This book is truly art. Bombal’s writing style, to me, resonated like poetry, each word a carefully crafted verse. After reading Robert Arlt, this felt like on the other spectrum of “quality” writing. Throughout the book, I found myself immersed in her use of repetition such as “falling” for imagery and bringing out our emotions. […]
“Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.” André Breton, pg 160 André Breton’s Nadja was published in 1928 and was a part of a collection of books during France’s Surrealist Movement post World War II. Straight off the bat, I absolutely loved this book. Perhaps I’m just a romance junkie, but I […]
Posted in Blogs, Breton | Tagged with André Breton, Art, beauty, books, Poetry, romance, Surrealism, unconscious mind
When I first started reading this novel, I was a little confused and intimidated by what the author was trying to convey. But as the story progressed, I found that the author was someone who was interested in poetry and loved writing about the events that occurred in his life or that he witnessed. After […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with love, Poetry, Surrealism, writing
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
The novel “Amulet” by Roberto Bolaño is focused on Auxilio Lacouture and her experience and memories as she hides in a washroom on the fourth floor of a building. The novel is set in 1968 as the army takes over the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The novel begins with the narrator informing the audience … Continue reading Week 10: Bolaño’s “Amulet” →
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with future, memory, past, Poetry, Romance Studies, thought, war, Weekly Posts
This book is really interesting to me for a multitude of reasons. As a boy from the prairies of Alberta I couldn’t be farther from the turbulent and yet vibrant dives and campuses of Mexico city. Yet through the life … Continue reading →
Roberto Bolano’s Amulet was an interesting read particularly because of the way its central motifs interact with one another in a way that feels very natural. On the one hand, the narrative is centrally concerned with time, however its dissection of time is not one of some objective or empirical account of time’s nature, rather […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Chile, future, history, latin america, memories, memory, Mexico, Poetry
This week we read the novel “Amulet”, written by Roberto Bolano. I found this book to be fairly easy to follow in terms of language and writing style, although unfortunately I did catch myself having a hard time staying focused at times, as the subject matter wasn’t my favourite. I found some parts to be a bit bland, while other parts kept me engaged and wanting more information. This novel follows the story of Auxilio Lacouture, a poet living in Mexico. Despite being from Uruguay, she holds the title of “Mother of Mexican Poetry”. Auxilio recounts memories and experiences from her life in Mexico while hiding in the bathroom from an invasion. She spends 12 days cooped up in the upper level bathroom of UNAM where she sits in a stall, starving. She shares stories mostly of her chaotic and unstable life meeting new poets and creating bonds with them. There was one younger fella she bonded with in particular, his name was Arturo Belano.
I think the most striking part of the book for me, was when Auxilio first found herself stuck in the bathroom, hiding from soldiers. Specifically, the part when she heard footsteps enter room and had to lift her feet to make sure no one found her. Perhaps I found this to be the most engaging part because it got my adrenaline going a bit, wondering if she would be safe or if they found her what the consequences would be.
Another thing I found interesting about this novel, was Auxilio’s relationship with Arturo. The two of them seemed to have a pretty tight bond, despite having quite an age difference. Though I know this bond was entirely due to their shared passion for poetry, while reading I wondered why an older woman would care to hang around a boy in his late teens. I believe this may have been the result of Auxilio grasping for relationships because she put herself in unfamiliar territory when moving to Mexico without family or a place to live. I think she sees him as a son, or someone that she’s proud of and wants to guide in the right direction (a mothers instinct).
If you were in Auxilio’s shoes, do you think you would have looked for friendships in the same places as she did?
This week we read the novel “Amulet”, written by Roberto Bolano. I found this book to be fairly easy to follow in terms of language and writing style, although unfortunately I did catch myself having a hard time staying focused at times, as the subject matter wasn’t my favourite. I found some parts to be a bit bland, while other parts kept me engaged and wanting more information. This novel follows the story of Auxilio Lacouture, a poet living in Mexico. Despite being from Uruguay, she holds the title of “Mother of Mexican Poetry”. Auxilio recounts memories and experiences from her life in Mexico while hiding in the bathroom from an invasion. She spends 12 days cooped up in the upper level bathroom of UNAM where she sits in a stall, starving. She shares stories mostly of her chaotic and unstable life meeting new poets and creating bonds with them. There was one younger fella she bonded with in particular, his name was Arturo Belano.
I think the most striking part of the book for me, was when Auxilio first found herself stuck in the bathroom, hiding from soldiers. Specifically, the part when she heard footsteps enter room and had to lift her feet to make sure no one found her. Perhaps I found this to be the most engaging part because it got my adrenaline going a bit, wondering if she would be safe or if they found her what the consequences would be.
Another thing I found interesting about this novel, was Auxilio’s relationship with Arturo. The two of them seemed to have a pretty tight bond, despite having quite an age difference. Though I know this bond was entirely due to their shared passion for poetry, while reading I wondered why an older woman would care to hang around a boy in his late teens. I believe this may have been the result of Auxilio grasping for relationships because she put herself in unfamiliar territory when moving to Mexico without family or a place to live. I think she sees him as a son, or someone that she’s proud of and wants to guide in the right direction (a mothers instinct).
If you were in Auxilio’s shoes, do you think you would have looked for friendships in the same places as she did?
The Amulet was a book that surprised me. Initially, I thought we would be looking at a typical horror story with detailed violence, but this one was a different kind of horror. I believe that I can call this book a horrific one because being stuck in one place and not able to leave is claustrophobic. On top of the movement that was going on, the fact that someone could take her is terrifying. Especially if you are a young student trapped, I couldn’t imagine how scared and confused I would be. She was stuck in the Philosophy and Literature section of the university, which she repeated a lot in the text. This repetition is significant because she was able to read literature and occupy her time in remembering her past and engaging in poetry. In the time she spent locked away, she was lonely, and feeling needs of deprivation and hunger started to arise in her. As human beings, we seek out interaction and personal relationships. A human cannot survive in isolation; it has significant detrimental effects on the brain. One of Auxilio’s coping skills was to immerse herself in her past life and remember all her memories as if they were occurring now to occupy her brain in this time of loneliness. It was her comfort tool. I am still confused by the book’s chronology as she talks about her past as if it was in the past, but over time, the chronology gets blurred as her memories become more fragmented. She talks about things occurring in the future which makes me think. How does she know this? The question I have is, what was the significance of the future? Was she talking about the future or recollecting her past from the point of view of her past self before it occurred?
After watching the lecture, I know that the themes and feelings of the movement are memories of the survivors of this attack. Bolano creates this book as a time capsule for future generations to see and uncover how it felt to be alive in that time. The future dates appearing in the novel create this feeling of a time capsule and that things will be discovered in later years. Exactly what a time capsule is. A quote that made me genuinely think that this book represents a time capsule was:
“And although the song that I heard was about war, about the heroic deeds of a whole generation of young Latin Americans led to sacrifice, I knew that above and beyond all, it was about courage and mirrors, desire and pleasure.”
This quote mentions how the movement affected the lives of the Latin American youth and how it was brutal and a sacrifice (which is obvious). But later, people would find out the true story hidden behind the movement. It was about their courage and ability to survive in such a hard place. This story is the time capsule Bolano has created for future generations to read and learn.
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with dreaming, future, literature, memory, Poetry, politics, violence, war
