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The Shrouded Woman

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 The Shrouded Woman 

The Shrouded Woman is my second text I have read for this course, and compared to the first novel Swann's Way, I really enjoyed it. When I first began reading I was worried I was not going to understand the story as i found Swann's Way difficult to understand. Despite going into it thinking I wouldn't understand, after the first page I was completely hooked to the story. 

Similarly to Swann's Way, one thing that stood out to me was how beautifully descriptive and visual this story was. The language used was intense and thoughtful, but not to the point where it overcomplicated the story, it was the perfect amount. This aspect of the novel allowed me to feel as though I was there in all of these different situation with Ana Maria, and experiencing these things with her. It felt like a real journey into her mind where she wasn't necessarily telling me as a reader these stories, but almost like I was in her mind without her even knowing. These memories that she is reminiscing felt so personal and intimate which made the story very real to me and provoked many different emotions. 

I also really enjoyed that not only was the story told through her thoughts but the fact that she is dead makes it even more interesting. I'm not too much of a reader so maybe other novels exist from this perspective, but in my personal experience I have never heard of or read a novel from the perspective of someone that is dead. This made her memories even more emotional and beautiful to read. 

I loved how Ana Maria was still feeling emotion for past lovers, her children etc.. as they were visiting her casket. Death is not something I think about often, but this novel had me wondering, will I be able to watch over people in my life visit my casket? Will I be able to reminisce on memories of past lovers and family members one day? The way the story is told made me believe that this is how it is when you pass away, just watching people from your life visit you one by one and begin to remember every experience you shared. It also made me think about how I perceive situations in my life. Ana Maria has her own memories but I wonder if we are seeing these memories being told to us in a bias perspective because we are in her mind, or if things played out differently according to who's mind we are in? 

In conclusion I thought this story told beautifully real stories of love, family, and memories. I enjoyed it a lot 🙂 

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Week 4: ‘The Shrouded Woman’

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‘Why, oh why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?’ (p. 226). What a fantastic question! I have yet to quite be able to put that into words. This week’s reading was a great refresh from Proust and Aragon and gave me hope that […] read full post >>
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The Shrouded Woman by María Luisa Bombal

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I really enjoyed this week’s novel of The Shrouded Woman. I was looking forward to this week’s novel since it is the first one with a female author and I was intrigued if there was a noticeable difference between the previous books. One thing I noticed was a difference through the characters as the women … read full post >>
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The Shrouded Woman by Maria Luisa Bombal

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First of all, the concept of a deceased person just summarizing her life is an amazing concept. Makes you really wonder what life after death really is like. This book was a wild ride. but every moment of it was special and so vivid. It may be fiction, but the world that was created felt […] read full post >>
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blog#4 – a Dead Woman existing in the 4D

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blog#4 – a Dead Woman existing in the 4D Life is a crueler fate than Death. That’s the thought that rattled in my head for the entire reading of Bombal’s ‘The Shrouded Woman’. Though many other attributes of the story become abundantly clear, the atmosphere of Death and Envy was subtle, yet, overwhelming. The addition […] read full post >>
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“The Shrouded Woman” by Maria Luisa Bombal

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After reading so many novels and other pieces of literature written and centered around men, their experiences, and their perspectives, I found reading “The Shrouded Woman” by Maria Luisa Bombal so refreshing. Overall, the whole concept for the novel is really unique, Ana Maria is reexperiencing past memories postmortem with new clarity that she feels […] read full post >>
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"The Shrouded Woman"

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Bombal has invited us into the mind of her main character. Ana Maria is a woman who lived a long and tumultuous life. As she lays in her coffin, she has the time to think and reflect on all the highlights of her life and strings us along on a journey of happiness, pain, confusion and suffering. I never read or look up anything about a novel I’m about to read. This allows me maximum enjoyment of the piece and I also find it easier to read when I am slowly unpacking the events and perspectives of what I’m reading. Starting this novel, right away I was hooked! Being inside the mind of a corpse is certainly an interesting and rare perspective. I felt like right away I wanted to know more and understand Ana Maria. I didn’t just want to know about the things she experienced in her life or the people that made her life what it was. I also wanted to know how she felt that summer day she remembers so vividly in her coffin, how she felt when she got pregnant, when she lost the baby or when she saw the love of her life for the first time. Even though a lot of her thoughts are incomplete, that didn’t take away from the story telling. Because it didn’t feel like she was telling me (the reader) anything, she was merely thinking and recounting her life and I was given what felt like private access to her thoughts. She didn’t even know I was there. The reason I felt this way was because of how intimate her thoughts were. Especially when I realized that she could see and feel the things and people around her. She could see her children and husband coming to say goodbye to her. How repulsed she felt when Antonio came up to her to touch her and say goodbye to her. She hated it as she held so much resentment towards him, which wasn’t necessarily his fault. She only felt some empathy towards him when she was a wrinkle she hadn’t noticed before. It made her realize that he too was human, aging and eventually dying. 

