Student Blogs

Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda. It seems the further we get into this course, the better the novels get. I genuinely enjoyed the read for this week, so much I couldn’t put it away. Maybe because it was easier to read. Speaking of that, I found the stylistic choices and the ‘stream of […] read full post >>

Hey everyone, whilst reading the novel and even after, it gave me a bitter, heartbroken feeling for Natalia. The novel follows Natalia from her as a working-class girl to her struggles as a wife and mother in a war-torn society. Through Natalia’s eyes, we witness the profound impact of war as she struggles with poverty, […] read full post >>

I have been traveling to Barcelona last year. Despite the awe I was experiencing with the beautiful buildings — more specifically, Guell Park and La Sagrada Familia — I was fascinated with the fact that those small villages that we usually never pay attention to when we travel was surprisingly similar to the small town […] read full post >>

The book follows the life of a working-class woman named Natalia against the backdrop of World War II. Her relationship with her husband is at the center of the book. The novel reflects the traditional gender roles of the time, where women were expected to be caregivers and homemakers. We can find that in this […] read full post >>

Reading “The Time of the Doves” by Marcè Rodoreda made me feel lots of big girl feelings, I was intrigued, disgusted, confused, furious, and most of all just straight up sad. I think this book speaks a lot to generational trauma, especially in women. It reminds me of the type of generational trauma that is […] read full post >>

Damn. This one was a lot to take in. I felt drawn into this book from the very beginning, when Natalia talks so bluntly about her dead mother and how she no longer has someone to guide her life decisions. From the start, it feels like Natalia doesn’t have a real sense of autonomy and […] read full post >>

Wow, reading this was a rollercoaster of emotions.  Maybe because I never imagined myself reading this novel anywhere aside from my house and yet I found myself immersed in the story, while being on vacation in Barcelona…where the story unfolds. It was such a surreal experience to be walking through the same bustling plazas and narrow […] read full post >>

The time of the doves is the read for week 7 and I have a lot of things to share with you guys! Definitely my favorite read of this course so far. Initially, reading it, I felt more irritated than anything while reading the first part of the novel. Nat... read full post >>

The time of the doves is the read for week 7 and I have a lot of things to share with you guys! Definitely my favorite read of this course so far. Initially, reading it, I felt more irritated than anything while reading the first part of the novel. Nat... read full post >>

Hello everyone! Hopefully, you all had a great reading week and enjoyed reading The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda. This novel is a story full of emotion and hurt detailing the protagonist Natalia’s life through the Spanish civil war. The novel is written in a way that folds the emotion into the words […] read full post >>

To begin, the novel “The Time of the Doves” by Merce Rodoreda was a roller coaster of emotions as it had immense imagery and thought-provoking concepts. The novel is quite dark and heart-wrenching as there are very few happy moments and quite a lot of sad and hard ones. Throughout the semester we have read […] read full post >>

Hi everyone:) I hope you all had an amazing reading break. I can’t believe we are almost at the halfway mark of the term; man, does time fly! So let’s talk about “The Time of the Doves” by Mercè Rodoreda. I had many thoughts while reading this book – the first one being, umm… are […] read full post >>

“Start tomorrow” (155). This was the moment that probably gave me the most emotional reaction or hit me the hardest. I was completely shocked when Natalia made the decision to kill herself and her children, and since there was still 50 pages left in the novel I was sincerely wondering how it was going to […] read full post >>

First Impression   This week’s reading was Times of the Doves by Rodereda. The first impression I had in this book was that Quimet was a walking red flag. A few pages in, Natalia or Colometa, as Quimet would call her, had just broken up with her fiance, Pere. Quimet just did not hesitate to […] read full post >>

“And I didn’t know if I was sleeping or awake but I saw the doves. I saw them like before. Everything was the same: the dovecote painted dark blue, the nests full of straw, the roof with the wires getting rusty because I couldn’t hang the clothes up, the trapdoor, the procession of doves marching […] read full post >>