The novel, “Soldiers of Salamis” by Javier Cercas is an interesting mix of war, memory, and imagination. I enjoyed the novel as a story, especially with its “happy ending” and open end. One of the main aspects of this novel would be its mix of reality and imagination. While it includes real people’s names and … Continue reading Week 11: Cercas’s “Soldiers of Salamis” →
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with fiction, history, Imagination, memory, reality, Romance Studies, story, war, Weekly Posts
I found this week’s reading to be intriguing, really informative and pretty emotional. I haven’t really ever known much about the civil war in Spain and I found that through the interviews and piecing stories together I was able to … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs, Cercas | Tagged with Fact vs fiction, Javier, memory
Roberto Bolano’s “Amulet” is a unique tale which, in its focus on character development in a time of political violence, makes a more potent statement about human perseverance. The perspective is the student Lacouture hiding in the bathroom of UNAM from the army coming to crush the student protest movement. On the surface, it appears […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Entries, memory, politics, violence
While reading the scenes within the university buildings and corridors, I found myself imagining the scenes in my head. That isn’t unusual in and of itself, but similarly to how I dream at night, the settings of my imagination varied between buildings here at UBC, my high schools in Canada and the UK, and the primary school I left 10 years ago. It was as though different rooms fit different scenes more than others. Or that a particular corridor from my school 6 years ago just fit the bill more than the most recent one. Not to get too on-theme with the novels we’ve read this term, but it’s funny how memory works, isn’t it?
The scene where she rips up the toilet paper that she has been writing on caught my attention. Mainly because I like to preserve practically everything I’ve ever written, so the idea of destroying the thoughts and musings I might have had if I were in her situation feels like a strange loss for me. At first, it also felt like a bit of a waste; my first thought was that if you’re going to destroy it, then why write it down in the first place? But then I caught myself fairly quickly. It can be quite limiting to assume that something is only worth writing if it’s worth keeping, and that’s an idea I think I learnt unintentionally, and am nowadays trying to unlearn. That said, it’s not even very accurate because I often find myself in a situation where I need to write something in order to make my own thoughts coherent. Sure, perhaps in another situation she may have spoken these words aloud where they could then disappear without a trace, but that’s not an ideal method when you’re trying to hide in a bathroom for days on end.
My question this week is: what is the significance of the fact that neither the author nor the protagonist are from the city in which the story is set?
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Amulet, horror, memory
While reading the scenes within the university buildings and corridors, I found myself imagining the scenes in my head. That isn’t unusual in and of itself, but similarly to how I dream at night, the settings of my imagination varied between buildings here at UBC, my high schools in Canada and the UK, and the primary school I left 10 years ago. It was as though different rooms fit different scenes more than others. Or that a particular corridor from my school 6 years ago just fit the bill more than the most recent one. Not to get too on-theme with the novels we’ve read this term, but it’s funny how memory works, isn’t it?
The scene where she rips up the toilet paper that she has been writing on caught my attention. Mainly because I like to preserve practically everything I’ve ever written, so the idea of destroying the thoughts and musings I might have had if I were in her situation feels like a strange loss for me. At first, it also felt like a bit of a waste; my first thought was that if you’re going to destroy it, then why write it down in the first place? But then I caught myself fairly quickly. It can be quite limiting to assume that something is only worth writing if it’s worth keeping, and that’s an idea I think I learnt unintentionally, and am nowadays trying to unlearn. That said, it’s not even very accurate because I often find myself in a situation where I need to write something in order to make my own thoughts coherent. Sure, perhaps in another situation she may have spoken these words aloud where they could then disappear without a trace, but that’s not an ideal method when you’re trying to hide in a bathroom for days on end.
My question this week is: what is the significance of the fact that neither the author nor the protagonist are from the city in which the story is set?
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Amulet, horror, memory
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
Wow, lots to unpack with this one. This book was a rollercoaster, not unlike many of the books we’ve read in this course. Again, the narrator takes us through the messy pathways of her mind as she recounts memories, some good and some bad. In this case, most are decidedly bad. Auxilio’s experience of the […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with death, Imagination, memory, Mexico, sadness
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
Out of all of the works that I’ve read so far during this term, I believe that Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet may be my favourite. Despite the novel’s “ordinariness” (as described in the lecture), I really felt that there was something magical about it – not exotic or romanticized, or even anything like the “magic realism” […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with history, memory, violence
