Student Blogs

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 >>

The Trenchcoat was a pretty unsettling read in a quiet kind of way. The story feels simple on the surface, but there’s this constant tension lingering in the background that slowly creeps up on you. What I found really interesting is that everything is told through a child’s perspective. The narrator doesn’t fully understand the […] read full post >>

Why is this book called the lover??? I mean I get ‘why’ but I definitely don’t like why. Every instance this man had with protagonist was just uncomfortable to the highest degree. Even if I tried to situate myself with context or go with the flow of the story, I wasn’t at ease reading any […] read full post >>

Duras’ The Lover follows a fifteen-year-old French girl in colonial Indochina and the wealthy, much older Chinese man who becomes her lover. Some may try to frame this as sensual, tragic, even romantic… but I can assure you that it lands somewhere closer to the unnerving territory occupied by Lolita. I think what I found […] read full post >>

I’m not sure how to feel about this book, or is it even a book? Maybe this work is better classified as a short story. Regardless, the fast, fleeting nature of this piece helped capture the sentiments of the members of the working class, the “proletariats,” during the unfortunate times of war.   The start […] read full post >>

Review of Marguerite Duras's The Lover read full post >>

“The Trenchcoat” by Norman Manea was another piece of literature that left me confused. From the very beginning, I felt overwhelmed by the number of characters appearing one after another, whilst also trying to understand what was going on. On top of the fact that there were multiple characters, there were also characters that appeared […] read full post >>

Ah… Professor, is there one book in here that will begin and end with the same healthy romantic relationship? I’m so horrified by this romantic dynamic and even though I’ve visited this book during my highschool days, it still disgusts me to read some of these pages here (like pages 37-39). There were some questions in my head as I... read full post >>

This book by Duras marked a visit to another completely different part of the world than those that I have already visited through the books that I have chosen, as it takes place in the colony of French Indochina, a part of current day Vietnam. I truly did not expect this course’s texts to take […] read full post >>

    This book, although a bit confusing, was right up my alley, given that I'm a political science student. Reflecting on this reinforced preconceived notions about authoritarianism and totalitarian rule. The Trenchcoat was a particularl... read full post >>