The whole novel of Nada felt eery to me, like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I suppose this is because of the aftermath of the Spanish civil war, as the lecture video states that the family’s trauma haunts the narrative – so it’s more like the shoe has already dropped, and everything […]
Posted in Blogs, Laforet | Tagged with nada, Uncategorized
Hi again! One of the elements that stood out to me the most in Nada was its irony, which is seen from the title itself. Nada, which means ‘nothing’, truly captures the space between the expectations Andrea came to Barcelona with and the reality she lived, learning that what she envisioned was nothing like it. […]
When I think about Nada, what stays with me most is how difficult it is to explain what the novel is “about” without saying that not much really happens. Andrea arrives in Barcelona full of expectation, spends a year surrounded by hunger, tension, and emotional decay, and then leaves feeling like she has gained nothing. […]
At the beginning of the book, I was immediately hit by the environment and emotions of Andrea who was arriving in Barcelona with lots of hope. Soon after arriving the harsh atmosphere of the home created by her relatives became clear. The home was small, but was heavy with tension that I found myself finding […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with nada, Uncategorized
Reading Nada honestly felt kind of heavy, but in a way that stuck with me. It follows Andrea, a young woman who moves to Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War to start university. She shows up excited and hopeful, imagining this new chapter of her life, and then almost immediately that optimism gets crushed. The […]
Posted in Blogs, Laforet | Tagged with Barcelona, Carmen laforet, nada, Spain, Uncategorized, war
Reading Nada felt less like reading a novel and more like being dropped into someone else’s extremely tense family group chat, except it’s set in postwar Barcelona and everyone is emotionally unwell in a deeply artistic way. What got me wasn’t the plot (which I’ll spare you), but the feeling of the book: that constant […]
Posted in Blogs, Laforet | Tagged with nada, Uncategorized, war
With the first chapter of the book we are at once conscious of the unspeakable absurdities of life, of a thumping rhythm of isolation carrying its beat across desolate roads, into unsolved conflicts, and through crowds of unknown faces, leading us towa…
Posted in Blogs, Laforet | Tagged with family, fiction, Home, life, literature, nada, poverty, reality, reflection, relationships
Alas, we have reached the end of this course! This course was strangely nowhere near what I expected but in the best way possible. I think the texts we have read and the discussions we have had, truly make me … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with betrayal, death, love, nada, Time of the Doves
Hello! It is really weird to be at the end of the semester as it has felt really short, especially in regards to this class. This is my final conclusion to this class, but first I want to thank everyone in the class for making amazing blogs. I also want to thank all the people […]
Posted in Blogs, Conclusion | Tagged with coming of age, Money to Burn, My brilliant friend, nada, Themes, violence
This book was a great read and set in a very familiar environment, I studied abroad in Barcelona last semester! I really enjoyed the writing style and reading a book set in a place that I have been – it really helped me to better picture the char…
