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.
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2 comments:
I also thought it was interesting that the puppeteer was so suprised by the fact that the children would react so gleefully to his puppet's tears.
And I agree that some of the metaphors were a bit confusing, I think they probably just don't sound as good in English as in Spanish.
Isa, maybe the analogies of the youth and children presented by Asturias are because when he was a child and later on a young adult he lived the Dictatorship of that era. Those are my feelings.
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