Romance... but not really

 This book was definitely up there among my favourites of this term. It was simultaneously light and dealt with themes that I connected with, so I was able to engage with it more than I could with some other books we read. There were many themes involved in the novel, but the one that resonated with me the most was that of identity. On pages 117 and 118 (of my pdf - not sure what the page numbers are for a physical copy), there is a discussion of nationality and identity. I found it funny that Clarice Lispector was mentioned; though I didn't personally read her book this term, it still felt like a fun little crossover.  As someone who has Iranian heritage, was born and raised in the UK, and is now living in Canada, I've thought a lot about how nationality may or may not be part of our identities. I would still consider myself Iranian if I didn't have citizenship, though I'm not sure that I'll ever consider myself Canadian even if I get the passport. I just think it&

This novel confused me from the moment I read its title. Mainly because I couldn't see the link between Dictatorship-era Spain and the actual Battle of Salamis. I still can't, to be honest. The Battle of Salamis was a naval battle between the Persians and the Greeks like 2500 years ago. When I look it up to try and find an answer to my question, all I get is that it's a "metaphorical allusion". If anyone has any ideas as to why the title of the novel is what it is, please let me know. Otherwise, I really enjoy the blend of fact and fiction, though I often have to remind myself that it isn't meant to be taken literally; kind of like when I watch a biopic and then find out later that lots of the movie was just dramatised and doesn't actually reflect reality. I find the unreliable narrator more likeable in this novel than others we have read with unreliable narrators (such as W, Or The Memory Of Childhood). Maybe because the narrative voice feels stronger her

 This week's novel stood out to me as being different from the rest we have read. Its subdued horror, as suggested by the narrator, was particularly interesting for me. I found it intriguing how despite holding back on the descriptions of violence, it was still quite chilling to read. I've never really been a fan of horror stories and movies, but in the ones that I have read or watched, I'm more used to having the violence be the star of the show; I get the impression that the director keeps the blood to a minimum for the sake of the studio and/or age ratings. I felt that Bola ñ o could have afforded to go further with the detail if he had wanted to and it wouldn't have felt too out of place, but I'm glad he didn't. While reading the scenes within the university buildings and corridors, I found myself imagining the scenes in my head. That isn't unusual in and of itself, but similarly to how I dream at night, the settings of my imagination varied between buil

 Similarly to Proust's novel, The Old Gringo was another novel that I already had on my TBR list before starting this class, so I'm glad to have had the opportunity/excuse to read it now. I did enjoy reading it, despite it feeling a little convoluted at times. The relationships in particular were a little difficult to follow because it sometimes felt like things changed and dynamics shifted without me really noticing. Somewhat like accidentally missing a couple episodes of a series and suddenly being confused.  Harriet Winslow's relationships with Arroyo and the Gringo (who we later find is Ambrose Bierce unless you watch the lecture first ) are notably difficult to follow. There were times when I couldn't figure out if Harriet was attracted to Arroyo, or faking it, or liked him, or hated him, or any combination of the four. The Gringo's relationship with her was strange too; an odd in-between of paternal and romantic that I can't quite decipher, though to be fa

 I first heard of Georges Perec as a young teen scrolling through Tumblr when I stumbled across a post about another novel of his, A Void, where he avoids the letter 'e' throughout the novel. I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that we'd been assigned his work. Similarly to others whose blog posts I have read, I initially struggled with the two storylines but got used to it fairly quickly. Apparently these two storylines are supposed to depend on each other, rendering each one incomplete without the other. Truthfully, I haven't been able to discern why they are so dependent on each other, though I hope to understand the text a little further after some class discussion.  I think an important feature of the text is that it has an unreliable narrator, who is telling this story based on unreliable memories and this fictional world of W that he created in his head. I always think an unreliable narrator can be a refreshing twist on the experience of reading a book bec

  In Diamond Square (aka The Time of The Doves , The Pigeon Girl , and The First Half Was A Drag But We Got Going In The Second Half) was surprisingly difficult for me to get through. I really expected to zoom through this relatively short book because I'm interested in the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship, and because my copy has an endorsement from Gabriel Garcia Marquez on the front cover. In hindsight, I should've known to not pay too much attention to that praise though, because I'm not even a big fan of his novels either. Oh well. It was only towards the end of the novel when I started to connect some dots about why it was a difficult read. Throughout the book, Rodoreda uses a combination of short, simple sentences, and some very long ones like "Another father was carrying a young boy round his neck and he was clutching a small white front with a blue silk bow and twinkling diamond star, and the crowd was pushing the two fathers, and without noticin