Month: February 2026

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Merce Rodoreda

Time of the Doves

After reading “The Time of the Doves” by Merce Rodoreda, I enjoyed how deeply personal and intimate Natalia’s voice feels like as the novel throughout presents her life not only through dramatic events but through small, everyday struggles that slowly build into something heavy and overwhelming. I realized as well how powerful simplicity can be in storytelling as Rodoreda’s language is not overly complex, yet it carries emotional weight. While witnessing Natalia’s experiences with marriage, motherhood, poverty and war, its shown how history affects ordinal people like us in subtle devastating ways. Moreover, this made me learn how survival is not always heroic, sometimes it is just simply about withstanding each day by just waking up and going about your day no matter the fear our lives brings us. With Natalia’s transformation throughout the book, it reflects the loss of innocence and identity that war can bring, especially to women who are often left to have to hold their families together. In addition, I realized how symbols such as doves reflect both confinement and fragility in her life. Overall, the novel taught me to appreciate the struggles individuals have to go through and how resilient they are even if it may go unnoticed at times. After watching the lecture on the book, Rodoreda’s depiction of destitution and bricolage allowed me to understand furthermore on Natalia’s survival as it expanded on how poverty in this book is more of a psychological condition that reshapes one’s identity and perception. Moreover, bricolage which is the act of making do with whatever you have, reflects Natalia’s quiet creativity and resilience, which made me learn that survival in the novel is built from fragments, small acts of adaptation rather than grand solutions. Tying this to what I learned from the book, it reinforces how Natalia’s will is subtle but powerful at the same time as it shows that dignity can occur despite the harsh deprivation. Finally after watching the conversation video, it added another layer to my understanding of the book as I realized that Natalia’s fragmented and intimate narration shows similarity to Rodoreda’s own experience of displacement and loss, which made me learn more that the book’s simplicity is intentional as it reflects how trauma reshapes language and memory. Moreover, Rodoreda’s focus on life becomes a quiet form of preserving emotional truth during the aftermath of war. Overall again, this really allowed me to appreciate Natalia’s voice as both personal and historical, which shows how individual suffering carries collective meaning. A question I have is do you think Natalia is strong because of what she has gone through quietly or its not really a choice so she has to be quiet about it?

Categories
Jose Arguedas

Deep Rivers

After reading Deep Rivers, this book taught me how deeply culture, language, and environment can shape an individual’s sense of identity, as through Ernesto’s experiences, growing up is not only simply about age, but about becoming aware of social hierarchies, and cultural conflict. Ernesto’s connection to Indigenous traditions and the natural world made me realize how knowledge and belonging can exist outside formal institutions like school. Moreover, it also made me realize that power can somehow exist in schools through education and language as the boarding school uses cultural dominance by silencing the voices and values of the Indigenous people. It shows how systems that “claim” to educate all students can also lessen how people feel about their identities, and at the same time, Ernesto being shown as emotional sensitive made me realize that empathy and memory can somehow be forms of resistance. Most importantly, this book taught me that understanding identity is deeper than I thought as its simply not something you can just figure out. Ernesto is constantly pulled between Indigenous Andean culture, which he feels connect to, and the Spanish Institutions that make him act in a different way. Because he technically belongs to these two different environments, he experiences confusion and loneliness which sometimes is relatable as a Filipino-Chinese individual. But its also this discomfort that shapes who he is, and question the world around him rather than just accept it for what it is. Furthermore, after watching the lecture video, it emphasizes conflict and convergence without end as Argueda’s point of view of how he refuses to present cultural conflict that can never be resolved fully shows this. Andean and Western cultures in the novel present this in a constant state of tension instead of moving towards something better, which reflects why Ernestos identity never seems to be settled throughout the novel. The lecture video shows this not as weakness but as something that is present in real life which is realistic as there will always be tension with cultures from different environments. It also made me realize further that this unfinished or constant tension is exhausting but can be productive at the same time. It does create pain and confusion for Ernesto, but at the same time it allows him to be reflective, as I believe Argueda suggests that living with tension rather than escaping it can help people become more aware and learn how to become better individuals with empathy. My question after reading this book is how does this idea of that cultures should not have an end,  challenge the expectation whether cultural conflict should be resolved or harmonized?

Categories
Uncategorized

Agostino – Alberto Moravia

Reading Agostino was a very unsettling but yet eye-opening about growing up too quickly, as Moravia shows adolescence not as an exciting transition, but something that I believe a lot of people can relate to which is confusing, and painful. Agosto’s relationship with his mother starts out as a very close one as they would go out to sea every morning but then eventually starts to become ruined as the summer unfolds. I believe that the beach is very important to this book as it feels very exposed in a way where there are no places to hide as nothing surrounds it which sort of resembles Agostino’s emotional state. As Agostino become more aware of how everything happens in public his insecurity about himself arises. Moreover, him encountering the older boys makes him face adulthood which involved him being mocked and them being very cruel to him which he falls into a very deep state of sadness. I think what makes this novel so effective though is its emotional restraint. Through Moravia not over explaning Agostino’s feelings, the silence seems enough to tell already. At the end, Agostino seems like he changed but for the worst as he feels more lonely and confused. I really do feel like I can relate a lot to this book as growing up is very difficult as you get more glimpses of how reality is like and that it is not all sunshine and rainbows as how I felt back before as a kid, and most especially you become to sort of feel more insecure about yourself as your actions seem more realistic and life changing in a way. Watching the lecture video, allows me to understand more of Agostino as linking the story’s emotional ambiguity to the limits of language and reality shows how Moravia’s realism caputures the realness through subtle gaps in experience and expression, which highlights the novel’s insights into growing up and becoming more self-aware. The commentary video as well helps situate Moravia as a writer who puts significant importance with realism and moral discomfort. He does this by making Agosto not really likeable but revealing how I guess we all feel and sort of resemble with. The video emphasizes emotional detachment and social observation, as Moravia exposes the quiet violence of the relationships in our everyday lives and how truly dark the process is of when one starts to become aware of their actions within society. So i guess my question for discussion is with Agostos realization, is it more caused by people being cruel or because of expectations that society has put oursevles in and the expectations that come with that if not lived by?

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