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I found The Trenchcoat by Norman Manea to be a bit difficult. I felt lost at times and I was unsure of what was happening in the book at moments. The plot begins with a dinner party in which the guest feel awkward and obligated to be there. Perhaps because Ioana’s husband Ali is co-workers … read full post >>

    

      I am very glad I watched part of the lecture video *before* reading this novel. Having a little bit of context about what was happening in Romania made things make a lot more sense than they would have had I been reading blind. Even still, this novella was pretty confusing, not because I couldn't understand the writing it seemed by design, I can reread a page and still be left feeling confused even while understanding context and what had occurred plot wise. I get the sense it was intentional, a reflection of the time the book was set in and it seemed obvious that most of the characters didn't fully understand what was occurring either. There was a overarching feeling of fearful uncertainty thinly veiled by social niceties like those that were seen at the dinner. 

    Initially, I was pretty confused by the first section of the novella, a conversation occurring sometime in the future that had absolutely no context at the time. As soon as the trench coat Dina found was mentioned, I formed a little theory that these two were connected. I was very pleased to find that I was correct and it was in fact carelessly (or possibly not carelessly?) left by one of these confidential agents. To me, this makes the trench coat a symbol of mistrust. Something left behind as a symbol of the governments mistrust in its people, to go to such lengths as using other peoples homes for meetings/interviews without permission and also the mistrust the people had for their government that was not supporting them how it should and went behind their back to report about *them*. 

    When it comes to the ending, I found it to real fit together with the title of the collection of these novels 'Compulsory Happiness.' Laughter, usually a pretty obvious sign of joy, but in a context where it was once again a thin veil to cover the grim reality the characters were living in. Laughing at the situation, or maybe laughing to try to ignore it and pretend everything was fine.

Overall, I enjoyed this novella it was really interesting and I also never hear much about Romania in general so it was cool to read something from there. I am very interested to see what Manea has to say on Thursday, about the book but also about his experiences and anything else. I don't think I have ever had the chance to hear an author talk about their life/writing live before so it'll be cool. I have a somewhat unrelated question for Manea: How did moving to the U.S. affect your writing? I can imagine that there was some culture shock and I wonder how that may have changed how you viewed things.

read full post >>

    

      I am very glad I watched part of the lecture video *before* reading this novel. Having a little bit of context about what was happening in Romania made things make a lot more sense than they would have had I been reading blind. Even still, this novella was pretty confusing, not because I couldn't understand the writing it seemed by design, I can reread a page and still be left feeling confused even while understanding context and what had occurred plot wise. I get the sense it was intentional, a reflection of the time the book was set in and it seemed obvious that most of the characters didn't fully understand what was occurring either. There was a overarching feeling of fearful uncertainty thinly veiled by social niceties like those that were seen at the dinner. 

    Initially, I was pretty confused by the first section of the novella, a conversation occurring sometime in the future that had absolutely no context at the time. As soon as the trench coat Dina found was mentioned, I formed a little theory that these two were connected. I was very pleased to find that I was correct and it was in fact carelessly (or possibly not carelessly?) left by one of these confidential agents. To me, this makes the trench coat a symbol of mistrust. Something left behind as a symbol of the governments mistrust in its people, to go to such lengths as using other peoples homes for meetings/interviews without permission and also the mistrust the people had for their government that was not supporting them how it should and went behind their back to report about *them*. 

    When it comes to the ending, I found it to real fit together with the title of the collection of these novels 'Compulsory Happiness.' Laughter, usually a pretty obvious sign of joy, but in a context where it was once again a thin veil to cover the grim reality the characters were living in. Laughing at the situation, or maybe laughing to try to ignore it and pretend everything was fine.

Overall, I enjoyed this novella it was really interesting and I also never hear much about Romania in general so it was cool to read something from there. I am very interested to see what Manea has to say on Thursday, about the book but also about his experiences and anything else. I don't think I have ever had the chance to hear an author talk about their life/writing live before so it'll be cool. I have a somewhat unrelated question for Manea: How did moving to the U.S. affect your writing? I can imagine that there was some culture shock and I wonder how that may have changed how you viewed things.

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As much as I liked the actual story that Carlos Fuente writes about in his historical novel The Old Gringo, I can’t say I enjoyed this novel as much as other texts we have read thus far. I found the … Continue reading → read full post >>

I really liked this book. It’s definitely one of my favourites of the ones we’ve covered. We’ve read a few books that are based on memory, and we’ve discussed how fickle memory can be and what kind of story is created when it is strung together by a collection of memories. However, The Old Gringo […] read full post >>

blog#9 – the Object of Anxiety — I’ll admit that I am not very good at remembering character’s names when reading, especially during the part I have to read in dialogue. But in this book, many characters have a kind of tic or catchphrase that they say which I thought was really interesting. Whatever their […] read full post >>

For this weeks book, I read The Old Gringo, by Carlos Fuentes. To be honest with you, I found this book to be a little bit confusing, but for a few different reasons.  At the beginning of my reading, I found the old gringo’s motivation to be a bit strange; he has come to Mexico […] read full post >>

It was starting the bat with this week’s reading, the trench coat. I found it exciting but quite challenging to... read full post >>

Manea’s The Trenchcoat was a really fascinating read; I enjoyed diving into the slightly unsettling atmosphere of stagnation, censorship and being forced to say “correct” things that pervaded the dinner party and the initial drive there. It seemed like social convention had an extremely strong influence over the attendees’ actions.  For example, before the party, it […] read full post >>

Initially when reading this novel I found the words and names to all mix together. The start of the book felt like a bag of random facts and information which made it hard for me to follow along and get invested to. But who knows maybe I was just reading “The Old Gringo” on an […] read full post >>