Author: Kimberly

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Black Shack Alley: Systemic Racism

This reading overall made me feel sad and exhausted. Not in a dramatic way, but because Jose’s life was just… reality. It was precisely the coming of youth, and the cards were never in his favour. Knowing that this novel was in part autobiographical makes sense to me. I think the most saddening character to me was M’man Tine. As a poor, black woman, she had long accepted her fate, so she decided to pour all her efforts and hard work into Jose instead. Although she seems harsh from Jose’s point of view in the beginning of the novel, as readers, we can see the hours she puts into her work – which is why she gets so mad when she initially comes home to see a broken bowl and Jose’s torn clothes. In a way, this reminds me of my own parents and grandparents. While I know that they want the best for me (in their mind), I often feel frustrated because that’s not what I necessarily want for myself. I also get scared because I don’t want to disappoint them or avoid living up to their expectations, similar to how Jose wants to frolic and have fun, but also wants to be seen as a ‘good child’ without the consequences of being too rambunctious (yelling and beatings).

M’man Tine seems to think that the only way Jose can have a good life is to escape Black Shack Alley, lest he suffer the same fate she did. This desire looks like pushing Jose into school, entering the bacculereate. However, when part 3 of the novel started, I felt heavy once more. When Jose was only offered a quarter scholarship, where they would have to pay the rest in order to ‘redeem’ or ‘benefit from’ the quarter scholarship, his mother talked about how they were doing this on purpose.

“They are too wicked! It’s because we’re black, poor and alone in
the world that they didn’t give you a full scholarship. They fully realise that I’m an unfortunate woman and that I couldn’t pay for you to go to the lycee. They know only too well that giving you a quarter scholarship is the same as not giving you anything at all. But they don’t know what a fighting woman I am. Well! I’m not giving up this quarter scholarship. You will go to their lycee!” (p. 125)

This situation made me think about how prevalent systemic racism is, and how you can never truly avoid it. While M’man Tine thinks Jose will live a better life (I can’t disagree), the circumstances he has to suffer under are similarly dismal. Giving into this scholarship would practically be giving into their ‘taunt’, but Jose and his family have no other choice. So, they have to continue suffering under this system of cylical racism instead of ‘escaping’ like M’man Tine wishes. As they say, out of the frying pan and into the fire? It makes me sad because this is what reality looks like, and it’s difficult to truly escape from these systems without giving into them for your own benefit.

So, I would like to ask: Do you see Jose’s pursuit of education as ‘liberation’ the same way his family does?

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Nada: Just Trying to Live

The whole novel of Nada felt eery to me, like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I suppose this is because of the aftermath of the Spanish civil war, as the lecture video states that the family’s trauma haunts the narrative – so it’s more like the shoe has already dropped, and everything is what happens after. I think it felt unsettling because I kept expecting something to blow up in her face, and then nothing did. Perhaps that’s what Andrea felt as well: she moved to Barcelona with hopes and dreams for university, and left with nothing, really. What can you make of an experience that hasn’t given you anything except the perilous effects of trauma?

I thought it was interesting how the novel never really discusses what happened in the war, but you can feel it simply from the atmosphere and people’s living conditions. Andrea is quiet and silent throughout the novel, but I think I relate to her position. How can you make a space for yourself when there’s barely enough space for others? I don’t think I would want to get myself directly involved with all of the family drama – she’s just trying to live. In a way, she feels like she’s sitting in the backseat of someone else’s life. Initially, she had a romanticized view of Barcelona, but the reality quickly diminished her expectations. Similar to Andrea, I felt somewhat empty after reading Nada. What exactly could I take away? I felt desolate, like the war-torn condition also affected my inner state. The novel simply displayed the reality of the effects of war. I think that’s why the lecture video was also intriguing, as it pointed out details I hadn’t previously noticed, which pointed to the effects of war. I’d be interested to find out if these fictional experiences differed vastly from the lived experiences, or if anything was adapted, or even less exaggerated than the real life.

It was a bit of a tough read, not because of the language or setting, but because of the emotional heaviness I felt. It’s also difficult to grasp because there’s no clear villain or antagonist, there’s no clear ‘hope’, you just have to make do with what you’re given. Lines aren’t drawn, and Andrea has been placed into this situation while hoping for the best for herself. It’s not worth it for Andrea to ‘escape’ really, and she can’t begin to solve her family’s problems. She just… lives. I think it’s a strong protection method, but perhaps other people would think it’s negatively avoidant.

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The Shrouded Woman: or is it The Shrouded Women?

