I must say this course was a breath of fresh air (cliche, I know…). But for real, being able to guide ourselves through each week was nice. It wasn’t just sitting in a lecture hall with a professor talking at you and expecting you to retain all information imaginable for a test in a couple […]
I am going to be honest, I tested positive for Covid on Wednesday of last week and because of that reading, this book was quite difficult. I don’t know if it’s the book or the illness my body is trying to fight off but I found the plot very difficult to follow. I am half-tempted […]
I really liked how this book begins. It made the read more intriguing that it began with the disappearance of…
After reading Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend”, a novel I found out late is the first in a four part series titled the “Neapolitan novels”, I found myself completely spellbound and enraptured by a novel in a way that I hadn’t been in a while. On its surface this feeling perplexed me, as I found […]
This novel was, in a sense, eye-opening for me. I find this to be mainly due to the unfortunate circumstances that Lila and Elena endured from such a young age. From poverty to violence and just a struggle of trying to find a way to be something when surrounded by negativity. It really brought a […]
I am honestly having a minor crisis about nearly being done with my first year of uni because I basically feel 16 still but I going to ignore that for now. This term has been genuinely awful in many way but this class was actually not a contributer for that which was very pleasant for me. I have not read as much as I did this term in so long and while I definitely did not enjoy all the books I picked I always found them interesting. Not even going to try to pretend I always closely read the book of the week, sometimes it was more of a ‘yes I am certainly reading a book right now’ vibe when I really just wanted to get the general plotline down and finish a blog post but, there was more times than I expected when I genuinely sat down and got really into what I was reading. Great example would be me curled up under my desk (it just seemed right) to read the entirity of Bounjour Tristesse with only a small break in order to cringe at everything I just read.
Anywayyy. I literally said this in my last blog post but I was incredibly skeptical of how on Earth these books could share similarities when they are all so different in origin. It was really interesting to begin to make connections between them all, even the ones I didn’t understand too well. I am not going to even try to speculate ~why~ they all share these things because it honestly makes no sense and I almost feel like without also reading texts from not romance languages theres no way to tell that this isn’t just like a overall thing I hadn’t thought about before. Language is really weird, the fact that a common language family could be the cause of like an underlying similarity isn’t exactly surprising to me but it’s still really cool. This class will probably stick in my mind a bit for the rest of my life, I do not think I’ll be able to read any book again without taking a moment to see if it also shares similarities or not. Not upset about it by any means, usually I forget everything I learn as soon as I am done with a class but it is always nice when something sticks with me, makes me feel accomplished I guess. My final question relates to this, does anyone else think these similarities and connections we learnt about will affect the way they look at literature from here on out?
Thats enough rambling from me 😀
Good luck on finals everyone :))
I am honestly having a minor crisis about nearly being done with my first year of uni because I basically feel 16 still but I going to ignore that for now. This term has been genuinely awful in many way but this class was actually not a contributer for that which was very pleasant for me. I have not read as much as I did this term in so long and while I definitely did not enjoy all the books I picked I always found them interesting. Not even going to try to pretend I always closely read the book of the week, sometimes it was more of a ‘yes I am certainly reading a book right now’ vibe when I really just wanted to get the general plotline down and finish a blog post but, there was more times than I expected when I genuinely sat down and got really into what I was reading. Great example would be me curled up under my desk (it just seemed right) to read the entirity of Bounjour Tristesse with only a small break in order to cringe at everything I just read.
Anywayyy. I literally said this in my last blog post but I was incredibly skeptical of how on Earth these books could share similarities when they are all so different in origin. It was really interesting to begin to make connections between them all, even the ones I didn’t understand too well. I am not going to even try to speculate ~why~ they all share these things because it honestly makes no sense and I almost feel like without also reading texts from not romance languages theres no way to tell that this isn’t just like a overall thing I hadn’t thought about before. Language is really weird, the fact that a common language family could be the cause of like an underlying similarity isn’t exactly surprising to me but it’s still really cool. This class will probably stick in my mind a bit for the rest of my life, I do not think I’ll be able to read any book again without taking a moment to see if it also shares similarities or not. Not upset about it by any means, usually I forget everything I learn as soon as I am done with a class but it is always nice when something sticks with me, makes me feel accomplished I guess. My final question relates to this, does anyone else think these similarities and connections we learnt about will affect the way they look at literature from here on out?
Thats enough rambling from me 😀
Good luck on finals everyone :))
To conclude the term, I want to say that this course is different from what I had initially expected. I did not expect to be exploring the themes that I have in this class, including but not limited to; memory, war, betrayal, and loss. To start off, I enjoyed most of the texts in the […]
The text The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by José Eduardo Agualusa is set after Angolia’s independence, which also reflects government structures and changes in that structure. The novel’s narrator, Benchimol, recently got a divorce and thus goes to a resort or hotel to be able to rest and recuperate. He’s also a journalist whole tends […]
This course has definitely been one of the more unique ones I have taken (and I have taken quite a…
