Romance... but not really

 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...

 Carmen Laforet's Nada felt very modern, and others might disagree with me but I thought it even felt somewhat contemporary. Sure, that might be because the translation was done relatively recently (2008), but I think it's more so to do with its timelessness. The story has so many themes that are fundamentally about people and their relationships to each other; I don't think humans change all that much from one generation to the next, and I reckon many of our problems are the same as they were centuries ago, and will continue to be centuries from now.  I hesitate to delve into these topics too deeply, but two themes that really resonated with me in this book were those surrounding Andrea and Ena's friendship, more specifically the way that Andrea views Ena and puts her on a pedestal, and that of a mother's love.  These two themes fascinate me in different ways. The former reminds me of a friendship that I once experienced a few years ago and so I felt a little uncom...