Hello everyone, I can’t believe how fast time has gone by and that this is actually my last blog post! With 11 readings and 13 blog posts, I have finished this course with much gain and insight! From the beginning of the term, when I set myself a goal of finishing 11 books, I doubted […]
Faces In the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli is a unique novel that has stories intertwined in three time zones and seems to jump around in its thinking. From the beginning of the story, the story was from the perspective of a writer, who is the mother of two kids. “I have a baby and a […]
The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa is beautiful and unique to read. The book was also very dreamy and it seemed like I didn’t know what was true and what was a lie or dream throughout the book. We follow the gecko’s point of view back and forth between reality, dreams, and the […]
This week’s reading was the novel Money to Burn by Ricardo Piglia. To be honest, I can’t say I enjoyed reading the overall plot due to the violence, sexuality, drugs, and gang life embedded in it. However, I do enjoy the narrative techniques and the underlying ironic themes of inequality within the system and injustice. […]
“Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then (p. 3). “ This is the classic beginning of The Lover by Marguerite Duras, where the aged narrator when her looks are devastated, longs for a lover who expresses the love that […]
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector is the shortest novella I’ve read, and I thought it was unique, but also weird. In this story, there are two narrative storylines, the first line is the narration from Rodrigo S.M.’s point of view. Rodrigo S.M. is a male writer who seems to be bored with life […]
The Time of the Doves by Mercé Rodoreda is a novel that allows readers to understand a war from a woman’s point of view. The novel is set in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, but there are hardly any fight scenes, and it’s more about the story of this woman Natalia, with her […]
This week’s novel Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel talks about the life of the main narrator José who lives with M’man Tine. This novel uses a linear narrative to tell the story of his experiences in Black Shack Alley and pursuing education to address the problem of colonialism, racialization and class inequality. I wanted […]
In Alberto Morovia’s novella Agostino, the main character Agostino is a 13-year-old boy who has an unusual attachment with his mother. Despite he is already 13, he loves his mother with a “naive” heart and adores her as a mother figure. One summer, he and his widow’s mother went on holiday to the Tuscan coast, […]
The Shrouded Woman was the most enjoyable and reflective novel for me to read so far. The main character, Ana-Maria, is dead due to disease, but she amazingly still sees everything around her. She lies in her casket and sees people come to see her (for the last time), who once gave her sorrow and […]
