Student Blogs

To be honest, when I finished The Lover, my first reaction was something like… what exactly did I just read? Not in a bad way, but in the sense that the novel feels strange and difficult to pin down. The story doesn’t unfold in a clean, chronological way, and the characters themselves are hard to […] read full post >>

Norman Manea’s The Trenchcoat is definitely one of those stories that stayed on my mind after finishing it, but I also have to admit that I found it a bit confusing at times. While reading it, I had to go back and reread certain parts more than once to fully understand what was happening. That […] read full post >>

Manea’s The Trenchcoat was such a breather compared to the other books, I actually liked reading it. Starting the book, I didn’t know how to feel or what to expect, but the dinner party created an uncomfortable environment. From the title itself, I expected some crime, thriller, or murder mystery vibes just through the ambiguity […] read full post >>

This entire weekend I've had a horrible headache, so some of the writing might have escaped me. The way the characters acted in the book sort of reflected what people in my grandparents and parents days used to be like whilst under Soviet intervention.... read full post >>

This entire weekend I've had a horrible headache, so some of the writing might have escaped me. The way the characters acted in the book sort of reflected what people in my grandparents and parents days used to be like whilst under Soviet intervention.... read full post >>

This read had me quite puzzled at times, it seems we cannot get a simple love story in our class. Starting off being 15 and a half, Duras is a baby, she’s vulnerable to the world around her. As she’s on the ferry, she notices the limousine and it’s occupant, the man. After his proposition … read full post >>

Dearest gentle reader… (sorry I was watching Bridgerton today) Honestly I quite enjoyed this book, the way it is written, I am a little biased that it is the story of a woman written by a woman but nevertheless in this book I noticed a lot of attention to the little physical details, like the […] read full post >>

After reading “The Lover” by Marguerite Duras, the book is very powerful and emotional as the story center’s around memory, love and identity. The book is set in French colonial Indochina, where a young french girl begins a secret relationship with a rich chinese man. Moreover, through the narrator’s memories, the story dives into major […] read full post >>

Reading “The Trenchcoat” honestly felt like sitting through one of those long adult dinner parties where everyone is drinking wine and talking about politics while you slowly lose track of what the conversation is even about. For most of the story, the characters are just sitting around talking, gossiping, and making slightly awkward jokes. At […] read full post >>

With all the love and respect in the world, what did I just read? I would normally ask “will we never have a story that has just one ‘normal’ character?” but I also know that our class conversation would be “but what is normal?”… So I suppose I certainly have learned something, it just may […] read full post >>

  Question: What are your thoughts on The Trenchcoat’s ending being open-ended? Also, what are your thoughts on the actual trenchcoat, what do you think the reality is, and what does it represent? -LS read full post >>

This book by Duras was like a haphazard letter written to someone about moments of their life, except they forgot to go in chronological order. It was so good in some parts but rage baited me to the core in the other parts (almost 80% of the parts that included the narrator’s mother). I wanted […] read full post >>

After reading the Trenchcoat, I feel quite confused. I feel like the other books I’ve read for this course have been easier to follow, with plots and settings, as well as distinct characters. In this novel, there are so many characters that I cannot keep track of who is speaking, or their names. The Learned […] read full post >>

Alright so after this read I feel as though a common trend in the books we are reading is that men are being consistently displayed as awful. We have encountered horrible husbands like Quimet in The Time of the Doves and Antonio in The S... read full post >>

Alright so after this read I feel as though a common trend in the books we are reading is that men are being consistently displayed as awful. We have encountered horrible husbands like Quimet in The Time of the Doves and Antonio in The S... read full post >>