I found this novella quite unusual and compelling as it tries to narrate through an unusual character the story of a country and the state of Latin America’s literary talent and tradition in an unconventional and dreamlike voice. Auxilio Lacouture, whose first name comes from the Latin “auxilium” and as mentioned in Dr. Jon’s video, […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with enigma, literature, memory, Mystery
For this week, we were given the task of reading Amulet by Robert Bolaño. I found this to be one of the best books we’ve read in this course so far. This book, like many of the other ones, have the consistent theme of memory, and I think repetition. The story is one long monologue, […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Chile, history, history of the future, literature, memory, Mexico, narrative, poet, Poetry, poverty, recollection, sad, sadness, trauma, Weekly Book Blog
Hey everyone, The fact that this novel starts with “This is going to be a horror story,” made me expect to feel fear while reading this. Elements of the horror usually include suspense or surprise but the narrator was right in saying that the way this story is told was not nearly as scary to […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Bathroom, Leave, literature, repetition, romancestudies, romanceworld, romanticliterature, time, ubc
Amulet was a book that was hard to put down. I enjoyed the style of writing tremendously, throughout the book, even though the narrator told us that her memories were unreliable (a recurring theme in books we’re reading) I did not care. Every story she told was captivating and every character she introduced was dynamic and interesting. This was a horror story, like any story about a trauma. But like it was mentioned in the lecture, the unsettling aspects of the story happened ‘off screen’. We didn’t directly witness them. She was hiding in the bathroom and had very little idea what was going on outside – terrifying!
The characters I enjoyed reading about the most were the women. There was Elena, with whom Auxilio shared a lot of time and had a friendship she valued. Elena had a limp and she was in love with a man who was leaving soon. The last time Auxilio sees Elena, she contemplates running after her and giving her a hug. She decides against it and never sees Elena again, although she imagines seeing her in random places including on campus. Another interesting female character was Lilian who Auxilio seemed to be jealous of as she believed that she was the real mother of Mexican poetry. She was beautiful (and had all her teeth, she didn’t need to cover her mouth when she spoke!), she was living off of selling art and didn’t seem to struggle financially as much as Auxilio, she had many lovers which Auxilio hadn’t and she slept with Che Gevara (and thought he was ‘normal’, but what is normal!). What made her even more interesting is that we see her coming out of the painter’s house (I’m forgetting her name). The painter Auxilio was very excited to meet, wanted to stay at her house and was refused. Why was Lilian hiding in there? Why did the painter lie about having her there?
I’m generally not a big fan of realism, I read multiple books by Marquez and did not really enjoy them – not his popular ones anyway – the book that I enjoyed was Chronicles of a Death Foretold. However, I did not feel the same way about Bolano’s writing. I thought there was a lot of beauty in his choices of words even when describing the mundane. The details painted images in my memory and even though it was indeed a horror story, I found the writing to be calming and far from boring.
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with literature, Realism
Amulet was a book that was hard to put down. I enjoyed the style of writing tremendously, throughout the book, even though the narrator told us that her memories were unreliable (a recurring theme in books we’re reading) I did not care. Every story she told was captivating and every character she introduced was dynamic and interesting. This was a horror story, like any story about a trauma. But like it was mentioned in the lecture, the unsettling aspects of the story happened ‘off screen’. We didn’t directly witness them. She was hiding in the bathroom and had very little idea what was going on outside – terrifying!
The characters I enjoyed reading about the most were the women. There was Elena, with whom Auxilio shared a lot of time and had a friendship she valued. Elena had a limp and she was in love with a man who was leaving soon. The last time Auxilio sees Elena, she contemplates running after her and giving her a hug. She decides against it and never sees Elena again, although she imagines seeing her in random places including on campus. Another interesting female character was Lilian who Auxilio seemed to be jealous of as she believed that she was the real mother of Mexican poetry. She was beautiful (and had all her teeth, she didn’t need to cover her mouth when she spoke!), she was living off of selling art and didn’t seem to struggle financially as much as Auxilio, she had many lovers which Auxilio hadn’t and she slept with Che Gevara (and thought he was ‘normal’, but what is normal!). What made her even more interesting is that we see her coming out of the painter’s house (I’m forgetting her name). The painter Auxilio was very excited to meet, wanted to stay at her house and was refused. Why was Lilian hiding in there? Why did the painter lie about having her there?
I’m generally not a big fan of realism, I read multiple books by Marquez and did not really enjoy them – not his popular ones anyway – the book that I enjoyed was Chronicles of a Death Foretold. However, I did not feel the same way about Bolano’s writing. I thought there was a lot of beauty in his choices of words even when describing the mundane. The details painted images in my memory and even though it was indeed a horror story, I found the writing to be calming and far from boring.
