perspective

Roberto Bolano, “Amulet”

amulet (noun): a charm (such as an ornament) often inscribed with a magic incantation or symbol to aid the wearer or protect against evil (such as disease or witchcraft) Amulet follows Auxilio Lacouture, a woman trapped in the women’s bathroom of a university while it is being taken over by the military in response to […]

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blog#9 – the Object of Anxiety —

blog#9 – the Object of Anxiety — I’ll admit that I am not very good at remembering character’s names when reading, especially during the part I have to read in dialogue. But in this book, many characters have a kind of tic or catchphrase that they say which I thought was really interesting. Whatever their […]

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Week 8: Perec’s “W, or the Memory of Childhood”

Georges Perec’s novel, “W, or the Memory of Childhood” is an interesting mix of reality and imagination. I found the writing style to be quite similar to Proust’s and Aragon’s as Perec often jumped between different memories and thoughts. Something I found intriguing was how Perec describes the relationship between writing and the people from … Continue reading Week 8: Perec’s “W, or the Memory of Childhood” →

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blog#8 – the burden of Names —

blog#8 – the burden of Names — Georges Perec’s book ‘W, or The Memory of Childhood’ was by far the book with the most interesting formatting. (Out of the books that I’ve read for this class anyway). The two parallel stories and the switching back-and-forth took a lot of getting used to, and admittedly, I […]

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Week 6: Sagan’s “Bonjour Tristesse”

The novel, “Bonjour Tristesse” by Françoise Sagan was quite a rollercoaster of a story. Just from a brief description of the novel, I expected drama similar to “The Shrouded Woman”, focusing on family and relationships. However, after reading the text (and thanks to a warning from last week), I found it was also quite similar … Continue reading Week 6: Sagan’s “Bonjour Tristesse” →

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The Shrouded Woman – How dead is dead?

 The Shrouded Woman by Maria Luisa Bombal has been my favourite of the books we have read so far. I certainly found it the most compelling, and recognised many of the themes that were going on.

I think the theme that most stood out to me was that of realisation. We as people tend to be our most sober around death, and you often hear people talking about their realisations of what really matters in life and how they want to live each passing day only after being confronted with mortality; be it their own or someone dear to them. Bombal manages to take this theme and subvert it by showing that while those who live are faced with hard-hitting realisations, so are the dead. 

The regret of wasted time is one that we have all felt (I reckon it’s one of the most universal regrets), including Ana Maria. She is struck by this realisation when she is reunited with her first love, only to realise that they both loved each other despite all the years they’d been apart. Her cry of “Oh God, dear God! Must we die in order to know?” (p176) really hit home for me. At the time of writing, I have been fortunate enough to not have felt the impact of a death close to me. However, I have seen people I love be devastated by grief and the loss of someone dear. Death is a very taboo subject in many societies, which makes it difficult to talk about openly. This often causes it to be an “out of mind, out of sight” situation where people aren’t exposed to it until it happens, and the shock of it all can be very disorientating.

Beside death, a theme that is worth talking about is that of beauty. In this book, beauty can be lumped in with jealousy, insecurity, and the male gaze. Maria Griselda, the character known for being astonishingly beautiful. She reminds me a bit of Remedios the Beauty in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude in that her beauty supposedly causes men to make bad decisions, and then she’s held accountable for things that she has no control over. 

Maria Griselda’s beauty is also a source of suffering for the women in the novel, with Silvia eventually resorting to suicide because she was so jealous of this woman for sTeaLiNg hEr HusBanD; “I thought I was lovely until I met Maria Griselda. Maria Griselda is a hundred times more beautiful than I!” (p193). However, her beauty can never be held in isolation from other perspectives. All the suffering and emotions that are felt as a result of her appearance come from the male gaze. Be it men’s disloyalty to their wives, or women’s jealousy as a result of their inherent value as women being threatened, it all comes down to what men think. It is what it is I guess. Bombal puts it more eloquently than I do: “Why oh why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?” (p226).

