what's the point of studying bad literature?

I have actually enjoyed reading all three texts that we have studied in class, perhaps that's just because I like to read, good book or not; however, I have not enjoyed dissecting them. I imagine this is because there is very little to dissect in bad literature. I think that is, in part, my discovery regarding what makes a book "bad". Though, I find it necessary to point out that the adjective "bad" is vague, and fits in the category of adjectives to use when one is just to lazy to find a more suitable one. No offense of course, the title of the class is enticing and sold me, I mean, I am enrolled in it; though, when we are discussing a particular book, it isn't enough to say that it's just "bad", really what does that mean? What this point has lead me to is that we are often quick to judge something by adding an ambiguous, thoughtless adjective when there are many more appropriate words that could be used, and I have come to understand this more thoroughly in this course. I find it useful to study bad literature partly to learn how to talk about literature that we are not normally exposed to in university. Most of us can express why a book is well written, but not why it is poorly written.

Another reason that I find this class useful is that we are to become adept at critical analysis of bad literature, which translates into the ability to critically analyze "bad" media of all sorts. We are surrounded by trashy pop culture that so many of us guiltily indulge in, but it is useful to have the tools to at least observe with awareness. Sometimes we are not even willing participants in our exposure to media, billboards, ads in newspapers, the radio in a coffee shop... I prefer to be at least able to take a more active role in my media exposure, both intentional and unintentional exposure, in that I can be aware of what I am being fed instead of being a passive watcher/listener/reader and just taking everything in. Critical analysis is an important tool to acquire in order to be prepared for what we are exposed to in our daily lives.

More along the lines of what we are supposed to be discussing, themes that we have encountered in this course...
One interesting point that Jon has mentioned several times is the market place of literature. I had never put into terms before the idea of what audience the author is trying to reach: the mass market, from were he gets financial gain, or the cultural market from where he earns a higher status and notability in the academic community.
Also interesting, are the very different styles we have so far encountered in these three books. I think that, despite their obvious faults, and though I agree that they are all not such great works of literature, they at least have their own styles. Granted, nothing' s original, they are better than some really trashy pulp out there like Dan Brown's sad attempt at a writing career or, ugh, Danielle Steel. So I guess that perhaps these books are kind of a middle ground between good and bad literature (ah, middle-brow, I get that now). Now, I do realize that Coelho has a format that he probably follows in all of his books and this has worked for him and made him wealthy, but at least he puts forth a book with a moral in the form of a fable that you can read to children (I mean, I think The Alchemist would make a decent kids book). And Esquivel made an attempt at developing her own style, but, did you notice that almost every chapter is exactly fifteen pages long (I like to count, what can i say). This leads me to believe that she is following a format for each chapter, begins with a recipe, ends in a disaster, usually includes crying. But nonetheless, she has some sort of style of her own that would make a pretty good short story. And Allende's story had a style of her own, what made that book disappointing was the rushed and contrived ending. (like this one)

retrospection

Looking back through the texts that we have studied in the first half of the course I see several reoccurring themes: affection, desire, the indigenous perspective, modernism and genre are among those we discussed. The unifying thread between the works that we have been surveying is, mainly, families (with perhaps the exception of Neruda).

We have encountered several different types of families. In Cumandá, Mera focused on themes including the indigenous perspective, affection, poets, customs, death, desire, nature etc. Though I would say that the theme of the family was constant throughout his story. In Cumandá, the colonist family was broken; separated by tragedy, leaving only son and father. There was also an inspection of the Native family, their customs and their close connection with nature. Within these families there was a bond so strong that it brought both Cumandá and Carlos together and inexplicably drawn to each other, which resulted in the altruistic act of Cumandá's self-sacrifice in order to safe her lover/brother.

Neruda's poetry doesn't necessarily touch on the theme of family, but we still encountered some of the reoccurring themes of desire, affection, the poet, and invention/creation. Though they are different genre's there is still these common threads between Mera's work and Neruda's (also, though Mera's work was a novella, it did contain poetry).

Next, we read Las Memoria's de Mama Blanca, by de la Parra. Again, we see the importance of the theme of families in Latin American literature. This family though, differs greatly from the family in Cumandá. Blanca Nieves family was, through the eyes of Blanca, dominated by the feminine and the only male member of the family took a diminutive role, barking from his office window or scolding the workers from his symbolically higher position on the balcony. What I found interesting was this untouchability of what was masculine; the admiration and respect for male role models. Even Violeta, the "boyish" one of the sisters, was respected and admired, almost feared, by Blanca. As well, both Vicente Cochocho and cousin Juancho were revered by the girls. Their mother, the embodiment of femininity, appeared almost silly at times, especially when she was mocked by her husband for her attention to detail before her parties. Evelyn, the other important female role in the girls lives, was not revered, she was rather disliked and only listened too by the girls because she used force and harsh punishment (not such a feminine model but she was a women all the same). In sum, though the importance of the female role in this family was important, I found the male one equally as important through the admiration shown by the main narrator.

