise of the book, being based on Felix’s ability to create lies for people was so much different than what I expected the book to be about from its title. It made human nature clear, in showing how sometimes all we wish is to be able to re-author parts of our stories to make some sort of difference in our current reality. For example, the white man, hoping to settle in the country sought Felix out to re-author his story by inventing a new reality in which he had a large family, a new identity, and most importantly, “more than just a decent past,” (17). This reminded me of a game I sometimes play with my friends, whereby we go out and pretend to have an entirely different identity (not a student, not studying at UBC, a filmmaker) and nothing close to our real selves. Because I relate to this, I don’t necessarily judge Felix for having this line of work, nor others for seeking him out.

I do feel wary of calling Felix a downright liar (even though, technically he is), because the way he put it here: “No!” he managed to blurt out. “I don’t do things like that. I invent dreams for people, I’m not a forger . .”, is actually quite an interesting way to view his profession. Because maybe dreams are achieved to the extent that stories can be re-imagined, and heritages reset.

I also really like the exploration of reality throughout the book. It seemed as though reality was being reconstructed over time, which added an entirely new layer in absorbing the story. For example,  the emphasis on how “Felix would sew fiction in with reality dextrously, minutely, in such a way that historical facts and dates were respected” and the implied doubling of Felix as reality:  “no one but Reality could possibly have come up with someone as unrealistic as Jose Buchmann”, shows that reality can constructed and shift.

Overall, I loved this book, and wish that I gave myself more time to really absorb the details! I will definitely be returning back to it.

Categories
Piglia

Money to Burn

“Then the Kid raised himself up ever so slightly, leaning on one elbow, and murmured something into his ear which no one could hear, a few words of love, no doubt, uttered under his breath or perhaps left unuttered, but sensed by the Gaucho who kissed the Kid as he departed.

They remained motionless for some moments, the blood
coursing between the two of them.” (181)

I think this might be the first book that we have read in this class that has very clear queer representation! That being said, these individuals were crazy, absolutely off the rails. I’ll be honest, whenever I consume a piece of media where the protagonists are clear criminals, I always expect that the back story somehow redeems them. As such, I was on the edge of my seat with curiosity wondering about the gang’s stories: what the Kid’s story was, and what Malito’s roots were. I was also very intrigued by the voices in Dorda’s head, and whether or not it would reveal traumas and further self motivations for his own actions.

This time however, I fear that their backstories did 0 redeeming. It’s rare for me to NOT find some sort of redeeming quality to individuals that are otherwise positioned as criminals, but seriously, there was none. This time, I felt like I was reading about genuine, terrible criminals. They stole, they killed, they raped, and they lived with no real consideration for each other. It was like I was reading about a dog-eat-dog world, where they were doing these terrible things because they could , not necessarily because there was any real motivation. As for motivation for their actions, I think this line was so good: “Money is just the same as drugs: what’s fundamental is its possession, knowing it’s there, touching it, […]” (30).

Anyway, as much as I really (really!) disliked all of them, I felt that the love between the Twins was cute. I loved the concept that one of them was in charge or thinking, and the other was the muscle. This feature made me think of them as soulmates, like their souls were intertwined with each other. Which made the death at the end all the more heart wrenching. They had become so intertwined in their life of crime, and were together to the very end when the Kid died. I also liked that they never shied away from their affection for each other: “‘Who d’you think you are?’ asked Malito. ‘Man and wife?’ ‘Of course, cretin,’ answered the Kid.” (59) In the end, even terrible people love.

I think that the most shocking part of all this is that it is nonfictional. I thought that it was absolutely legendary that they were able to hold out for that long as the police pursued them and eventually staked them out!

Categories
Duras The Lover

The Lover!

“Everything chimed with his desire and made him possess me. I had become his child. It was with his own child he made love every
evening. And sometimes he takes fright, suddenly he’s worried about her health, as if he suddenly realized she was mortal and it suddenly struck him he might lose her. ” (100)

How interesting?

Beginning the book was a little bit difficult for me, as I was trying to get used to the narrative style. I was also quite confused about the timeline, and debated drawing one so I could understand where exactly in her story we were. All I was sure of was that she was 15 and a half, and that her family lived in poverty. I also remember thinking that this would somehow be a book about the relationship between her and her mother. I thought this especially when she said “The beast, my mother, my love…” on page 22. But boy, was I wrong.

I was misled quite a few times about the direction that the book was taking. But something that stood out to me was how truly ‘teen’ this time was. She was growing and learning more about herself and what she desired, and also had to navigate very complex relationships with those around her. From her love/hatred of her mother, to her fear of her older brother, to the weird relationship she entertained with her lover, I truly couldn’t help thinking that this was such a teenage book. I also felt quite sorry for her, that no one even attempted to help her even though they all recognized that she was in a sexual relationship with an adult 12 years her senior.

Of the relationships she outlined, what stood out to me was her connection to her mother. From her mother’s insistence that she study mathematics, to her abuse of her as outlined on page 58, I thought it was so sad that she lacked this relationship in her life. It was also interesting to navigate her mother’s despair/depression/madness through her eyes.

Finally, can we talk about how we don’t actually know the name of the narrator, her mother, her brothers, and her lover? I found it so interesting that she named H.L (Helene) and described her desire for her extensively, but then never told us about her own name. Which leads to my question: why do you think this choice was made?

In all, I won’t say I loved the book, but I also didn’t hate it. I’m mostly just feeling like saying WTF

Categories
Lispector The Hour of the Star

(explosion)

“Ah if only I could grab Macabea, give her a good
bath, a plate of hot soup, a kiss on the forehead as I tucked her
into bed. And cause her to wake up and find simply the great
luxury of living.” (50)

That was the most interesting introduction I have read so far in this course. Though it was slow, and a little bit longwinded, I was quite amused at how many times he said that he was getting to the story, and then went ahead and talked some more about himself. It was a very philosophical beginning, I think, as he questioned reality and who he was. Statements like “today is today” (12) and “God is the world” (3) had me thinking that this book was going in an entirely different direction than what he was claiming. Honestly, I thought he would never get to telling the story!

There were also moments in the introduction, like when he states: “The action of this story will end up with my transfiguration into somebody else and my materialization finally as an object”, that had me thinking that he was the person he was about to narrate. Especially when he mentioned that he had knew her because he lived with her, but then turned around and said that Macabea only lived with 4 other women and her aunt. However, this confusion was eventually resolved, as I realized that it is possible for the narrator to simply be ‘all knowing’. Slipping in and out of narration I think to me just added an extra layer consciousness that the reader is free to look into and interpret.

On the matter of Macabea, I feel so so bad for her! She finally felt something only for this to be cut short. She never got the chance to actually live a life that was blessed. I found it so sad that she was so cursed, that she ended up incurring the fortune of the person before her. I will say though that it was so funny, ironically, that the fortune teller tells her that her life is looking up and then she dies. Like, seriously, all of this happens to her in her life just for her to end up getting hit by a car?! Not only was she cursed in the way she died, she was cursed in her relationship with others. Her parents dying, her aunt, her coworker, and Olimpico all essentially contributed nothing except a negative experience.

In all, I felt that with the manner in which the story was narrated, there was something more that we were meant to understand. The overall ‘nothingness’ of Macabea’s life, and the narrator’s insistence that her story is “too simple” (10) has me questioning: what then were we supposed to gain from this story? Is there a lesson somewhere here, about death, reality, or even God? (explosion)

 

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