Student Blogs

I quite miss the days of reading a book and not worrying that the main character is going to perform some questionable acts in the name of being unhealthily attached or attracted to his mother. But alas, here we go again. I don’t think Agostino is meant to be a comfortable read, and I fear […] read full post >>

I actually quite liked this one despite how long it was. Though I can’t tell how much of the writing style is Laforet and how much is the translation, it’s by far my favourite so far (though the bar is low). I’m starting to think it may not be the texts that are the issue […] read full post >>

Reading Agostino was a very unsettling but yet eye-opening about growing up too quickly, as Moravia shows adolescence not as an exciting transition, but something that I believe a lot of people can relate to which is confusing, and painful. Agosto’s relationship with his mother starts out as a very close one as they would […] read full post >>

  Wow, Nada was an interesting, interesting read. It follows the story of a young girl post Spanish civil war moving to attend university. Our protagonist Andrea moves in with her extended family who seems to have lost almost everything due to the war, given that they were quite well off before the war. I […] read full post >>

I have no words. In starting this book, I did not expect the book to pan out in the way that it had. There are so many aspects of the book that sent shivers of disgust through my body, yet also evoked a sense of pity and understanding for Agostino’s coming of age. One instance is the mixed role of... read full post >>

I kind of saw this coming if I am being completely honest, since the professor did give us a head-up in class that the main character would have “mommy issues”. I did NOT estimate for once how intense, and filled with these wide range of thoughts this novel would get. My impression of purely the […] read full post >>

Stories have to start somewhere, but even stories have stories. To answer the question of “backstories”, and how important they are to novels, well they are quite significant, even if not directly shown. For example, to understand the atrocious history of the Spanish Civil War, we find a backstory to give context to Andrea, our […] read full post >>

When I think about Nada, what stays with me most is how difficult it is to explain what the novel is “about” without saying that not much really happens. Andrea arrives in Barcelona full of expectation, spends a year surrounded by hunger, tension, and emotional decay, and then leaves feeling like she has gained nothing. […] read full post >>

At the beginning of the book, I was immediately hit by the environment and emotions of Andrea who was arriving in Barcelona with lots of hope. Soon after arriving the harsh atmosphere of the home created by her relatives became clear. The home was small, but was heavy with tension that I found myself finding […] read full post >>

Reading Nada honestly felt kind of heavy, but in a way that stuck with me. It follows Andrea, a young woman who moves to Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War to start university. She shows up excited and hopeful, imagining this new chapter of her life, and then almost immediately that optimism gets crushed. The […] read full post >>

This book was unsatisfying in so many ways: the novel felt extremely unfinished by the end due to Agostino’s glaringly evident “mommy issues,” self-centered personality and the lack of character development.   Agostino’s Oedipus complex has got to be a primary source for Freud’s central psychoanalytic theory TT. He beings being utterly infatuated with his […] read full post >>

Well what a read! I couldn’t put the book down once I started. Through couch reading, reading while cooking, dinner reading, and back to the couch reading, this book kept me engaged and not knowing what would come next. Agostino started off weirdly, I thought he might have some Oedipus issues, but soon I realized … read full post >>

Reading Nada felt emotionally heavy for me, not because of dramatic events, but because of how much is left unresolved. There is no intense plot pushing the story forward and no clear moment of triumph or closure. Instead, the novel feels like a reflection of real life, where things don’t always get better in obvious […] read full post >>

I'm quite confident in my prediction that the whole class thought of Freud when they opened this book up. The character dynamics undeniably parallel what is spoken about in Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, where famously claims that "while... read full post >>

I'm quite confident in my prediction that the whole class thought of Freud when they opened this book up. The character dynamics undeniably parallel what is spoken about in Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, where famously claims that "while... read full post >>