THE WRITER: The desire for transcendence is itself a transcendent aspect of human nature, because it entails an already-present awareness of the transcendent, and a recognition of the possibility of becoming transcendent. The writer, Rodrigo, desires f…
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with death, fiction, Home, identity, life, Lispecter, literature, love, reality, reflection, The hour of the star
War and poverty has sucked the life out of these people. Even Cintet “…said how sad he was that peaceful, happy people like us had gotten mixed up in a piece of history like that” (pg. 63). Even as Natalia goes about her life without the passionate revolutionary feelings that Quimet possesses, war impacts her […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with death, poverty, reality, Uncategorized, war
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
Stories have to start somewhere, but even stories have stories. To answer the question of “backstories”, and how important they are to novels, well they are quite significant, even if not directly shown. For example, to understand the atrocious history of the Spanish Civil War, we find a backstory to give context to Andrea, our […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with blog, memory, reality, trauma, Uncategorized
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
Right from the beginning that is a sense of significance in the seemingly trivial, like the falling of rain, and a glimmer of existential beauty to be found in repetition, exhaustion, and freedom from logic. If inexplicitness was a literary principle, …
Posted in Blogs, Bombal | Tagged with death, Home, life, love, memory, nostalgia, reality, relationships
Confusing. Figuring things out not by their form but by the convoluted trails of meaning formed by dense sentences, juxtaposing verses, and half-conscious dreams. This book is a forest of question marks. “I am no puzzle-maker, no wizard of chess, no ph…
Posted in Blogs, Breton | Tagged with absurdity, Home, identity, life, literature, love, nadja, reality, Surrealism
Hey everyone! First of all, I literally cant believe we’re almost done and this is our last book. In a way it feels like it has been so long and challenging but the fact we have read SO MANY BOOKS in such a short time is crazy to me. Personally, I had to really dedicate […]
Posted in Blogs, Luiselli | Tagged with gender, history, identity, life, memory, narration, reality
Hi everyone, this week I read “Faces in the Crowd” by Valeria Luiselli for my final book of the course. This book might be my least favourite this semester. That’s not to say I hated it, but I missed a lot of what the story was trying to convey between…
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with memory, motherhood, reality
Hi everyone, this week I read “Faces in the Crowd” by Valeria Luiselli for my final book of the course. This book might be my least favourite this semester. That’s not to say I hated it, but I missed a lot of what the story was trying to convey between…
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with memory, motherhood, reality