There’s so much more to discuss about this novel, since there are many rich themes. However, the question I pose is: Are emotions a good “reason to be”? If so, is hatred a bad one?

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The Shrouded Woman – How dead is dead?

 The Shrouded Woman by Maria Luisa Bombal has been my favourite of the books we have read so far. I certainly found it the most compelling, and recognised many of the themes that were going on.

I think the theme that most stood out to me was that of realisation. We as people tend to be our most sober around death, and you often hear people talking about their realisations of what really matters in life and how they want to live each passing day only after being confronted with mortality; be it their own or someone dear to them. Bombal manages to take this theme and subvert it by showing that while those who live are faced with hard-hitting realisations, so are the dead. 

The regret of wasted time is one that we have all felt (I reckon it’s one of the most universal regrets), including Ana Maria. She is struck by this realisation when she is reunited with her first love, only to realise that they both loved each other despite all the years they’d been apart. Her cry of “Oh God, dear God! Must we die in order to know?” (p176) really hit home for me. At the time of writing, I have been fortunate enough to not have felt the impact of a death close to me. However, I have seen people I love be devastated by grief and the loss of someone dear. Death is a very taboo subject in many societies, which makes it difficult to talk about openly. This often causes it to be an “out of mind, out of sight” situation where people aren’t exposed to it until it happens, and the shock of it all can be very disorientating.

Beside death, a theme that is worth talking about is that of beauty. In this book, beauty can be lumped in with jealousy, insecurity, and the male gaze. Maria Griselda, the character known for being astonishingly beautiful. She reminds me a bit of Remedios the Beauty in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude in that her beauty supposedly causes men to make bad decisions, and then she’s held accountable for things that she has no control over. 

Maria Griselda’s beauty is also a source of suffering for the women in the novel, with Silvia eventually resorting to suicide because she was so jealous of this woman for sTeaLiNg hEr HusBanD; “I thought I was lovely until I met Maria Griselda. Maria Griselda is a hundred times more beautiful than I!” (p193). However, her beauty can never be held in isolation from other perspectives. All the suffering and emotions that are felt as a result of her appearance come from the male gaze. Be it men’s disloyalty to their wives, or women’s jealousy as a result of their inherent value as women being threatened, it all comes down to what men think. It is what it is I guess. Bombal puts it more eloquently than I do: “Why oh why must a woman’s nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life?” (p226).

There’s so much more to discuss about this novel, since there are many rich themes. However, the question I pose is: Are emotions a good “reason to be”? If so, is hatred a bad one?

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Thoughts on María Luisa Bombal “The Shrouded Woman”

In The Shrouded Woman the story of our protagonist Ana-Maria is one of reflection on her life through the eyes of her corpse. She walks the reader through memories with people close to her throughout her life. Unlike our previous texts, I really found myself getting lost in the text. Right from the beginning, I … Continue reading “Thoughts on María Luisa Bombal “The Shrouded Woman””

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Paris Peasant – A novel that is not a novel? How novel!

Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant was certainly an easier read for me than Proust’s Swann’s Way was. I imagine it is to do with the translation, though of course the writing style of the original author. In fact, I found myself thinking about translation a lot while reading this book. There were parts that had very interesting metaphors and jokes that I would love to see in the original language. I especially noticed this in the F.M.R. section where even the translator made a note that the original pun worked so much better. I suppose this is one of the weaknesses of translation; you can never conserve all the layers of meaning within a word or a phrase because you always have to choose one. If you can find a way to make it work with more than one meaning then you’re lucky.

