blog#11 – Time and the way She swims through Dreams — As soon as I finished the book, I fell asleep. I read The Society of Reluctant Dreamers in a period where I was (and am) sleeping a lot. I clocked in about 14 or 15 hours straight the other night. I’m not quite sure why […]
Posted in Agualusa, Blogs | Tagged with Angola, Dreams, reality, revolution, Swimming, the society of reluctant dreamers, time
I liked this book, the intertwining storylines of politics, romance, and dreams made it an interesting read. While the dreaming and romantic narratives provided interesting psychological thought and emotional elements, the commentary on the political tension was my favorite element of this book. I enjoyed that the dream narrative was not imposed upon by Freud’s […]
Posted in Agualusa, Blogs | Tagged with Dreams, dreamworld, memory, politics, time, week 12
Amulet by Roberto Bolaño was a very fascinating novel. I have always enjoyed books that blur the line between fantasy and reality, and I think Auxilio Lacouture’s recount does precisely that. In the violent context of the Tlatelolco massacre in … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with fantasy vs. reality, mystical characterization, narration, time, Womanhood
Hey everyone, The fact that this novel starts with “This is going to be a horror story,” made me expect to feel fear while reading this. Elements of the horror usually include suspense or surprise but the narrator was right in saying that the way this story is told was not nearly as scary to […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Bathroom, Leave, literature, repetition, romancestudies, romanceworld, romanticliterature, time, ubc
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 […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with loss, memory, perspective, Roberto Bolaño, sexuality, time, writing
This week I read Amulet by Roberto Bolaño. The novel follows the narrator Auxilio Lacouture, a woman from Uruguay and the coined “mother of Mexican poetry.” She works at a university in Mexico City, and when she realizes the university … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with memory, reflection, time
Another book with a stream of consciousness about memories … I am sensing a theme here. As Auxilio hides in the university bathroom for 12 days, she reflects on different memories and experiences, transporting the reader to a different world than the reality of her sitting in the bathroom stall as the army invades the […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with horror, latin america, Mexico, time, week10
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 […]
Posted in Blogs, Manea | Tagged with anxiety, Compulsory Happiness, norman manea, object, perspective, Romania, time
Reading Carlos Fuentes’ “The Old Gringo” felt like being taken into a place somewhere between two cultures, somewhere between past, present, and future, somewhere between sleeping and waking. This feeling, of occupying a space in between seems to me a central theme of the novel, in which it’s primary premises are the exact interrelations between […]
Posted in Blogs, Fuentes | Tagged with America, culture, dream, Mexico, Poetry, time
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 […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, family, France, identity, living experience, lost in translation, memory, names, or the Memory of Childhood, perspective, time, vestige
