Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli depicts a woman living in Mexico City with her husband and children, writing a novel about a woman living in New York City. It is not clear whether this story is the past life of the writer, or if these memories are just fictitious creations. Just like the […]
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with class, family, fiction, gender, identity, memory, narrative, Realism, relationships, sexuality, Surrealism, temporality, time, truth, writing
Welcome to the last book review of the semester! This week I read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, and I am so happy this was the last book. It is a coming-of-age book (so on brand for this class) about two girls in a poor neighbourhood in Naples. The story starts with an older […]
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with book review, book-reviews, books, childhood, family, fiction, friendship, Italy, literature, love, money, socioeconomic status
Throughout this course, I’ve only relied on the PDF versions to read. But, for the first time, I decided to buy the physical copy and it honestly helped make my reading experience better as I felt I was able to better connect with the story leaving me with more questions in the end. There was no […]
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Damn. Just as I thought I was getting a hang of this reading and understanding thing. What a way to ring in the end of this course with one of the most mind bending and confusing narratives I have ever read. I thoroughly despised every moment of reading this. I in no way feels I grasped […]
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with ass, cheeks, final one, in need of a redemption book
For the last week of readings, I chose Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli. I’m not gonna lie, after reading blogs about the other novel we could choose for this week, I kind of wish I read the other one to write about instead because I truly don’t …
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with fiction, reminiscing, writing
For the last week of readings, I chose Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli. I’m not gonna lie, after reading blogs about the other novel we could choose for this week, I kind of wish I read the other one to write about instead because I truly don’t …
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with fiction, reminiscing, writing
“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.” (Alcott, Little Women) A wearying message arrives to Elena: Her friend has vanished. Yet, […]
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with communism, duality, education, Feminism, girlhood, life, poverty, society, Womanhood
This one reminded me of my best friend Rachel. (warning: this is a trauma dump) In “My Brilliant Friend”‘, Ferrante illustrates class, gender and language through the friendship of two little girls as we progress to see them turn into adolescent women. Since Jon had already discussed the societal problems in this book, I would …
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with Best friends, class, coming of age, gender, girlhood, language
Here we are, (technically) my last blog post EVER for RMST 202. I know we still have our conclusion blog posts to write, but this is the last blog post on the last book of the course. Now, THAT is a milestone to celebrate, but it’s very bittersweet. I feel like I say this every […]
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with ghosts, reality, time
“I know I need to generate a structure full of holes so that I can always find a place for myself on the page, inhabit it; I have to remember never to put in more than is necessary, never overlay, never furnish or adorn.” (Luiselli, 10) Describing a book that profoundly impacts you can feel […]
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with Fragmentation, identity, Imagined, motherhood, reality, time