I think I liked this reading, as much as I was frustrated with the characters. The writing wasn’t as abstract as the previous readings, so it was easier to understand despite still having some fascinating descriptions of the scenery. It felt like we were watching the recollection of Ana Maria’s life via soap opera episodes – so much was happening, and there were so many conflicting relationships between characters. However, one thing remained constant: I did not like the men. In a way, it felt like the author did that on purpose, but it also likely reflects the reality of most women of the time (about 90 years ago). To start, we’re introduced to Ana Maria’s perspective, then when she first described her initial meeting with Ricardo, I went, ah… so this is where the story is going. Since the narrator was a woman, I found the description to be not as aggravating and tiring as the past two readings, but it felt more saddening than anything.

Everything was so dramatic! It felt like no one in this story could hold proper functional relationships. I think this quote near the end describes this novel(?) quite aptly:

“Why, oh why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?
Men succeed in directing their passion to other things. But the fate of so many women seems to be to turn over and over in their heart some love sorrow while sitting in a neatly ordered house, facing an unfinished tapestry…” (p. 226)

In a way, this novel was for Ana Maria to wish a goodbye to every single person in her life, in little excerpts. But with descriptions like this, it was as if she were also reflecting on how she let the men in her life affect her lifestyle so heavily. Could she have escaped this fate? Could she have raised Alberto in such a way where Maria Girselda hadn’t suffered so? I don’t think so, given the way she described the events. Perhaps the women could benefit from a support group or therapy, in the modern world, though…

Another quote that I enjoyed was the finale:

“I swear it. The woman in the shroud did not feel the slightest desire to rise again. Alone, she would at last be able to rest, to die.

For she had suffered the death of the living. And now she longed for total immersion, for the second death, the death of the dead.” (pg. 259)

True to the quote, the entire novel discussed the suffering of the living – to the point where death was a relief. But this begs the question, is there any way to escape the reality and sufferings of life if not death? Especially given the time period, where, like Ana Maria said, women had more difficulty with redirecting their passion. Back then, women only had so many options 🙁

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Nadja: Pretentious Bland French Man x Manic Pixie Dream Girl

My first thought when I read the initial couple pages of Nadja was… this man sounds annoying. My lasting thought when I finished Nadja was… this man is still annoying. It’s probably a mix of my distaste for the writing style, and his narration itself. The writing and flow was disorienting and confusing to me, maybe because it was more of an auto-biography than anything. It just felt like we were viewing his uninteresting memories with wildly uninteresting commentary. The format of dialogues and conversations doesn’t make sense in my brain since I’m used to more strictly formatted novels. The way everything is jumbled into one paragraph is confusing for me, as someone who usually sees “one dialogue per paragraph”. For example, this paragraph threw me off:

We remain silent for awhile, then she suddenly addresses me using tu: “A game: say something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Like this (she closes her eyes): Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black. Where are they? In a park. . . . And then, what are they doing? Try it, it’s so easy, why don’t you want to play? You know, that’s how I talk to myself when I’m alone, I tell myself all kinds of stories. And not only silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether.” * I leave her at my door: “And what about me now? Where shall I go? But it’s so easv to return slowly toward the Rue Lafayette, the Rue du Faubourg Poissoniere—to begin by going back to thevery spot where we were.”

Like… I don’t really get it? I don’t think surrealistic writing is quite for me. But less about the stylistic features and more about the content! Breton comes off as an extremely pessimistic narrator who can’t find interest in anything, doesn’t even know who he is, so he spends the first half of the novel commenting on other people and happenings. Since Breton can’t even figure out who he is, I didn’t enjoy the read until he found something that sparked his interest. He was instantly taken with Nadja (also the namesake), and I also became annoyed because after his first encounter with her he started making tons of assumptions about her, like I could tell he was projecting a specific character onto her in order to make his life more interesting. As soon as Nadja broke the illusion and stepped outside what he wanted for her, Breton got the ick.

To be honest, I felt like there wasn’t even much in the novel about Nadja herself, but rather Breton’s commentary on her. She was a difficult character to understand in my opinion, and it seems like Breton didn’t understand her either, which seemed very convenient for his projections. In a way, I think Nadja fits into the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” archetype – an eccentric, whimsical girl who’s meant to drag the boring, confused male protagonist along, only to disappear in the end, serving as a plot point rather than a fleshed out character with her own ambitions. Perhaps Nadja was the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl? In any case, that just makes me dislike Breton more.

Question: did Nadja remind you of any common tropes seen in literature? Or do you agree with mine (not really sure if mine was accurate so some validation would always be appreciated)

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Perilous Proust

In a novel, I find that I tend to look for easy reading – something that I can pass my time with, and enjoy my time while it’s also quite light to read. I look for a setting and perspective. Contrarily, Proust’s novel immediately dived into the narrator discussing his dreams, which had me questioning, where are we? What is the purpose? What is happening? Therefore, the first couple paragraphs were quite confusing and required some acclimitization. I’m someone who likes to imagine the exact scene in my head as described in the novel, so for a novel like Proust’s with such dense descriptions and shifting focal points, I found it more time consuming than usual, since it seems like so much is going on at the same time.

