Questions on The Time of the Doves
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Although I found this book difficult to read, it was a novel that I had enjoyed very much. One thing that I found very interesting in the novel “The Time of the Doves” by Mercè Rodereda was that the way it is written seems to be very descriptive. I am not sure if this is just because of the way that I had read or personally perceived the novel, but it had seemed like the language had described a lot more than just the situation or plot or context at hand. The novel seemed to deeply describe feelings as well as emotions that I could not have pictured being described in that way or at all prior to reading this text. It seems as though this novel dives subconsciously into details about the character as well as her emotions or feelings and it leads to a more comfortable and a genuine as a reader. It helps me to better understand both the novel and the main character, Natalia, as well as develop a perception of the character and understand her thoughts within this novel. This leads me to my question which is, does the high description in the novel have any correlation with it being translated from its original language?
Another point in the novel that surprised me was a certain quote, “Quimet has said we’d meet at three-thirty and he didn’t show up till four-thirty; but I didn’t say anything because I thought maybe I hadn’t heard him right and it was me who’d made a mistake and since he didn’t even say half a word of apology … I was afraid to tell him my feet hurt from standing up so long because I was wearing very hot patent leather shoes and how a young man had taken liberties with me.” (20)
This surprised me because I never really associated the concept of overthinking, or to be more specific, the concept of overthinking as being something that is generally normalized or romanticized in society, as something that would be consistent with the time frame that this text was written. Something that I think is normalized in today’s society is overthinking in relationships, friendships, etc. and although it is a normal and natural human trait that is timeless, I did not expect to see an emphasis on it aside from the one that is currently used on overthinking in the society of today. By this I mean when Natalia assumes that she had not heard Quimet right and that she had been the one that had made a mistake, therefore excusing Quimet’s lateness and ultimately blaming it on herself. I just pictured this as something that is so relevant in today’s society that for some reason I didn’t put two and two together and see that this is something that has happened throughout time. Overall, this was a great novel and a beautiful read.
Although I found this book difficult to read, it was a novel that I had enjoyed very much. One thing that I found very interesting in the novel “The Time of the Doves” by Mercè Rodereda was that the way it is written seems to be very descriptive. I am not sure if this is just because of the way that I had read or personally perceived the novel, but it had seemed like the language had described a lot more than just the situation or plot or context at hand. The novel seemed to deeply describe feelings as well as emotions that I could not have pictured being described in that way or at all prior to reading this text. It seems as though this novel dives subconsciously into details about the character as well as her emotions or feelings and it leads to a more comfortable and a genuine as a reader. It helps me to better understand both the novel and the main character, Natalia, as well as develop a perception of the character and understand her thoughts within this novel. This leads me to my question which is, does the high description in the novel have any correlation with it being translated from its original language?
Another point in the novel that surprised me was a certain quote, “Quimet has said we’d meet at three-thirty and he didn’t show up till four-thirty; but I didn’t say anything because I thought maybe I hadn’t heard him right and it was me who’d made a mistake and since he didn’t even say half a word of apology … I was afraid to tell him my feet hurt from standing up so long because I was wearing very hot patent leather shoes and how a young man had taken liberties with me.” (20)
This surprised me because I never really associated the concept of overthinking, or to be more specific, the concept of overthinking as being something that is generally normalized or romanticized in society, as something that would be consistent with the time frame that this text was written. Something that I think is normalized in today’s society is overthinking in relationships, friendships, etc. and although it is a normal and natural human trait that is timeless, I did not expect to see an emphasis on it aside from the one that is currently used on overthinking in the society of today. By this I mean when Natalia assumes that she had not heard Quimet right and that she had been the one that had made a mistake, therefore excusing Quimet’s lateness and ultimately blaming it on herself. I just pictured this as something that is so relevant in today’s society that for some reason I didn’t put two and two together and see that this is something that has happened throughout time. Overall, this was a great novel and a beautiful read.
Although Mercè Rodoreda’s The Time of Doves was a fairly easy read with its short chapters and simple narrative style, I found myself getting frustrated with a particular character. In particular, my frustration wasn’t caused by the actions of the narrator, Natalia, but instead revolves around her love interest, Quimet. Quimet displayed a few red flags […]
Hey everyone! The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda was quite a peculiar read. The story was a bit…
In Diamond Square (aka The Time of The Doves, The Pigeon Girl, and The First Half Was A Drag But We Got Going In The Second Half) was surprisingly difficult for me to get through. I really expected to zoom through this relatively short book because I’m interested in the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship, and because my copy has an endorsement from Gabriel Garcia Marquez on the front cover. In hindsight, I should’ve known to not pay too much attention to that praise though, because I’m not even a big fan of his novels either. Oh well.
It was only towards the end of the novel when I started to connect some dots about why it was a difficult read. Throughout the book, Rodoreda uses a combination of short, simple sentences, and some very long ones like “Another father was carrying a young boy round his neck and he was clutching a small white front with a blue silk bow and twinkling diamond star, and the crowd was pushing the two fathers, and without noticing, they got closer and closer until the boy started snatching cherries from Matthew’s daughter’s front and by the time we cottoned on half the frond was missing its cherries.” (p22). That is a very long sentence. By the way, the translation I read has different names for the characters than the Time of the Doves translation, in case you were wondering about who Matthew is.
