Student Blogs

 I think this is one of the most interesting novels i’ve read so far during this class. It kept the element of true crime/true events throughout the theme and most of the events (and I am a true crime junkie) and the sociologist in me was also abl... read full post >>

Reading Marguerite Duras’s The Lover is a genuinely disorienting experience. It’s essentially an autobiographical novel about a fifteen(ish?) year-old French girl who begins a passionate affair with a wealthy, older Chinese man. A detail I found interesting about the novel is how it actively deprives us of the lover’s identity. For example, we know he […] read full post >>

I am really working on hating men less these days. read full post >>

Once again, this was a book that did not play out as I expected (ᵕ • ᴗ •) It was a bit difficult at first to make sense of what was happening and where each scene fit into a larger timeline, but by the end, I quite liked that! The non-linear storytelling made it feel […] read full post >>

“Very early in my life it was too late” — Duras, 1984, p. read full post >>

The more I read this novel, the more I could feel it become less about any actual events and more about memory and reflection. read full post >>

The non-linear storytelling was honestly confusing. I know it’s supposed to mimic the narrator’s train of thought but… since I’m not her, I didn’t really know where all this information was coming from! I felt like that “guy who needs context” meme for the beginning portion. There were details all over the place and one […] read full post >>

 The Lover by Marguerite Duras was  such an interesting read! I think that a common element that we have read so far is about men who are horrible and dumb. And now we have a man who is interested in pedophilia. The Lover is about the relatio... read full post >>

 The Lover by Marguerite Duras was  such an interesting read! I think that a common element that we have read so far is about men who are horrible and dumb. And now we have a man who is interested in pedophilia. The Lover is about the relatio... read full post >>

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 >>