last post

awwww this is the last post! well, as much as i didnt like the blogs at first, i think they played an important role in me keeping up with the readings, and as the weeks went by, they werent as bad as i thought they were!
overall ive enjoyed this course, i knew from the first day that jon was going to be a good teacher. i like the humor and energy he brings into the class, even though it may have been a book that no one liked, or a project that some of us (including myself of course!) were to shy or lazy to get started on. needless to say, how cool is it that were gonna have class at the gallery tomorrow!?
of course i loved the idea of getting rid of the final paper to focus on the wikipedia project, however i do feel guilty because i know i should have put a lot more work into it earlier. i like the idea of the project, because as we saw, most of the articles werent very good to begin with, and i think that the writers and themes deserve to have a lot of accurate information up on the web on a site such as wikipedia.
its been a good semester in this class, oooo also, i really liked how we got in groups to discuss paragraphs because that way we got to know and interact with out classmates!

feast of the goat, part 2

today i began reflecting on what we talked about in class, how the book is pretty much black and white without much grey. more specifically, i thought about urania in this book. she is a powerful figure in this book, because even though she went back home to where horrible memories surfaced, she still remained pretty strong until the end.
for example, on the last page when a man was trying to buy her a drink, she reacted strongly because there was no way she was going to forget her negative past sexual experiences with trujillo.
her way of dealing with her past seems unhealthy because she doesnt really deal with it, instead she suppresses it by constantly working and tiring herself out. however, it is hard for me to imagine how one would begin to deal with something so traumatizing.
i feel sorry for urania and its sad because girls like her got dragged into something horrible without being able to control it, which is very common under dictatorships.

feast of the goat, part 1

ok, so first i need to vent about how difficult its been to get this post up! i woke up yesterday at about 11pm after falling a asleep reading, because i knew i had to do my blog, when i really felt like still sleeping and doing the blog the next day. however, i got up but the stupid internet would not work so i couldnt do the stupid post!!!!!!! haha, ok, enough of that.
so of course, the first thing i noticed was that this story was being told through urania, a woman! ...which is quite a change from the other books. its interesting how there seems to be a sort of dialogue going on, and some quotes without specifying who says it. sometimes it seems like theyre just thoughts that pop up, or maybe someone giving advice, but that someone doesnt necessarily seem clear to me.
also, when urania was just walking around the city, she mentioned how she wanted to go shower and eat at a hotel, but couldn't because she didnt have any money. i couldnt help but put myself in her situation and thought about how much it would suck to be wandering around a city without money...imagine getting hungry and wanting to eat, but not being able to because u dont have money on u! but, i think, where concious or not, she made that choice to put herself in that situation.
so far so good.

the general in his labyrinth, part 2

i cannot help but focus on the general... yet it is hard for me to exactly figure out how i feel about him. he seems so kind and loving, yet it is not with one woman (his wife), it is with many women. also, again, the image of him being pitiful continues to come up, and i cannt help but feel sorry for him, for the way he goes crazy with all of his thoughts. yet, at the same time, it was his choice to do everything he did, so in a sense he brought it upon himself, so then why should i feel sorry for him? ...when all he wanted was to be accepted?
thats the thing, marquez does such a good job of making me feel sorry for him! but i feel its a trap that i dont want to get into! after all, marquez is an amazing writer!

the general in his labyrinth, part 1

what a change! already, so much easier to read. second, i thought that i perhaps wasn't reading it right when the general's assistant, palacios, was described nicely and not as useless and in a negative light. palacios is actually described in postive terms for being so faithful to the general.
of course, another obvious thing that struck me was how the general was described, and the emotions he felt were that of a "real" human being, who loves and has fears. it is such a contrast from the other books that have described the dictator in horrible ways, and in a sense, without "feelings".
also, once again the cathedral is mentioned in this book, as it has been with many of the other books. it is an interesting role that religion has played in the history of dictatorships, which is why i think so many authors have included something symbolizing (like the cathedral) religion in thier books of dictators.
overall, so far so good...

i the supreme part 2

what a book! while it gets more difficult, i seems as though its becoming an even better book. to me, that seems the be the paradox, the greater the book, the harder it is to understand!
something that struck me, even though i know i should think of it as obvious, is the way patiño shows his devotion to the supreme by writing his own death sentence. i mean, i know he was loyal and had to be and everything, but to do as far as writing your own death sentence? thats pretty impressing.
all of the compiler's notes throughout the book are an interesting concept too, but the one at the very end of the book that we looked at in class was interesting as well. even such a short and what seems to be a simple note was hard for me to understand before reading it least 3 times, but even after that i feel like i didn't completely understand what he were saying. the concept of time in the book gets brought up a lot, and its all interesting how there are no quotes in the book, but in the last complier's note there is, quoting the supreme.

i the supreme

i was caught by surprise that i was to have this posted a week ago! i feel horrible for it being so late!

