This book was weird. When I started reading it I enjoyed it, I liked GH’s narration and felt the plot would be somewhat entertaining to follow. The way she described cleaning and “arranging” her home now that her maid had quit, the way she described the immaculate design of the room that had previously been […]
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with class, death, Disorganization, literature, Mania, perception, Symbolism
Reading this book was in a word.. frustrating. I normally quite enjoy novels without a plot, it’s always exciting reading a person’s unfiltered, unaltered thoughts and that’s what I expected when I started to read this book. I was also excited that G.H addressed me asking me to hold her hand. It is hard to explain why I enjoyed that so much at the beginning but later came to be repulsed by it. She was stuck in that room with the cockroach and I was stuck listening to her ramblings.
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G.H is rich, privileged, creative and bored. She walks into the room of the cleaning lady who has lived with her for years. As she walks into the room, she has trouble remembering her name and face. She lived in a bubble and did not care much about things around her. This may not be because she’s self-centered, but rather because her head is such a mess! I hate saying this as someone who claims to be interested in psychology but how else could I refer to this? I sit with G.H in that room with a cockroach as she starts losing her sense of self and sense of reality. I had to picture the white and later yellow matter oozing out of the cockroach. The cockroach that was stuck between life and death just like she was stuck inside her head between reality and psychosis.
Whenever I start a novel, I avoid reading or knowing anything about it. I think it makes for a much different experience. Last week, reading Bonjour Tristesse, I started reading thinking Tristesse was a character’s name and kept waiting for them to show up, ha! In this case however, I wish I knew that I was going to be reading 160 pages of random ramblings leading up to her EATING the roach!
Earlier in the book some of the things she said made very little sense to me, while others I could relate to. However, halfway into the book, I did not want to relate or agree with anything she said! When I finished the book, I thought I just didn’t like it, but as I am reflecting now I realize that it had aroused very strong feelings in me. Not positive feelings, mind you. And that’s what makes it hard to allow myself to be interested in her thoughts and perspective on what it means to be human. What God is. Tedium. Love. Abandonment. All the topics that otherwise I would love to hear someone’s thoughts on, but not her! I’m wondering if you’ve also had strong feelings towards G.H as well? Do you pity her? Loathe her? Like her? Normally, she would be someone I’d feel bad for but I really don’t and I can’t articulate why.
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with literature, tedium
Reading this book was in a word.. frustrating. I normally quite enjoy novels without a plot, it’s always exciting reading a person’s unfiltered, unaltered thoughts and that’s what I expected when I started to read this book. I was also excited that G.H addressed me asking me to hold her hand. It is hard to explain why I enjoyed that so much at the beginning but later came to be repulsed by it. She was stuck in that room with the cockroach and I was stuck listening to her ramblings.
x
G.H is rich, privileged, creative and bored. She walks into the room of the cleaning lady who has lived with her for years. As she walks into the room, she has trouble remembering her name and face. She lived in a bubble and did not care much about things around her. This may not be because she’s self-centered, but rather because her head is such a mess! I hate saying this as someone who claims to be interested in psychology but how else could I refer to this? I sit with G.H in that room with a cockroach as she starts losing her sense of self and sense of reality. I had to picture the white and later yellow matter oozing out of the cockroach. The cockroach that was stuck between life and death just like she was stuck inside her head between reality and psychosis.
Whenever I start a novel, I avoid reading or knowing anything about it. I think it makes for a much different experience. Last week, reading Bonjour Tristesse, I started reading thinking Tristesse was a character’s name and kept waiting for them to show up, ha! In this case however, I wish I knew that I was going to be reading 160 pages of random ramblings leading up to her EATING the roach!
Earlier in the book some of the things she said made very little sense to me, while others I could relate to. However, halfway into the book, I did not want to relate or agree with anything she said! When I finished the book, I thought I just didn’t like it, but as I am reflecting now I realize that it had aroused very strong feelings in me. Not positive feelings, mind you. And that’s what makes it hard to allow myself to be interested in her thoughts and perspective on what it means to be human. What God is. Tedium. Love. Abandonment. All the topics that otherwise I would love to hear someone’s thoughts on, but not her! I’m wondering if you’ve also had strong feelings towards G.H as well? Do you pity her? Loathe her? Like her? Normally, she would be someone I’d feel bad for but I really don’t and I can’t articulate why.
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with literature, tedium
Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a restful reading break. I spent the past week really taking my time to read The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda. This book has somehow taken the longest for me to read so far, possibly because I had the most time to read it. I found […]
Posted in Blogs, Rodoreda | Tagged with doves, literature, Natalia, Quimet, romancestudies, romanceworld, romanticliterature, ubc
I was passionately engaged while reading The Time of the Doves, mainly for two reasons. First of all, I really enjoyed the narrative of the novel. I felt like the first-person narration of Natalia made the narrative more credible. Normally, first-person narratives are less credible than a “neutral” third-person view, but since this story was […]
Posted in Blogs, Rodoreda | Tagged with Bricolage, Construction, family, gender, literature, narrative, Recovery, Relationship, temporality, war
When I finish reading Bonjour Tristesse, as a reader, I felt a variety of emotions, including anger, regret, and sadness. Maybe because of my upbringing and my education, I didn’t like this book very much. How did a nineteen-year-old girl come up with such a light-hearted storey? On such a lovely summer day, with beach, … Continue reading Sagan, Françoise. Bonjour Tristesse. Reply →
Posted in Blogs, Sagan | Tagged with Françoise, literature, Romance Studies
To begin with, I found Bonjour Tristesse to be quite an intriguing, if a bit desolate, read. Sagan’s descriptions, especially when he focuses on the French upper class in the beginning of the twentieth century has an almost lyrical, romantic feel to it. What caught my interest the most the more I read of the novel was […]
Posted in Blogs, Sagan | Tagged with emotions, feelings, literature, reflections, relationships
With each reading we have read, the easier and more enjoyable they are. I wonder if I’m getting better at reading translated works, as I originally found them tricky to digest, or if they are simply more interesting or are written using easier language. Perhaps for this one, it’s the fact that the narrator is […]
Posted in Blogs, Sagan | Tagged with cecile, hellosadness, literature, romancestudies, romanticliterature, ubc
Hey everyone, My name is Tiffani and I am a second-year student in the Faculty of Arts, hoping to major in Sociology. I have always been the most interested in English classes throughout secondary school and spent some time contemplating majoring in English Literature. However, I lack strength in my reading abilities due to learning […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with Introduction, literature, romancestudies, romanceworld, romanticliterature, ubc