Rodoreda also has some “paragraphs” that I only call paragraphs for lack of a better word because they literally go on for pages. Not a single indentation. My English teachers are screaming, and all the old prescriptivist linguists are rolling in their graves. Chapter 35 has an example of a 3-page-long paragraph. And on top of that, she has an awful lot of sentences that start with ‘and’ (see what I did there?) I was going to make another comment on the traditional grammarians being upset again but I’ll give benefit of the doubt that the language ‘rules’ are different in Catalan. Though I frequently got frustrated with the long paragraphs and the abundance of ands, having to reread parts multiple times because my eyes were just skipping across the page, I finally realised that maybe this was all just another reflection into Natalia’s mind.
If that’s the case, then Rodoreda certainly pulled it off effectively because how can a narrator who’s on the way to insanity narrate all of her story in a comfortable, easily-digestible way? After finishing the book I felt a little silly at my assumption that I should find the narrative easy to comprehend. Why should I have to expect clarity and coherence from a narrator who herself is having difficulty with those things?
Truthfully, this novel was quite humbling for me to read, and definitely tempered my expectations of a book; sometimes you’re not meant to find reading easy – though some writers make everyone’s life difficult just to show off their grandiose lexicon, sometimes there’s a legitimate reason for making your reader labour through your writing.
I was going to talk more about certain themes in the novel but instead I got on my soapbox about sentence length and paragraphs-that-really-shouldn’t-be-considered-paragraphs. I guess I’ll pass that on to you all. My question is: What is the significance of the pigeons? What do they represent? Are they even a symbol at all? Am I just overthinking things?
In Diamond Square (aka The Time of The Doves, The Pigeon Girl, and The First Half Was A Drag But We Got Going In The Second Half) was surprisingly difficult for me to get through. I really expected to zoom through this relatively short book because I’m interested in the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship, and because my copy has an endorsement from Gabriel Garcia Marquez on the front cover. In hindsight, I should’ve known to not pay too much attention to that praise though, because I’m not even a big fan of his novels either. Oh well.
It was only towards the end of the novel when I started to connect some dots about why it was a difficult read. Throughout the book, Rodoreda uses a combination of short, simple sentences, and some very long ones like “Another father was carrying a young boy round his neck and he was clutching a small white front with a blue silk bow and twinkling diamond star, and the crowd was pushing the two fathers, and without noticing, they got closer and closer until the boy started snatching cherries from Matthew’s daughter’s front and by the time we cottoned on half the frond was missing its cherries.” (p22). That is a very long sentence. By the way, the translation I read has different names for the characters than the Time of the Doves translation, in case you were wondering about who Matthew is.
Rodoreda also has some “paragraphs” that I only call paragraphs for lack of a better word because they literally go on for pages. Not a single indentation. My English teachers are screaming, and all the old prescriptivist linguists are rolling in their graves. Chapter 35 has an example of a 3-page-long paragraph. And on top of that, she has an awful lot of sentences that start with ‘and’ (see what I did there?) I was going to make another comment on the traditional grammarians being upset again but I’ll give benefit of the doubt that the language ‘rules’ are different in Catalan. Though I frequently got frustrated with the long paragraphs and the abundance of ands, having to reread parts multiple times because my eyes were just skipping across the page, I finally realised that maybe this was all just another reflection into Natalia’s mind.
If that’s the case, then Rodoreda certainly pulled it off effectively because how can a narrator who’s on the way to insanity narrate all of her story in a comfortable, easily-digestible way? After finishing the book I felt a little silly at my assumption that I should find the narrative easy to comprehend. Why should I have to expect clarity and coherence from a narrator who herself is having difficulty with those things?
Truthfully, this novel was quite humbling for me to read, and definitely tempered my expectations of a book; sometimes you’re not meant to find reading easy – though some writers make everyone’s life difficult just to show off their grandiose lexicon, sometimes there’s a legitimate reason for making your reader labour through your writing.
I was going to talk more about certain themes in the novel but instead I got on my soapbox about sentence length and paragraphs-that-really-shouldn’t-be-considered-paragraphs. I guess I’ll pass that on to you all. My question is: What is the significance of the pigeons? What do they represent? Are they even a symbol at all? Am I just overthinking things?
In the critical lens, I can hypothesize that Natalia may have betrayed people in her lens to be economically smart so in that sense it can be justified. However, not once in the text could I describe her as happy. Intelligent, beautiful, insightful? Perhaps, but definitely filled with melancholy in every domain of her […]
This week I read “the Time of The Doves” by Merce Rodoreda. I found this book to be a great read. Throughout the novel I felt a sense of deep empathy for Natalia the main character. Without her mother around and with an unsupportive father, Natalia was lead/forced into many decisions throughout her life time […]