this book is definetly very confusing and time consuming. the first thing i noticed (im sure like everyone else) is that there are no quotations. this made it take longer to read because i would read over a sentence, and then have to re-read it and try to figure out who it is thats supposed to be saying it.

i noticed that because of the inclusion of the compiler's half-missing notes, it gives off the same idea that i got from facundo, that this is a real account. the sense that the book is being written as a historical account.

im still having a hard time getting through this book, its not a a bad book, but i think im not getting everything out of the book that i should be getting, i never considered myself much for someone that was good at appreciating literature that is hard for me to understand. but i think im getting better, and i think by the end of this course, and after reading this book, i will have improved this skill.

the end of the president

i wish it really was the end of such presidents! overall i enjoyed reading this book. because all of the metaphors got a bit confusing, and i began to pay less attention to them, because having so many seemed to lessen their significance. i tried seeing if there were some metaphors that continued to arise, and one of the main ones was of comparing angel face to the devil.
angel face, i liked him from the very beginning, and perhaps in comparing him to the devil it illustrates the paradox in the character that is most close to angel, is viewed at as a devil in the regime of this president. because angel face began helping people escape and changed his beliefs, he became seen as a devil because in doing good deeds, he would only bring trouble, trouble that is brought about by the devil.
it is hard to imagine living under the rule of such a president, seeing that no one can be trusted, not even your closet family members. such a regime made it so that everyone was only looking after themselves and their own life; yet, even after taking as many precautions as possible, the characters were still betrayed and convicted.
in reading this book i could also feel the fear and horrors of living under a dictatorship.

1st half of the president

what a change from facundo! i am enjoying reading this book so far, although there are many different people to keep track of. situations and people are described very well, which is where i feel that theres a lot of metaphors i'm missing. Asturias is trying to prove many points in various ways which i feel guilty for not completely understanding.
on pages 54 and 55 i found it very "interesting" the way the children were being portrayed. page 54 describes the entertainment, and even happiness that children experience at the sight of someone suffering blow, and crying, etc. i'm hopefully understanding this the correct way, as that the youth is already being molded to be insensitive to violence and human suffering, which is what is/would be occuring during the dictatorship.
also, on page 55 it subtly says how groups of boys (implying young people, the youth) "would amuse themselves " waiting anxiously for violence to occur. it is one thing for adults to be violent and entertained by it, but for a young, innocent, girl or boy to already be happy to see suffering, is another huge problem, it is training from the very beginning. to me it seems as though one important point Asturias is proving is how awful a dictatorship is even the youth is taking part in human suffering, when the youth is supposed to be happy, innocent, and not involved in such things.
overall, i'm liking this book, but it's also hard for me to swallow since many scenes are described in such detail that i begin to feel sick because of what is happening.

facundo

for me it's been a struggle to get through the last part of Facundo. like the first half of the book, i found the second half just as dry. even though it's been difficult to read, i also found myself feeling scared while reading the book. in that sense, Sarmiento is a good writer, because what he was writing felt pretty real to me. i found myself putting myself in the position of the people living at that time, under the influence of Facundo. i cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to live in such fear.
even though it was not actually Facundo, but Rosas who was inflicting such horrors on the people of Argentina, Sarmiento did a good job of making it feel real. as a woman, it is hard to hear that there was not even mercy shown towards the women in the book.
overall, although i did not really enjoy the book, i think it was productive in triggering an emotion in me, which is what i believe Sarmiento wanted to do, because that is what produces change (and acting on that emotion).

1st half of Facundo

After reading these first chapters, I realized I don't know much about this subject. i did find the first chapters a bit dry for my liking. (sorry my computer had to restart, so now I'm continuing!) however, the first four chapters helped me understand chapter 5 explaining the life of Facundo. i am eager to continue reading to learn more about the life of Facundo.
when talking about poetry in chapter 2, i found it interesting how it talks about how, no matter what the race, origin, or location of a certain people, their natural instincts seem to be the same, as proven in the examples of the different writings, and the assumption of the reader as to what was going to happen next. (this was on page 60). in anthropology i have learned that common sense can, and usually is unique to different cultures and races, so it really stuck out to mean that in this case, it proves that some basic ideas are universal to most cultures. it seems as though these examples are cases in which the character is in great danger, and perhaps that is when human instincts are universal.
i did like how clearly barbarism and civilization where described, although i did not like how they were defined. it just makes me cringe when the indigenous people are negatively labeled, the the "white Europeans" are labeled as superior and "civilized", but i know this is important in what Sarmiento was trying show in his writing.

1st half of Facundo

After reading these first chapters, I realized I don't know much about this subject. i found the first chapters a bit dry f

1st post!

So, this is my first time using this, and I'm just posting whatever comes to my mind...this is for my spanish 312 class, and I'll be doing this every week! I hope I'm doing it right!