Reflection : Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli

 I don’t want to say I disliked this book as it would make it seem like I can’t recognize or understand innovative/experimental literature (For the record I cannot) but I have mixed feelings about this one. There were multiple things I did like about it though, some of the shorter paragraphs were very effective in shaping your perspective on what to make out of what you are reading, like the line “All novels lack something or someone. In this novel there’s no one. No one except a ghost that I used to see sometimes in the subway” (69). Also, the fact that I wasn’t sure when/if a subplot would be brought up again made the lines that ended a paragraph that much more impactful, like when the author (I think?) is talking about the (potentially fake) deterioration of her marriage “It was a single gesture that broke me—that finished breaking me: his cry of joy when he had closed the front door” (80). 

The main thing I did not like was that some of the subplots were in the same locations (New York, Philadelphia), and since both the author and Owen write as an occupation it was very hard to tell which person was experiencing the events or whose thoughts we are reading. It is possible that the author relates to Owen and some of the other characters in some ways and that could contribute to the similarities between the multiple plots and what the different characters say. This quote in particular stuck out to me,  “It was a perfect story that begged an ending, which I would perhaps have written that very night if another story hadn’t completely distracted my attention” (116). Even though this is presumably Owen speaking, I can’t help but wonder if the author struggles with the same thing as she creates a novel with many plots, unable to solely focus on a single one. “But what the hell am I going to write? I know I want it to be a novel set both in Mexico, in an old house in the capital, and in the New York of my youth. All the characters are dead, but they don’t know it” (142), or maybe like in this quote from Owen, it is a more stylistic choice and the author would rather create a story that focuses on multiple people and different timelines. 

I also liked the sort of feeling of melancholic yearning or "Saudade" (I learned this Portuguese word from a youtube video recently lol) that is present throughout the novel, like the multiple characters are all reminiscing over a time that is long gone. Like Owen and his time in New York, and maybe even the author herself who felt free at one point in her life who left her apartment open to multiple people, and who lived a very chaotic lifestyle. I guess this also relates to the connection between the author and the characters she writes about in that they are connected in multiple ways. In some ways, the yearning for the past felt somewhat similar to the narrator in Combray (except I really disliked that novel).

Since this book is the last one we read together as a class so I made a tier list for the books I chose to read (I realize that the ratings may be a little inflated):

S : The Time of the Doves

A : Money To Burn, The Shrouded Woman

B :  Death With Interruptions, Mad Toy, Faces in the Crowd

C : The Trenchcoat, Deep Rivers, Agostino

D : 

E:

...

Z: Combray

My question for everyone: Now that we have reached the last book in this class, which was your favorite? (Or maybe if you want to you can make a tier list as well :) )