I was very excited to read “Death with Interruptions” since I thought the idea of imagining a world without death was so fascinating. This book is obviously fictionalized, but many aspects of it feel very realistic. Death is such a complex idea that is imagined very differently across various individuals, cultures, and religions. For myself […]
Posted in Blogs, Saramago | Tagged with death, gender, life, purpose
The Lover by Marguerite Duras. I cannot say I enjoyed reading this week’s novel as much as I thought I would. Maybe because it was confusing, with the change of perspectives and no clear chronological timeline throughout the novel but with different paragraphs mentioning different events or people in the girl’s life. One page would […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with class, ew, gender, love, pedophilia, race, relationships, The Lover
Jon actually approached me at the start of the last class as I was reading this book. He asked me how I felt about it and honestly I did not have an answer for him. I kept flip flopping between who genuinely was the problem in this book and I think that’s what Duras wanted. …
Posted in Blogs, Duras | Tagged with addiction, class, coming of age, family, family dynamics, gender, girlhood, I hate men, pedophile, poverty, race, sexuality, youth
“The Lover” left me in a state of perplexity long after I had finished reading the novel not because of its plot, but because of its power dynamics between Duras and her lover, the Chinese man. I find the title “The Lover” intriguing because it seems to me that Duras refuses to be identified as […]
Posted in Blogs, Duras | Tagged with class, gender, memories, narration, race
The novel ‘The Lover’ is an autobiographical account of a young girl’s affair with an old man. At first, I found this novel a little absurd as it is something different from what I have read before but then as I read further, it became a little clear as to what the author was trying […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with aging, gender, loss, love, poverty
Marguerite Duras, The Lover
Posted in Duras lecture, Lecture Videos | Tagged with Asia, autobiography, Colonialism, gender, love, post colonialism, power, race, sexuality, Vietnam, writing
I felt that this novel perfectly encapsulated what it is like to write an essay. Even while writing this blogpost I am struggling to pinpoint exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it. I find myself wanting to plan it out from beginning to end, with an intro, middle, and […]
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with childhood, class, Empathy, gender, identity, isolation, narrative, perspective, poverty
Hey everyone! I just finished reading “The Hour of the Star” by Clarice Lispector which was a great read that explored many different themes we have discussed previously in class. The story revolves around Macabea, a young woman from northeastern Brazil, whose life is explained through the eyes of the narrator, Rodrigo S.M. This format […]
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with class, desire, Dreams, framing, gender, history, life, narration, sexism