Before starting the book, I knew that Aragon was part of the surrealist, avant-garde movement and you can tell. Paris Peasant has been described as a “novel-that-[is]-not-a-novel” and I agree with that description because there isn’t really a story that I could pick up on. Truthfully, it felt more like Aragon’s personal musings than a novel, but it was interesting nonetheless. 
That said, some of his musings aren’t particularly savoury, especially those about women. The way he describes women struck me as being a bit… weird… to say the least. Numerous paragraphs on women’s hair, their bodies, how much he likes blondes… let’s just say that he wouldn’t pass the 2022 vibe check. But we kind of knew that already, and I think he did too. After all, he did say that it “matters very little to me whether or not I have reason on my side. I do not seek to be right. I seek the concrete.” 
So I don’t think he’d be particularly bothered about our opinions. Or anyone’s opinions. Because he said some things about religion that would be controversial today, let alone the 1920s. As a communist, you can see the threads of Karl Marx’s ideas in his writing, especially in the parts about religion. He comments that religion is a sign of “mental laziness” and notices that religion is becoming replaced with a sense of human morality. Certainly, we can see that religiosity has declined over the past century or so, so his prediction wasn’t completely inaccurate.
In fact, some of his predictions were funnily accurate. One of the first quotes that really caught my attention was about how young people will eschew work, marriage, and children (or something along those lines, unfortunately I can’t find the exact quote anymore, try as I might). I thought it was a very interesting observation, especially since nowadays the “Child-free by choice” and “I don’t dream of labour” movements are increasing in popularity, especially among young adults.
In all, I’m not entirely sure that I managed to glean every message from the book and I think I’d have to read it a second time to better understand it, but what I did pick up was definitely thought-provoking. The question I’d like to present is; What makes a novel a novel, if this is a “novel-that-is-not-a-novel”?

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Paris Peasant – A novel that is not a novel? How novel!

Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant was certainly an easier read for me than Proust’s Swann’s Way was. I imagine it is to do with the translation, though of course the writing style of the original author. In fact, I found myself thinking about translation a lot while reading this book. There were parts that had very interesting metaphors and jokes that I would love to see in the original language. I especially noticed this in the F.M.R. section where even the translator made a note that the original pun worked so much better. I suppose this is one of the weaknesses of translation; you can never conserve all the layers of meaning within a word or a phrase because you always have to choose one. If you can find a way to make it work with more than one meaning then you’re lucky.

Before starting the book, I knew that Aragon was part of the surrealist, avant-garde movement and you can tell. Paris Peasant has been described as a “novel-that-[is]-not-a-novel” and I agree with that description because there isn’t really a story that I could pick up on. Truthfully, it felt more like Aragon’s personal musings than a novel, but it was interesting nonetheless. 
That said, some of his musings aren’t particularly savoury, especially those about women. The way he describes women struck me as being a bit… weird… to say the least. Numerous paragraphs on women’s hair, their bodies, how much he likes blondes… let’s just say that he wouldn’t pass the 2022 vibe check. But we kind of knew that already, and I think he did too. After all, he did say that it “matters very little to me whether or not I have reason on my side. I do not seek to be right. I seek the concrete.” 
So I don’t think he’d be particularly bothered about our opinions. Or anyone’s opinions. Because he said some things about religion that would be controversial today, let alone the 1920s. As a communist, you can see the threads of Karl Marx’s ideas in his writing, especially in the parts about religion. He comments that religion is a sign of “mental laziness” and notices that religion is becoming replaced with a sense of human morality. Certainly, we can see that religiosity has declined over the past century or so, so his prediction wasn’t completely inaccurate.
In fact, some of his predictions were funnily accurate. One of the first quotes that really caught my attention was about how young people will eschew work, marriage, and children (or something along those lines, unfortunately I can’t find the exact quote anymore, try as I might). I thought it was a very interesting observation, especially since nowadays the “Child-free by choice” and “I don’t dream of labour” movements are increasing in popularity, especially among young adults.
In all, I’m not entirely sure that I managed to glean every message from the book and I think I’d have to read it a second time to better understand it, but what I did pick up was definitely thought-provoking. The question I’d like to present is; What makes a novel a novel, if this is a “novel-that-is-not-a-novel”?

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