This week, I read ‘Amulet’ by Roberto Bolano.
I found the first paragraph of the story interesting. The narrator started off by telling the readers that this story “…is going to be a horror story. A story of murder, detection and horror. But it wont appear to be, for the simple reason that I am the teller. Told by me, it won’t seem like that. Although, in fact, it’s a story of a terrible crime” (p 1). I never read a story that started off by telling what kind of story it will be, so it grabbed my attention and made me want to continue to read it. After reading the first paragraph, I was preparing myself for a violent story or the memories/fights of the war. However, the story was about a woman, Auxilio Lacouture, who was locked inside a washroom alone “..from the eighteenth to the thirtieth of September”(p 172). Specifically, the fourth floor washroom in the faculty of Philosophy and Literature building at the National Autonomous University (p 22). Due to the invasion of the army, the narrator locked herself inside the washroom for 12 days. With the terrifying situation outside, she tends to deal with her fear by looking back on her memories.
One of the most vivid moments to me was: when she was hiding in a stall, a soldier opened the washroom door and walked in. The detailed description of what had happened and what she was feeling makes me super nervous about what is going to happen. It felt as if I was hiding with her as well.
I like how the narrator described things, events, and people in detail. I noticed the narrator uses a lot of similes and metaphors to describe those. The detailed descriptions helped me imagine and picture the scenes in my head. Another thing I like is that the narrator used brackets/side notes to express her ‘inner feelings’.“…I became a bat, I left the university and wandered around Mexico city like a wraith (I can’t in all honesty say like a fairy, although I would like to) and drank and talked and attended literary gatherings (I knew where to find them all) ” (p20). The inner thoughts make me feel’ closer’ to the narrator as I am able to know more about her ‘inner’ feelings.
After Auxilio saw soldiers, tanks and riot police outside of the window, she went back to the washroom. That brings it to my question for the class: If you were in Auxilio’s situation, what would you do? Would you go back to the washroom and stay there or go somewhere else?
This week, I read ‘Amulet’ by Roberto Bolano.
I found the first paragraph of the story interesting. The narrator started off by telling the readers that this story “…is going to be a horror story. A story of murder, detection and horror. But it wont appear to be, for the simple reason that I am the teller. Told by me, it won’t seem like that. Although, in fact, it’s a story of a terrible crime” (p 1). I never read a story that started off by telling what kind of story it will be, so it grabbed my attention and made me want to continue to read it. After reading the first paragraph, I was preparing myself for a violent story or the memories/fights of the war. However, the story was about a woman, Auxilio Lacouture, who was locked inside a washroom alone “..from the eighteenth to the thirtieth of September”(p 172). Specifically, the fourth floor washroom in the faculty of Philosophy and Literature building at the National Autonomous University (p 22). Due to the invasion of the army, the narrator locked herself inside the washroom for 12 days. With the terrifying situation outside, she tends to deal with her fear by looking back on her memories.
One of the most vivid moments to me was: when she was hiding in a stall, a soldier opened the washroom door and walked in. The detailed description of what had happened and what she was feeling makes me super nervous about what is going to happen. It felt as if I was hiding with her as well.
I like how the narrator described things, events, and people in detail. I noticed the narrator uses a lot of similes and metaphors to describe those. The detailed descriptions helped me imagine and picture the scenes in my head. Another thing I like is that the narrator used brackets/side notes to express her ‘inner feelings’.“…I became a bat, I left the university and wandered around Mexico city like a wraith (I can’t in all honesty say like a fairy, although I would like to) and drank and talked and attended literary gatherings (I knew where to find them all) ” (p20). The inner thoughts make me feel’ closer’ to the narrator as I am able to know more about her ‘inner’ feelings.
After Auxilio saw soldiers, tanks and riot police outside of the window, she went back to the washroom. That brings it to my question for the class: If you were in Auxilio’s situation, what would you do? Would you go back to the washroom and stay there or go somewhere else?
This was the first book I read entirely in one sitting. I was surprised, but how could you not keep on reading when the first line is “This is going to be a horror story”(pg.1) … The theme of memory is quite present throughout Auxilio’s broken narrative. Her recollections seem very “…fragmentary, as if mauled … Continue reading “Thoughts on Bolaño’s Amulet”
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Hallucination, memory, Mexico, Poetry, trauma
Another book with a stream of consciousness about memories … I am sensing a theme here. As Auxilio hides in the university bathroom for 12 days, she reflects on different memories and experiences, transporting the reader to a different world than the reality of her sitting in the bathroom stall as the army invades the […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with horror, latin america, Mexico, time, week10
I really liked this book. It’s definitely one of my favourites of the ones we’ve covered. We’ve read a few books that are based on memory, and we’ve discussed how fickle memory can be and what kind of story is created when it is strung together by a collection of memories. However, The Old Gringo […]
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with Dreamy, history, memory, Mexico, repetition, revolution, tragedy
For this weeks book, I read The Old Gringo, by Carlos Fuentes. To be honest with you, I found this book to be a little bit confusing, but for a few different reasons. At the beginning of my reading, I found the old gringo’s motivation to be a bit strange; he has come to Mexico […]
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with Conflict, death, life, Mexico, reflection, relationships, repetition, revolution, the old gringo, Weekly Book Blog
“If it is necessary, our atomized consciousness invents love, imagines it or feigns it, but does not live without it,…
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with love, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, W10, war
The novel “The Old Gringo” to me is like a lesson. Moreover, I think it is a lesson for all Ambrose Bierce, Harriet Winslow and Tomas Arroyo. All three escaped the reality, and converegd in the Hacienda, with the hope to find what they actually want in their not-so-pleasant life. To answer Dr.Beasley-Murray’s question in […]
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with escapefromreality, Mexico, revolution
Reading Carlos Fuentes’ “The Old Gringo” felt like being taken into a place somewhere between two cultures, somewhere between past, present, and future, somewhere between sleeping and waking. This feeling, of occupying a space in between seems to me a central theme of the novel, in which it’s primary premises are the exact interrelations between […]
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with America, culture, dream, Mexico, Poetry, time
