Reflection - 'The Shouded Woman" by María Luisa Bombal

While reading “The Shrouded Woman” I found some parts (especially in the middle of the novel)

to be rather confusing, I found that there were way too many characters to remember and some names were very similar (I think it might have been because I read it in multiple days). However by the end of the novel, after I had gained an understanding of what happened and all the characters, I can say that my opinion had mostly changed for the better. I enjoyed how the author explored the relationship between Ana Maria with her friends and family through a new lens and the complexity of the characters which made them feel like real characters allowing us to feel the same emotions as them.

I found myself initially interested in the idea of being conscious while in death, and being able to see all the people you loved and admired throughout your life for one last time. The novel explores the grief caused by death but also shows that it allows for reflection and to be grateful towards those you love, by having the protagonist Ana Maria offer a new perspective on death that is usually only seen from one side, by allowing her to remember the times (both good and bad) she had with the people closest to her.

The novel explores gaining a new perspective, the complex relationship with her first love Ricardo, and how external pressure caused a fracture in their relationship (Her parents didn’t agree with the relationship and he went to study in Europe). Ana Maria only realizes this in death, while Ricardo is looking at her casket the fact that they were never truly separated, as she still saw a part of herself in him. 

A prevalent theme in the novel is rediscovery, like when Ana Maria’s brother Luis visits her casket and they seem to both remember the strong bond they once had that had been long forgotten. Ana Maria even says that if her death makes her brother remember his old lover Elicia by making him remember the times the three of them have spent together, she would have no regrets and would have given her death a new meaning.

Isolation is also a recurring theme in the novel. Maria Griselda’s beauty affects how everybody treats her and how it contributes to her isolation. She tries to be friendly to Sylvia, but Sylvia is extremely jealous of her and eventually commits suicide as a result of actions caused by Maria’s beauty. Even her husband Alberto is jealous of her and hides her away. We also see this in Ana Maria’s own life, from the distant relationship between her and her husband.

My question for everyone: At the funeral, we are supposedly seeing the first time that Antonio, Ana Maria’s husband crying. Due to their strange relationship, even Ana Maria herself debates the reason that he is crying. Do you think he is crying to grieve her death and is it because he has lost something else like Ana Maria hypothesizes?

Reflection - ' Mad Toy' By Roberto Artl

 Mad Toy by Roberto Artl is about a teenage boy named Silvio who is an avid inventor and idolizes outlaws and bandits. The first part of the novel follows Silvio and his friends Lucio and Enrique and their adventures which mostly consist of committing burglaries with aspirations of being heroic outlaws and being able to give back to the poor. After a close call, as a result of committing a robbery, both Silvio and Lucio decide that it would be best for them to disband and lay low for a while, however, Enrique says he will continue even if he is the only one left. The second part follows Silvio who in an attempt to do the right thing and help out his mother, decides to get a job at a bookstore, however after witnessing the horrible conditions and trying to burn the store down (but ultimately failing) he decides to quit. After. In the fourth and final part of the novel, Silvio turns in his friend Rengo to the authorities after he learns that Rengo intends to commit a robbery and has seemingly done the ‘right’ thing.

Throughout the novel, we witness Silvio getting older and constantly struggling to do the ‘right’ thing. We witness his family's struggle with poverty and Silvio who wants to be an inventor and his aspirations of making something out of himself. As soon as Silvio seems to be making progress towards his goals it suddenly all falls apart and he ends up back at square one. The novel has you constantly wondering which path Silvio will end up taking and how long will his determination last.

The part that stuck the most for me was when Silvio met his friend Lucio a couple of years after their group disbanded. Lucio, who is now a police investigator, then tells Silvio that Enrique never stopped committing burglaries and has now found himself in jail as a result. I found this interesting as Silvio himself was constantly having trouble choosing which path to follow and could see firsthand the results of his friend's choices. 