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with literature, Realism
I really liked this novel, it was a very intriguing and even suspenseful read. The fact that this novel is set in Mexico at a time of great political unrest is what makes it both unnerving and interesting at the same time. The opening lines of the story immediately catches the reader’s interest and successfully […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with literature, political unrest, reflections, Week11
When I was sitting there reading Amulet, it felt like someone was sitting in front of me, quietly reading her story, a story like a poem, but the content of this book is about violence. This is like a combination of violence and cause, showing the sad atmosphere to the reader bit by bit. From … Continue reading Review of Amulet →
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with literature, Romance Studies, week 10
The Amulet was a book that surprised me. Initially, I thought we would be looking at a typical horror story with detailed violence, but this one was a different kind of horror. I believe that I can call this book a horrific one because being stuck in one place and not able to leave is claustrophobic. On top of the movement that was going on, the fact that someone could take her is terrifying. Especially if you are a young student trapped, I couldn’t imagine how scared and confused I would be. She was stuck in the Philosophy and Literature section of the university, which she repeated a lot in the text. This repetition is significant because she was able to read literature and occupy her time in remembering her past and engaging in poetry. In the time she spent locked away, she was lonely, and feeling needs of deprivation and hunger started to arise in her. As human beings, we seek out interaction and personal relationships. A human cannot survive in isolation; it has significant detrimental effects on the brain. One of Auxilio’s coping skills was to immerse herself in her past life and remember all her memories as if they were occurring now to occupy her brain in this time of loneliness. It was her comfort tool. I am still confused by the book’s chronology as she talks about her past as if it was in the past, but over time, the chronology gets blurred as her memories become more fragmented. She talks about things occurring in the future which makes me think. How does she know this? The question I have is, what was the significance of the future? Was she talking about the future or recollecting her past from the point of view of her past self before it occurred?
After watching the lecture, I know that the themes and feelings of the movement are memories of the survivors of this attack. Bolano creates this book as a time capsule for future generations to see and uncover how it felt to be alive in that time. The future dates appearing in the novel create this feeling of a time capsule and that things will be discovered in later years. Exactly what a time capsule is. A quote that made me genuinely think that this book represents a time capsule was:
“And although the song that I heard was about war, about the heroic deeds of a whole generation of young Latin Americans led to sacrifice, I knew that above and beyond all, it was about courage and mirrors, desire and pleasure.”
This quote mentions how the movement affected the lives of the Latin American youth and how it was brutal and a sacrifice (which is obvious). But later, people would find out the true story hidden behind the movement. It was about their courage and ability to survive in such a hard place. This story is the time capsule Bolano has created for future generations to read and learn.
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with dreaming, future, literature, memory, Poetry, politics, violence, war
The Amulet was a book that surprised me. Initially, I thought we would be looking at a typical horror story with detailed violence, but this one was a different kind of horror. I believe that I can call this book a horrific one because being stuck in one place and not able to leave is claustrophobic. On top of the movement that was going on, the fact that someone could take her is terrifying. Especially if you are a young student trapped, I couldn’t imagine how scared and confused I would be. She was stuck in the Philosophy and Literature section of the university, which she repeated a lot in the text. This repetition is significant because she was able to read literature and occupy her time in remembering her past and engaging in poetry. In the time she spent locked away, she was lonely, and feeling needs of deprivation and hunger started to arise in her. As human beings, we seek out interaction and personal relationships. A human cannot survive in isolation; it has significant detrimental effects on the brain. One of Auxilio’s coping skills was to immerse herself in her past life and remember all her memories as if they were occurring now to occupy her brain in this time of loneliness. It was her comfort tool. I am still confused by the book’s chronology as she talks about her past as if it was in the past, but over time, the chronology gets blurred as her memories become more fragmented. She talks about things occurring in the future which makes me think. How does she know this? The question I have is, what was the significance of the future? Was she talking about the future or recollecting her past from the point of view of her past self before it occurred?
After watching the lecture, I know that the themes and feelings of the movement are memories of the survivors of this attack. Bolano creates this book as a time capsule for future generations to see and uncover how it felt to be alive in that time. The future dates appearing in the novel create this feeling of a time capsule and that things will be discovered in later years. Exactly what a time capsule is. A quote that made me genuinely think that this book represents a time capsule was:
“And although the song that I heard was about war, about the heroic deeds of a whole generation of young Latin Americans led to sacrifice, I knew that above and beyond all, it was about courage and mirrors, desire and pleasure.”
This quote mentions how the movement affected the lives of the Latin American youth and how it was brutal and a sacrifice (which is obvious). But later, people would find out the true story hidden behind the movement. It was about their courage and ability to survive in such a hard place. This story is the time capsule Bolano has created for future generations to read and learn.
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with dreaming, future, literature, memory, Poetry, politics, violence, war
“All she, and Bolaño, can do is ensure that the echoes of their song, the traces of that generosity and courage, endure as both promise and warning.” This statement from Professor Beasley-Murray, for me, was a very precise one-sentence summary of the meaning behind Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet. Indeed, this story seems to be the living […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with history, literature, Magic Realism, modernism, recollection, Symbolism, temporality, war
