Melika’s Span 312 Blog

  Hello blog readers, This week I read my final book for Span312. This week I read Papi by Rita Indiana, which was quite an entertaining read. This novel was a bit all over the place but very interesting. The unnamed daughter was really well characterized. Her narration brings me back to other books we have read in this course, such as Mama Blanca’s memories and Cartucho, because those also had childlike narration. I think this book was especially similar to Cartucho because we saw how the children in that book viewed death and trauma, just like how this girl is dealing with death and trauma. Throughout this course, I have come to enjoy that narration style, especially with this book. I got to think about when I was an eight-year-old girl and how special my father was too. In fact, I loved my father so much that I chose to live with him after the divorce of my parents. It’s effortless to idealize a parental figure as a child, which is what this girl did toward her Papi. I didn’...

  Hello Blog readers, This week I read Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño. This book was a relatively short novel; my copy consisted of 164 pages, so not that long of a read. However, it was very intriguing. The narration was enjoyable even though the narrator remained unnamed. There are two things I would like to mention in this blog post. Firstly, I wanted to mention the question Jon asks in his lecture about art, and secondly, I wanted to make a quick trip back to the notion of games and their importance within this class. As Jon mentions in the lecture, “Is what Carlos Wieder produce art? Or is it something else…” There was a lot to think about, and I honestly believe I can still be persuaded to change my mind, so feel free to argue with me if you disagree. However, I think photography is a form of art. Photography is a way that one can express themselves. Although personally, I paint on canvas with oil paint, I see photography, sculptures, literature, music, and much mor...

  Hello Blogreaders,   This week we read I, Rigoberta Menchú by Rigoberta Menchú. Although a difficult read due to the heavy topic and graphic nature, I think this was an essential read. Jon had warned us with a forecast warning, but this story was heartbreaking. It especially resonated with me because it is a real story of Rigoberta’s life. From the beginning of the story, we are introduced to the themes of community, storytelling, and the achievement of hard work. The opening paragraph states, “My Name is Rigoberta Menchú. I am 23 years old. This is my testimony. I didn’t learn it from a book and I didn’t learn it alone. I’d like to stress that it’s not only my life, it’s also the testimony of my people… The important thing is that what has happened to me has happened to many other people too: My story is the story of all poor Guatemalans. My personal experience is the reality of a whole people” (1). The opening statement gives us an idea of the themes present, plus the ...

  Hello Blog readers, This week I read Captain Pantoja And The Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa, and I was not expecting what I just read. To put it blankly, this book was all about sex, yet in such a formal way to disguise the topic. The overall story was interesting, and I really enjoyed Vargas’s writing style, but I have lots to mention about the soldier’s actions, formality, humour, and points of view in the novel.  Starting with the objectification and rape of these women. The soldiers in the army were so horny they could not keep their hands to themselves and were going out and molesting women. The soldiers were violating these women, and the army would say things like, “The army sincerely regrets your sister-in-law’s misfortune and will do what it can to compensate her” (4). The army completely ignored that these soldiers must be punished for their actions instead of assessing the solution as a prostitute service. The soldiers need to know what they did was wro...

  Hello Blog readers, We finished ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez this week. There was so much that happened, but it was hard to keep my head straight trying to identify and separate the members of the Buendia family. The novel kept on getting more complicated as we were reading. Going through six generations of a family can be overwhelming to read and comprehend. The people are different, but some have similar characteristics and personalities. They all seemed to be different, yet, Garcia names them all so similar, which must have had a message of importance behind it. Additionally, I found interesting the banana plantation plot because of the real history behind that event and the craziness of the event in general, so that is what I will focus on in this post. What I found most interesting about the second half was the colonization of Macondo. First, these foreigners arrived and got forced into labour for a banana company. Eventually, the workers go ...

  This week we all read the first half of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It wasn’t a bad read, and I did enjoy it, but again not my favourite from what I have read so far. Although, there is so much to discuss about this book that I don’t even know where to start. From the themes, characters, storylines, and overall what I liked and didn’t like, I want to mention it all. Starting with themes, I saw the theme of magic realism but also themes of memory, death, and family. There were a lot of moments in the novel where a character stated they would never forget that moment. For example, “Aureliano, who could not have been more than five at the time, would remember him for the rest of his life” (6) or “That biting odour would stay forever in her mind linked to the memory of Melquiades (6). As far as I noticed, this theme has been used a bit in the first four chapters. Another theme is magic realism. We see this on the first page when the gypsy says, “things ...