Professor Jon, other reviewers, and several bloggers talked about the difficulty of reading this novel, so I went in with those expectations as well. While “Combray” isn’t exactly the longest chapter in the world, it’s certainly dense. There are many descriptions to consider, and these sentences aren’t something one can just skim and hope to understand. Proust’s novel lived up to the expectations of being a ‘difficult read’, and one that is not so easily read. It was definitely a challenge, and while Proust paints scenes with vivid imagery, it was hard for me to grasp exactly what the prose was about. However, after watching the lecture video, I understood a little bit better (not fully, though).

The narrator flits in and out of sleep, flying through various dreams and ‘rooms’. He also discusses quite a deal about his family – I particularly enjoyed the part where he discussed mother’s goodnight kiss (p. 13), nd continues to discuss it further on (p. 27-29). At that point, I don’t think the age of the narrator was mentioned, so hearing this anectode and the way his father disproved of it gave me more perspective on the narrator, leading me to believe he was in his 10s or so. There was one specific passage that made me reflect upon my own actions:

But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament; our social personality is a creation of the minds of others. Even the very simple act that we call “seeing a person we know” is in part an intellectual one. We fill the physical appearance of the individual we see with all the notions we have about him, and of the total picture that we form for ourselves, these notions certainly occupy the greater part. In the end they swell his cheeks so perfectly, follow the line of his nose in an adherence so exact, they do so well at nuancing the sonority of his voice as though the latter were only a transparent envelope that each time we see this face and hear this voice, it is these notions that we encounter again, that we hear. (p. 19)

This is more of a pyschological(?) analysis, but it made me think about perception and image. Someone’s version of their ‘identity’ can shift entirely based off someone else’s perception. What’s actually going on in the chapter feels quite plain, like family gatherings and dreams, but since the narrator describes them with such detail, it feels as though he’s ascribed deeper meaning to these otherwise ordinary happenings. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I were in the narrator’s position, I don’t think I would remember this many details, or even my dreams with such vivid imagery.

Something I kept on thinking about throughout this entire reading was the translation. The descriptions are so fanciful, and Proust immediately drags readers into the world he has created. It made me think, how beautiful would the prose be in the source language? How long must the translators have taken to accurately translate the text in such detail, while still retaining the meaning? Translating is not simply a 1:1 word for word machine – the translator must understand what is being written, and translate (and often localize) the text as necessary. For such a difficult read like Combray, how deeply did the translators understand this? I like to think about the intricacies behind translation and localization since I also read translated fictional novels for fun, and dabble in translation myself (and this will be a recurring thought throughout the term as well). I truly respect the work that the translation team must have put in for this.

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Well hello there ^^

Hi everyone! My name is Kimberly, but I made the url of my website ‘Wingyun’ because that’s my Cantonese name. I’m currently a fifth year student (this is my final semester) at UBC, studying Applied Animal Biology so I can (hopefully) become a veterinarian. I’ve lived in Vancouver my entire life, and studying at UBC always felt natural to me because it was close, convenient, and also where the majority of my friends and family studied (or are currently studying).

I decided to take this as one of my last courses, because I wanted to make sure that I had a Literature class just in case any schools needed it as a requirement, although I’ve already taken a few writing courses in the past – just not Literature specific. I perused through a couple reviews and thought this class sounded interesting, since my thoughts were a little similar to what we discussed on Monday. I always found ‘Literature’ a little daunting, with fanciful (“refined”) writing, and some of the classics tended to be a little long for my taste, easily boring me. However, I hope to overcome this barrier and find some pieces of literature that I will enjoy through this course! And even if I don’t necessarily enjoy the literature, I believe it will provoke meaningful thought, so that I can figure out why exactly I didn’t enjoy it, and identify what I do and don’t like in literature and writing. I do find that the pressure for this course has decreased due to the agency we have over the workload and grade, as everything is upfront and clear from the very beginning. Along with this course, I’m only taking one asynchronous online class, so I believe I will have a lot of time available for reading the books and watching the lectures and conversation videos, allowing me to get the most out of this class. Currently, I’m excited for when we move to the smaller classroom after this week. Since this is more of a discussion focused course, I believe it will be more productive if everyone is sitting closer together, both for faciliating discussion and so we can hear each other better.

To answer the lecture question (“Where is the Romance World?”), my immediate answer was just as Professor Jon predicted: around Europe, since languages like French, Spanish, and more are often dictated as the ‘Romance Languages’. I think buying a ticket to the ‘Romance World’ is a fun idea, and it makes me think about how ‘romance’ can also be described as a ‘fantasy’, or even the root word of ‘romanticization’ – something that doesn’t necessarily exist, because it has been glamorized to an extensive degree. The concept of deterritorialization is particularly interesting to me, because it’s like saying that the romance world, and romance studies, can find a home anywhere. Romance doesn’t belong exclusively to a certain area, and is not restricted by any borders or boundaries, and that is the beauty of romance!

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