This week I chose to read “The Underdogs” which is a story of the Mexican revolution. For the reading this week, I purchased a hard copy of the book from the bookstore, and this was actually my first time reading a handheld version of something for school in a long time, and it made such […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with Azuela, morals, span312, tragedy, violence
I really enjoyed this book and I wish I had more time to spend reading and enjoying it. I found there to be a lot of different dimensions within it, such as the relationships and dynamics between the girls and the other characters, the opposing classes, the use of language and education, the violence, the […]
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with childhood, class, death, education, family, memory, modernism, violence
This novel was, in a sense, eye-opening for me. I find this to be mainly due to the unfortunate circumstances that Lila and Elena endured from such a young age. From poverty to violence and just a struggle of trying to find a way to be something when surrounded by negativity. It really brought a […]
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with childhood, coming of age, Envy, friendship, growing up, jealousy, realistic, reflection, Romance text, separation, violence, Weekly Response, youth
After reading “My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante, I learned some clues about why Lila has disappeared. The most important clues of them all took place in her childhood. Unlike Elena, Lila had two characteristics that were different from any other kids at that time: Lila lives unconventionally and she challenges the authority. Born with […]
Posted in Blogs, Ferrante | Tagged with childhood, Italy, violence
For this week’s blog post, I read Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas. I have been enjoying the theme of civil war that we have been seeing in a few of these readings. They have been teaching me a lot about history and different world conflicts. When I heard that this book was declared “a work of fiction” “where real-life historical figures and public figures appear” from the lecture, I thought of The Old Gringo because Fuentes used the real Ambrose Bierce’s point of view although the story was fiction as well. I like how we are now able to relate what we are reading to our previous course texts and notice what patterns are being repeated. I found it surprising to see Bolano’s name in the third part since reading Amulet last week, but also interesting that we are starting to see past authors’ connections in different works.
It was interesting how Cercas, used these embedded narratives to reveal Mazas’s story. Each part functioned to reveal more but was dependent on each person’s experience and memory. The book follows the story of a fictional version of Cercas becoming interested in the story of Rafael Sánchez Mazas. He uncovers the story of how Mazas fled his death from the republican firing squad in part one. Then part two tells the biography of Rafael Sánchez Mazas’s life before the events of his capture and escape. Finally, in the third part, it goes back to the fictional Cercas after he finishes his book, but feels like there is a narrative that is missing so he tries to find the one who let Mazas go. He then meets Miralles who is never confirmed to be the one who freed Mazas, although Cercas is sure he is.
There are definitely some parts in this novel where the reader has to put together some of their own connections. We have come across unreliable narrators before in previous readings, but the fact that the narrator himself didn’t have the full story made it even more questionable. While the other readings had an unreliable narrator because of trauma or the character’s personality, in Soldiers of Salamis, Cercas had to rely on the retellings of other people’s versions to put together what he believed to be fact.
My question for the class is: How do different perspectives and the way we remember things alter the retelling of stories that are passed down?
For this week’s blog post, I read Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas. I have been enjoying the theme of civil war that we have been seeing in a few of these readings. They have been teaching me a lot about history and different world conflicts. When I heard that this book was declared “a work of fiction” “where real-life historical figures and public figures appear” from the lecture, I thought of The Old Gringo because Fuentes used the real Ambrose Bierce’s point of view although the story was fiction as well. I like how we are now able to relate what we are reading to our previous course texts and notice what patterns are being repeated. I found it surprising to see Bolano’s name in the third part since reading Amulet last week, but also interesting that we are starting to see past authors’ connections in different works.
It was interesting how Cercas, used these embedded narratives to reveal Mazas’s story. Each part functioned to reveal more but was dependent on each person’s experience and memory. The book follows the story of a fictional version of Cercas becoming interested in the story of Rafael Sánchez Mazas. He uncovers the story of how Mazas fled his death from the republican firing squad in part one. Then part two tells the biography of Rafael Sánchez Mazas’s life before the events of his capture and escape. Finally, in the third part, it goes back to the fictional Cercas after he finishes his book, but feels like there is a narrative that is missing so he tries to find the one who let Mazas go. He then meets Miralles who is never confirmed to be the one who freed Mazas, although Cercas is sure he is.
There are definitely some parts in this novel where the reader has to put together some of their own connections. We have come across unreliable narrators before in previous readings, but the fact that the narrator himself didn’t have the full story made it even more questionable. While the other readings had an unreliable narrator because of trauma or the character’s personality, in Soldiers of Salamis, Cercas had to rely on the retellings of other people’s versions to put together what he believed to be fact.
My question for the class is: How do different perspectives and the way we remember things alter the retelling of stories that are passed down?
Using the Spanish Civil War as a narrative foundation, Javier Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis illustrates the complexities of humanity vividly and touchingly. The novel takes a rather unusual narrative methodology through the point of view of a fictional author and journalist who also happens to be named Javier Cercas. He became interested in investigating a legendary story […]
Posted in Blogs, Cercas | Tagged with life, power, trauma, violence
Roberto Bolano’s “Amulet” is a unique tale which, in its focus on character development in a time of political violence, makes a more potent statement about human perseverance. The perspective is the student Lacouture hiding in the bathroom of UNAM from the army coming to crush the student protest movement. On the surface, it appears […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Entries, memory, politics, violence
Out of all of the works that I’ve read so far during this term, I believe that Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet may be my favourite. Despite the novel’s “ordinariness” (as described in the lecture), I really felt that there was something magical about it – not exotic or romanticized, or even anything like the “magic realism” […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with history, memory, violence
The theme of memory has been consistent throughout all of our course readings. While reading Amulet, I started to find some similarities to the other readings. Specifically, W, or the Memory of Childhood because with regard to memory, the two are centred around a traumatic event and cause the narrators to struggle to remember an entire situation with certainty. Also, the shrouded women and the Old Gringo because they each have a woman as the narrator looking back on their life events.
For Amulet, the story is taken from Auxilio Lacouture, an Uruguayan woman who moved to Mexico and became the “mother of poetry.” I found the timeline of this novel a little confusing at first, but after reading more and watching the lecture video, I realized that Auxilio was recalling memories from the past and also the future while she was trapped in the fourth-floor bathroom of the National Autonomous University of Mexico for almost two weeks. I found Auxilio very likable and easy to sympathize with. While trapped in the bathroom during the violent army occupation, she begins to immerse herself within these memories or dreams to cope with her situation. Her memories are based on her life in Mexico City and her interactions with the poets she befriends.
I thought it was interesting how Amulet, like the Old Gringo, provided a new perspective on historical events. Until I watched this week’s lecture I was unaware of the Tlatelolco Massacre and the Mexican student movement of 1968. Both Bolano and Fuentes gave us new perspectives on these historical events. However, where Amulet and the Old Gringo differ Amulet starts to compare to the Time of the Doves because while we are made aware of the political situation going on, it centers around one woman’s experience. In both Amulet and the Time of the Doves, we see the impacts these movements have on a person, but the story does not revolve around the violence or the actual fight. Instead, we see Auxilio and Natalia’s life and what these events mean for their lives and how it changes them. I am interested in seeing how the next two readings will relate and compare to what we have already read.
My question for the class is: Since we are on week ten of our readings, how do you compare this text to the others? What similarities have you been noticing throughout the term?
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with history, memory, violence, war
