A lively swing of events rolls into place at the beginning of the novel, full of musical brilliance, unknown voices, and objects scattered across empty spaces. This is a book of wavering stars. And in this midst of it all there is a shadow of contempla…
Posted in Blogs, Rodoreda | Tagged with childhood, death, family, Home, life, literature, love, memories, poverty, reality, reflection, relationships, The Time of The Doves, war
I have to say, I really did like the writing style, it was the only thing that got me through most of it because the length (Last minute reading) was kind of intimidating. While there were a lot of things I loved about this story, I also realized that books ragebait me way too easily […]
Posted in Blogs, Zobel | Tagged with black shack alley, classism, education, poverty, race, slavery
This book left me feeling quite despairing. I knew we were going to lose M’man Tine as soon as things started looking up for José but it still devastated me. She fought so hard for that boy, and he in turn was kept going with the hope of making her life better when he finished […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with black shack alley, family, oppression, poverty, sacrifice
Black Shack Alley follows author José growing up in 1930s Martinique. The story is split into three parts, and each part follows José in a different stage of his childhood, in a different place. First of all, I really loved José’s grandma’s character in the book. I like how she’s portrayed as kind of […]
Posted in Blogs, Zobel | Tagged with Colonialism, education, poverty
Kinda ranted in this one…
Question: Is education truly freedom if you have to give up yourself to get it?
-LS
Posted in Blogs, Zobel | Tagged with classism, poverty, Priviledge, racism
Honestly, even though José gets his education and succeeds in life, the whole story made me very sad. I felt sad for M’man Tine, who literally worked herself to death in the sugar cane fields. I felt sad for José’s mother, whom he rarely saw because she was always working somewhere else. I also felt […]
Carmen Laforet wrote this at 23. What. How. Time’s a-ticking for me I suppose. The main character, Andrea, had my heart from the start, her desire for independence, her dreams of Barcelona which are swiftly crushed by her dysfunctional family. At first, it’s her Aunt Angustias that seems the most overbearing, telling her that “in […]
Posted in Blogs, Laforet | Tagged with coming of age, family, poverty
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
I really liked this book and managed to read it in one sitting, unlike Proust. I read it in the original language, Spanish, and I was a tiny bit lost at first. Honestly, I think it might have been easier for me to read it in English. I don’t know if my Spanish vocabulary has […]
I spent my week reading this book, sometimes on the bus, sometimes lying on the bed. I genuinely could not read this piece all at once, as the events and the plot twists made me feel bad for Silvio. I can hear distant voices, brilliant fireworks, but I am here alone, held down in my […]
