Although I’m happy to be ending this exhausting and long semester I’m sad to conclude this course. I have found Romance Studies interesting and eye-opening and I loved the format of the course. I liked the use of contract grading and wish I had more classes that used the same format, as it was a […]
Posted in Blogs, Conclusion | Tagged with expectations, literature, modernism, Romance Studies
I really enjoyed this book and I wish I had more time to spend reading and enjoying it. I found there to be a lot of different dimensions within it, such as the relationships and dynamics between the girls and the other characters, the opposing classes, the use of language and education, the violence, the […]
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with childhood, class, death, education, family, memory, modernism, violence
Reading Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis was filled with many different emotions. At first, reading about Cercas’ – the narrator – detachment from his literary career made me sad. However, upon quickly realizing that he had found a new impulse to write again, I felt excited for the narrator. This quote in page 55 resonated […]
Posted in Blogs, Cercas | Tagged with Bricolage, Falangism, fictionality, history, literature, modernism, narrative, recollection, war, writing
“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
While reading Georges Perec’s W or The Memory of Childhood, I specifically felt parallels with “Combray”. In “Combray”, the narrator reflects on his past, with the perspective he has in his present; in this way, his reflection of the past reconstructs his present, and offers a change to his future. Similarly, in W or The […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with Bricolage, literature, modernism, narrative, postmodernism, recollection, temporality, writing
I decided to look up the author, as I do with most of what I read, and was surprised to find that Françoise Sagan was only 18 years old when she published Bonjour Tristesse. Also that it was her first novel and is her most popular novel ever published. This was inspiring to find. That […]
Posted in Blogs, Laforet, Sagan | Tagged with confidence, empowerment, France, memory, modernism, modernity, Romance text, sexuality, teenage thoughts, teenager
“The Shrouded Woman,” for all its experiments in structure and style, is perhaps most notable for its show of just how far perspective can go by providing the most unorthodox viewpoint: that of a body in a coffin, briefly suspended between life and death. The piece is comprised of social commentary, including but not limited […]
Posted in Blogs, Bombal | Tagged with convention, death, Entries, life, modernism
I’m not sure that I “enjoyed” The Shrouded Woman, as I found it to be quite sad; however, it certainly struck me as unique, and it made me consider gender and society from a perspective that I wouldn’t normally entertain: the perspective of a woman who has not only “lost,” but died. When I describe Ana Maria […]
This week I was challenged with the novel Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon. Although I found myself struggling to find a plot, the key themes and meanings behind the text stood out to me and I think I was able … Continue reading →
Posted in Aragon, Blogs | Tagged with modernism, society, Surrealism