Ana Maria was a very emotional person throughout her life. She had a deep sense of connectedness to nature and her experiences often left a deep emotional impact on her. I’m going to end this post with a question about love that she herself posed that I thought was interesting to explore as well as a reflection of how she viewed her experiences with love: 'Is it that all those who were born to love acted like she did, hiding, minute by minute, what was most vital inside one’s self?' 



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"The Shrouded Woman"

Posted by: feedwordpress



Bombal has invited us into the mind of her main character. Ana Maria is a woman who lived a long and tumultuous life. As she lays in her coffin, she has the time to think and reflect on all the highlights of her life and strings us along on a journey of happiness, pain, confusion and suffering. I never read or look up anything about a novel I’m about to read. This allows me maximum enjoyment of the piece and I also find it easier to read when I am slowly unpacking the events and perspectives of what I’m reading. Starting this novel, right away I was hooked! Being inside the mind of a corpse is certainly an interesting and rare perspective. I felt like right away I wanted to know more and understand Ana Maria. I didn’t just want to know about the things she experienced in her life or the people that made her life what it was. I also wanted to know how she felt that summer day she remembers so vividly in her coffin, how she felt when she got pregnant, when she lost the baby or when she saw the love of her life for the first time. Even though a lot of her thoughts are incomplete, that didn’t take away from the story telling. Because it didn’t feel like she was telling me (the reader) anything, she was merely thinking and recounting her life and I was given what felt like private access to her thoughts. She didn’t even know I was there. The reason I felt this way was because of how intimate her thoughts were. Especially when I realized that she could see and feel the things and people around her. She could see her children and husband coming to say goodbye to her. How repulsed she felt when Antonio came up to her to touch her and say goodbye to her. She hated it as she held so much resentment towards him, which wasn’t necessarily his fault. She only felt some empathy towards him when she was a wrinkle she hadn’t noticed before. It made her realize that he too was human, aging and eventually dying. 

Ana Maria was a very emotional person throughout her life. She had a deep sense of connectedness to nature and her experiences often left a deep emotional impact on her. I’m going to end this post with a question about love that she herself posed that I thought was interesting to explore as well as a reflection of how she viewed her experiences with love: 'Is it that all those who were born to love acted like she did, hiding, minute by minute, what was most vital inside one’s self?' 



read full post >>
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"The Shrouded Woman"

Posted by: feedwordpress



Bombal has invited us into the mind of her main character. Ana Maria is a woman who lived a long and tumultuous life. As she lays in her coffin, she has the time to think and reflect on all the highlights of her life and strings us along on a journey of happiness, pain, confusion and suffering. I never read or look up anything about a novel I’m about to read. This allows me maximum enjoyment of the piece and I also find it easier to read when I am slowly unpacking the events and perspectives of what I’m reading. Starting this novel, right away I was hooked! Being inside the mind of a corpse is certainly an interesting and rare perspective. I felt like right away I wanted to know more and understand Ana Maria. I didn’t just want to know about the things she experienced in her life or the people that made her life what it was. I also wanted to know how she felt that summer day she remembers so vividly in her coffin, how she felt when she got pregnant, when she lost the baby or when she saw the love of her life for the first time. Even though a lot of her thoughts are incomplete, that didn’t take away from the story telling. Because it didn’t feel like she was telling me (the reader) anything, she was merely thinking and recounting her life and I was given what felt like private access to her thoughts. She didn’t even know I was there. The reason I felt this way was because of how intimate her thoughts were. Especially when I realized that she could see and feel the things and people around her. She could see her children and husband coming to say goodbye to her. How repulsed she felt when Antonio came up to her to touch her and say goodbye to her. She hated it as she held so much resentment towards him, which wasn’t necessarily his fault. She only felt some empathy towards him when she was a wrinkle she hadn’t noticed before. It made her realize that he too was human, aging and eventually dying. 

Ana Maria was a very emotional person throughout her life. She had a deep sense of connectedness to nature and her experiences often left a deep emotional impact on her. I’m going to end this post with a question about love that she herself posed that I thought was interesting to explore as well as a reflection of how she viewed her experiences with love: 'Is it that all those who were born to love acted like she did, hiding, minute by minute, what was most vital inside one’s self?' 



read full post >>
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The Shrouded Woman

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading “The Shrouded Woman” by Maria Luisa Bombal. I found that I became interested in the story and plot right away compared to the books that we have previously read in this course. Throughout the entirety of the process of reading the novel I experienced a wide array of emotions. I think […] read full post >>
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