Auxilio Lacouture, an Uruguayan girl, finds herself stuck in a bathroom stall in the women’s bathroom at the National Autonomous…
Because of the warming and comfortable way that Roberto Bolaño writes Amulet, and because of the various memories that it reminds me of, this weeks blog post, is somewhat of a departure from my usual psychoanalytical examinations characters, and is focused more on my own personal experiences and emotions that Bolaño’s work has had to […]
Reading through Amulet definitely pulled me in many different directions than I expected! From the beginning it introduced fear and tension, then it quickly delved into a series of memories from Auxilio’s life and the different friends and people she encountered as she hid in the bathroom stalls of her university. It was different from […]
While reading the scenes within the university buildings and corridors, I found myself imagining the scenes in my head. That isn’t unusual in and of itself, but similarly to how I dream at night, the settings of my imagination varied between buildings here at UBC, my high schools in Canada and the UK, and the primary school I left 10 years ago. It was as though different rooms fit different scenes more than others. Or that a particular corridor from my school 6 years ago just fit the bill more than the most recent one. Not to get too on-theme with the novels we’ve read this term, but it’s funny how memory works, isn’t it?
The scene where she rips up the toilet paper that she has been writing on caught my attention. Mainly because I like to preserve practically everything I’ve ever written, so the idea of destroying the thoughts and musings I might have had if I were in her situation feels like a strange loss for me. At first, it also felt like a bit of a waste; my first thought was that if you’re going to destroy it, then why write it down in the first place? But then I caught myself fairly quickly. It can be quite limiting to assume that something is only worth writing if it’s worth keeping, and that’s an idea I think I learnt unintentionally, and am nowadays trying to unlearn. That said, it’s not even very accurate because I often find myself in a situation where I need to write something in order to make my own thoughts coherent. Sure, perhaps in another situation she may have spoken these words aloud where they could then disappear without a trace, but that’s not an ideal method when you’re trying to hide in a bathroom for days on end.
My question this week is: what is the significance of the fact that neither the author nor the protagonist are from the city in which the story is set?
While reading the scenes within the university buildings and corridors, I found myself imagining the scenes in my head. That isn’t unusual in and of itself, but similarly to how I dream at night, the settings of my imagination varied between buildings here at UBC, my high schools in Canada and the UK, and the primary school I left 10 years ago. It was as though different rooms fit different scenes more than others. Or that a particular corridor from my school 6 years ago just fit the bill more than the most recent one. Not to get too on-theme with the novels we’ve read this term, but it’s funny how memory works, isn’t it?
The scene where she rips up the toilet paper that she has been writing on caught my attention. Mainly because I like to preserve practically everything I’ve ever written, so the idea of destroying the thoughts and musings I might have had if I were in her situation feels like a strange loss for me. At first, it also felt like a bit of a waste; my first thought was that if you’re going to destroy it, then why write it down in the first place? But then I caught myself fairly quickly. It can be quite limiting to assume that something is only worth writing if it’s worth keeping, and that’s an idea I think I learnt unintentionally, and am nowadays trying to unlearn. That said, it’s not even very accurate because I often find myself in a situation where I need to write something in order to make my own thoughts coherent. Sure, perhaps in another situation she may have spoken these words aloud where they could then disappear without a trace, but that’s not an ideal method when you’re trying to hide in a bathroom for days on end.
My question this week is: what is the significance of the fact that neither the author nor the protagonist are from the city in which the story is set?
I found this novella quite unusual and compelling as it tries to narrate through an unusual character the story of a country and the state of Latin America’s literary talent and tradition in an unconventional and dreamlike voice. Auxilio Lacouture, whose first name comes from the Latin “auxilium” and as mentioned in Dr. Jon’s video, […]
Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet starts the novel starts off with a thrilling note as the first few lines are: “This is going to be a horror story. A Story of murder, detection, and horror” (1). However, the narrator, who is later revealed to be a Uruguayan woman named Auxilio Lacouture, makes the quick distinction that the story won’t […]
Hey everyone! Robert Bolano’s Amulet was certainly an interesting read. I found that scene by scene it was captivating to…
This was truly one of the best books not only that I’ve read during this course but just in general. “Amulet” by Robert Bolano is such a moving and inspiring yet painful and horrific story that deeply captivates the emotions of Auxilio Lacouture, a woman who is tragically stuck in a bathroom on the fourth […]
Wow, lots to unpack with this one. This book was a rollercoaster, not unlike many of the books we’ve read in this course. Again, the narrator takes us through the messy pathways of her mind as she recounts memories, some good and some bad. In this case, most are decidedly bad. Auxilio’s experience of the […]
