{"id":17,"date":"2026-02-22T22:13:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/?p=17"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:14:15","slug":"17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/2026\/02\/22\/17\/","title":{"rendered":"Quimet is a D1 Ragebaiter"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found The Time of the Doves<\/em> interesting, and I liked Natalia\u2019s narration throughout. I feel like I am slowly but surely overcoming my bias towards the first-person perspective. In fact, in this novel specifically, I believe that only the first person could have made me so infuriated about Quimet. In this blog post, I want to discuss how Rodoreda\u2019s storytelling excels through its symbolism and lively narrative style<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quimet irritated me so much throughout the whole book. He was as annoying as the fly constantly buzzing in your ear on a sunny day, or as the fire alarm when it’s on low battery. My rage cannot be condensed into one blog post; as a result, I will focus on Rodoreda\u2019s symbolism regarding Natalia and Quimet. The following quote (65) discusses Quimet\u2019s thoughts about a dove:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cQuimet said we should keep [the dove], that he’d make a cage for it on the balcony so we could watch it from the dining room: a cage like a mansion, with an iron balcony, a red roof, and a door with a knocker. And how that dove would be the boy’s pride and joy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quimet\u2019s desire to keep the dove in captivity as his \u201cpride and joy\u201d showcased what he thought of Natalia, considering that he calls her Colometa<\/em> (his little dove) (18). \u00a0Perhaps, his infuriating treatment towards Natalia can be explained by him wanting to keep Natalia in his control?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another notable aspect of the novel was the \u201cdiary-style\u201d narration, which highlighted the gaps in the storyline. I really liked how Natalia\u2019s raw, unfiltered recounting of events unfolded in each section; her storytelling truly made every scene feel alive and interesting. For example, Natalia\u2019s version of the scene describing the worm\u2019s appearance (which was gross TT) was semi-entertaining. I think this may be attributed to her dismissal of the expected combined with her making connections to common real world things (78):<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe’d never seen one. It was the color of spaghetti made without eggs, and we kept it in alcohol in a jam jar.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, despite the entertaining nature of her journal entries, I found that they left me questioning the \u201cin between.\u201d For example, the jump from her pregnancy announcement to giving birth was extremely abrupt as a significant amount of time had passed between chapter. This brought me to question the nature of such entries: do they only mark special occasions, or are they are just randomly written (such as, whenever Natalia got a moment of rest). All the entries have at least some<\/em> extent of crazy mixed into them, but a lot of the time it seems like it\u2019s Natalia\u2019s bizarre and lively narration that gives the somewhat<\/em> mundane stories (more so in the first half of the novel) this appearance. That makes me believe that the novel is a collection of emotionally jarring moments in time, rather than physically exciting. Now, I leave you with the same question: how do you think these specific journal entries were created?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found The Time of the Doves interesting, and I liked Natalia\u2019s narration throughout. I feel like I am slowly but surely overcoming my bias towards the first-person perspective. In fact, in this novel specifically, I believe that only the first person could have made me so infuriated about Quimet. In this blog post, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107672,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-rodoreda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107672"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zaras\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}