Student Blogs

A. Initial Thoughts Though “Mad Toy” is much shorter than Marcel Proust’s “Combray”, I found it tougher to get through. As I read, I often wanted to stop because it seemed like the story was just going in circles, with Silvio repeatedly failing to break out of poverty. But after finishing the book and taking … Continue reading Mad Toy: What Do We Live Our Lives For? read full post >>

“I am the soul in Limbo” (71) Considered one of the earliest surrealist romance books, Nadja is chock-full of wonder. Flipping through this short recollection of a haunting memory, every page tells a fragment of this mystery. Who was Nadja? And, was she truly real?  Some quick research and Nadja is actually Léona Camille Ghislaine […] read full post >>

I think for anyone who’s familiar with the manic pixie dream girl trope, André Breton’s Nadja stands out as an obvious example- the girl you can never have, the girl of your dreams, the girl who’s too damaged to be loved, etc. A prime example- when Breton asks Nadja who she is on page 71, […] read full post >>

Nadja by André Breton contains many detailed and long sentences, heavy dialogue and many surrealist elements. While reading the first part I found it hard to follow as the introduction to the narrator started with the line “Who am I?” (pp.11) and continued with a heavy amount of different situations and artists being mentioned in […] read full post >>

Hi everyone. Welcome to my third blog! This week I read the book "Mad Toy" and have many thoughts to share with you. This book is written by Roberto Arlt. He writes this book from the perspective of a lower-class youth named Silvio. From Silv... read full post >>

Hi everyone. Welcome to my third blog! This week I read the book "Mad Toy" and have many thoughts to share with you. This book is written by Roberto Arlt. He writes this book from the perspective of a lower-class youth named Silvio. From Silv... read full post >>

Who am I? Such an ambiguous question that had me thinking about my identity, which later progressed to me questioning my existence by the end of the novel. Now, before I dive into an “analysis” of the novel and pick it apart, I want to point out that this novel had me going through so […] read full post >>

The first thing that came to mind as I read the summary on the back of the book was “Oh, Nadja is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” and I stand by that. She is only there to forward the male protagonist’s understanding of himself/the world (which is discussed in the lecture), she is a quirky […] read full post >>

Mad Toy is a coming-of-age novel that explores the four stages of growth in a young man named Silvio, presenting a fascinating character. I believe he is not a typical hero protagonist in the true sense but rather resembles a young individual filled with ambition and fantasies, constrained by his environment. Silvio’s adventures are not […] read full post >>

This novel was much easier to read than “Combray” and it was also more entertaining. I really enjoyed the structure of this book and how it was broken into distinct parts. I loved seeing the different stages of Silvio’s life. Right from the start I was very intrigued by Silvio’s fascination with bandits and theft. […] read full post >>

“Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.” André Breton, pg 160 André Breton’s Nadja was published in 1928 and was a part of a collection of books during France’s Surrealist Movement post World War II. Straight off the bat, I absolutely loved this book. Perhaps I’m just a romance junkie, but I […] read full post >>

This week’s reading was much better than the last one in my opinion. I found it easier to follow along but also extremely entertaining. I want to share my favourite paragraph from the reading. “I seemed to see her outside of time and space, on a dark, dry plain,with a sky so blue it was […] read full post >>

I was intrigued by the brief description of Andre Breton’s “Nadja” that was provided on the course website, but found the first section of the book to be a bit scattered with the narrator’s constant thoughts and names of what appeared to be random people. However, I did like how Breton made the text somewhat […] read full post >>

“Of a more or less unfamiliar character, whose secret we feel might be learned merely by questioning ourselves closely enough.” That’s precisely how I felt as I was reading Nandja.  Nadja begins with the awful question of “who am I?” which sends the narrator into a spiral of self-doubt. It leads to the ideals of […] read full post >>

Roberto Arlt’s novel, “Mad Toy,” was a very fun and interesting read about Silvio’s adventures as a youth as he engages in the quest to become a bandit. I found this text very interesting as it described in great detail the moments in his life as a teen. At first, I was a little confused about the setting and where in fact this text would lead me. As I continued to read about Silvio’s fixation on bandits the text started to get more interesting. One thing I liked about this...read more read full post >>