Reading Black Shack Alley felt heavier than I expected. At first, it seems like a familiar story about a smart kid escaping poverty through education, but the more I read, the more uncomfortable that idea became. José’s success never feels fully like a victory. Instead, it feels complicated, almost like a trade-off where something important […]
While I was reading Black Shack Alley, I honestly thought this was going to be another cliche novel where a poor kid goes to school, works hard, and has a good life. END OF STORY. But as I kept reading and after I watched the lecture, I realized the author wasn’t really focusing on the […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with black shack alley, Joseph Zobel
Deep Rivers was oddly inspiring yet challenging. I say inspiring because I love the notion of Ernesto travelling across many towns with his father, the author takes you into his perspective of curiosity and willingness to learn and it makes me want to explore more of the world, even if its in the same country […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with book-review, book-reviews, books, fiction, Uncategorized, writing
I found Deep Rivers to be a bit of a slow read. I liked how the Quechua language was incorporated into the book. The translations and explanations of the words really moved the story forward and although I found myself forgetting a lot of them and having to look back for their translations, I enjoyed learning something new. I was…
Reading “Deep Rivers” was a challenge for me, possibly the most difficult read so far. I still liked it a lot. But Ernesto was impenetrable to me; he didn’t fit into my preconceived notions of what a protagonist should be like or like. Especially compared to previous books in this course I read like the […]
Posted in Arguedas, Blogs | Tagged with language, narration, reading, youth
Reading Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas kinda messed with my head. It feels less like learning a story and more like learning how to perceive the world differently. Rather than explaining Peru’s colonial history or Indigenous suffering in direct terms, Arguedas filters everything through Ernesto’s body: what he touches, hears, and feels before he […]
Posted in Arguedas, Blogs | Tagged with Colonialism, Deep Rivers, Uncategorized
Some books gently invite you into their world. Deep Rivers absolutely does not. It grabs you by the shoulders, points at a wall, and says: “This stone is alive. Deal with it.” And honestly? I kind of loved that. José María Arguedas’s Deep Rivers is a novel where nothing stays quiet. Rivers bleed, stones move, […]
Posted in Arguedas, Blogs | Tagged with DeepRivers, Uncategorized
To me, this book illustrated how colonialism remains deeply embedded across Latin American societies. The main character, Ernesto, is a mestizo (mixed) boy, and as a result, he feels torn between understanding and exploring both sides of his heritage. …
Posted in Arguedas, Blogs | Tagged with Colonialism, Deep Rivers, Outsider
To me, this book illustrated how colonialism remains deeply embedded across Latin American societies. The main character, Ernesto, is a mestizo (mixed) boy, and as a result, he feels torn between understanding and exploring both sides of his heritage. …
Posted in Arguedas, Blogs | Tagged with Colonialism, Deep Rivers, Outsider
Overall a fun-ish read! I think this novel Deep Rivers was very interesting and I especially like the authors descriptive writing style. Throughout the book there was a strong focus on Indigeneity which was shown in many ways. To me the representation of Indigenous culture through nature and music stood out the most. In Ernesto’s […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with Uncategorized