The novel also makes you rethink what is considered ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Even though we can declare one side as being ‘right and the other one ‘wrong’, both Enrique and Lucio have ultimately gone down different paths with the same goal of survival. Also, when Silvio turns Rengo in after having done something that is deemed ‘right’, he himself thinks that he has done something unforgivable.

My question for everyone:

At the end of the novel, Silvio states his reasoning for turning Rengo in is that  ‘There are times in life when we need to be pigs, to wallow in filth till it seeps inside us, to do some vile deed, I don’t know . . . to destroy a man’s life forever . . . and having done that, we can go calmly on our way’’. Do you think Silvio really turned Rengo in order to ruin his life? Or did he have another reason for doing so?

Reflection - 'Combray' By Marcel Proust

 My initial thoughts on the novel while I was reading it was that I found it to be rather confusing. However, I was having trouble finding precisely why it was such a hard read. I think that even though the level of the vocabulary was not overly difficult, the style of writing was rather confusing as certain sentences seemed to be strung together even though they did not have much of any relationship to each other making it hard to make sense of what was happening. In one sense this sort of makes sense as oftentimes when remembering something in detail your mind tends to wander or go on a tangent, however without context, it becomes a bit hard to follow what is happening. One of the other reasons (at least for me) was that the author would often shift from the past to the present without any real indication. It was also difficult for me to figure out if the author was reflecting on the events of his past as an adult or whether he was conveying how he felt as a child during that time.

Despite being a hard read there were a couple of parts that I enjoyed or found interesting. For example the great-aunt's perception of class and the way she negatively viewed people who would venture outside of their respective social class and how this influenced her treatment of monsieur Swann.

The narrator's relationship with his mother was also one of the focal points of the story that I enjoyed reading about. I found that it was interesting to see how both his parents had different ways of handling their child’s behavior. And that his father, instead of getting mad at his child for sneaking out of his room to be comforted by his mother, he suddenly able to see for himself the true scope of the loneliness and sadness that his child felt. Even though there was no mention of his father changing his harsh treatment of his son by pushing this expectation of how he should act, it was still nice to see that he still had a heart. I found it hard to agree or disagree with how harsh the expectations his father has for him as his age at the time of these events is never explicitly mentioned in the text.

My question to everyone: Do you think the narrator's parent’s treatment and the expectations they have for him are justified? Would his age at the time also affect your answer? 

Introduction (First week)

 Hi everyone, my name is Marcus and I am a third-year computer science major.

I was born and raised in Vancouver and have lived here my whole life. I enjoy playing soccer, skiing, and making/playing video games in my spare time.  I also have a cat. I used to read a decent amount when I was younger but I just kinda stopped as I grew older.

To be quite honest, I am taking this class to fulfill my literature requirement but out of all the options this one seemed to be one of the ones that interested me the most. Also, French is my second language, and am excited to read some literature originating in French (And any other language for that matter :) ).

I am excited about this class because I think it will be a good break and change of pace from the mostly math-based/math-adjacent courses that most of my undergrad so far has been comprised of and am excited to have the chance to study something different in a university setting. Even though I'm ultimately taking this class to check off a requirement for my degree, I also do not want to pass on the chance to improve my skills in literature comprehension, writing, and learning something new.

As for my expectations for the course, I don’t have very many but I would like to be able to read something I enjoy or maybe find a new appreciation for literature from the texts that are assigned or that I can choose to read.

For my expectations for myself, I am probably going to aim for an A-, not only for the sake of the GPA but to challenge myself to do something I am not completely comfortable with yet and to hopefully get better at reading challenging texts, analysis, and writing while doing it.

From the lecture videos, I found it very interesting that the idea of romance studies focuses less on how the romance languages relate to Latin which is what all the romance languages have evolved from, but rather focuses on their similarities and differences because they have evolved from Latin. Also from the conversation lecture when it was mentioned that by knowing a language in a certain linguistic family you are essentially learning a small part of the same large language. I found this interesting because I also understand some small bits of Spanish just by being able to speak French.