The family in Piedra Callada was again, a different family from the other books we discussed. This family was, at first, lacking a man, and when one was added, this male role model was an unfortunate addition who, in the end, was killed off by the grandmother. There were no characters to really sympathize with in this book, and as I said before, the picture painted of family life here was a bleak one. The children could have been sympathized with but their characters were, I am sure purposefully, rather undeveloped and mainly described as "los niños".

Lastly, we read Las Hortensias, a really odd book about a man who replaces his affection for his wife with his dolls. Main themes here are desire, industrialization, the artificial etc. The theme of family is an interesting one in this book because it is of an unconventional family. Maria can't have children (and it's probably good that she doesn't because her husband has an obvious mental imbalance) and she places her nurturing instinct on the doll. Her husband on the other hand, through his fear of losing his wife, focuses his desire less and less on his wife and more on the dolls, in the end replacing his affection for his wife with an affection for the artificial. What also makes them strange is their excessive lifestyle. I think excess could also be a theme of this book. For example, I am quite sure that it is extremely unusual in a country like Uruguay to have the means to hire a piano player to block out unwanted noise and to reconstruct a life size doll to make it feel warmer and more life-like.

Out of all the works we have studied my favorites are tied between Neruda's poetry and Mama Blanca's Memoirs. Las Hortensias is a close third. I think that is the use of imagery that I appreciate the most in these texts.

Piedra Callada

Marta Brunet´s story, ¨Piedra Callada¨, is a rather bleak view of life. From the first page there is conflict between Esperanza and Eufrasia about Esperanza´s desire to marry Bernabé, a large, ugly beast of a man. When Esperanza marries Bernabé she is disowned by her mother, "Te podís casar cuando se te antoje: pero desde ese día no tenís más madre", and years pass when mother and daughter are estranged until she hears the terrible news that her daughter is ill. Another conflict ensues when Eufrasia arrives at her daughter´s home to care for the little ones and shortly after, Esperanza dies. There seems to be no actual reconciliation between the two and it seems, though Eufrasia has left her residence to care for Esperanza´s children, there is no verbal renege of the disownership and Esperanza dies, motherless, leaving her children in a similar state. Perhaps Esperanza´s death symbolizes the loss of hope.

The conflict becomes even bleaker when Bernabé beats both his children and their grandmother. Nature symbolizes the state of the family and the torment they suffer. Winter sets in, the grey clouds close in on the valley and it rains relentlessly, leaving the family isolated and trapped indoors. The sky clears when an argument is won by Eufrasia, and Bernabé leaves the house; but this is only temporary. He returns and the beatings continue. The sad story ends with a fishing excursion where Bernabé is hit in the head with a stone (the "silent stone" perhaps?) and the children return home without him. It is clearly stated what really happens to Bernabé after and there is a false sense of happiness; though it is false because there is no clear resolution and the grandmother leaves the door open for when Bernabé comes home, "abierta, porque para los otros el hombre todavía podía volver", which could be read as the foretelling of his return; though as Jon suggests, may tell us that the grandmother knows that he is not returning as she is the one who kills him, which then would make the story a little less than I had originally presumed and gives it a little bit of a happy(ish) ending.

Like Water for Chocolate

I am sure that many of you will agree with me when I say that the film Like Water for Chocolate manages to outdo the novel it is based on, which is unusual because, generally, films are often disappointing in comparison to the books. I imagine that this is because of how difficult it must be to transform a 250+ page novel into an eighty minute movie. However, since Like Water for Chocolate is long-winded and contains many pages of unnecessary recipes and over-simplified explanations for things rather outlandish and dramatic, I am guessing that the screen-writer had an easy time editing out large portions of the novel.

Initially, I had assumed that the recipes would be symbolic for something further on in the text, but to my disappointment they were only recipes interlaced with plot, which, despite my love for cooking, did not interest me. I can see how this might have seemed like a creative idea to the author, but in my opinion, it didn't work. In fact, Esquivel seemed to be missing a lot of things in her novel, such as a connection between the chapter titles and the plot. It seemed that there was no reason for the chapters to be consecutively named after each month of the year, seeing as the plot, though linear, did not happen in one year, and each chapter did not happen in the month it was titled, in fact, the events mainly happened over longer periods of time than only one month.

Also, I found this book to be the easiest novel I have ever read in Spanish, the language was so simple and void of any clever metaphors or imagery. I would compare the reading level to that of secondary school readers. Though, the story could be interesting at times and the idea of emotions being transferred into food is somewhat imaginative. Perhaps this book would have made a better short story. Maybe if was cut down from 267 pages to between 20-40 pages it could be a descent short story. The ideas weren’t bad, just the execution of the ideas. The author may have a plentiful imagination but she isn’t a very talented writer.

Memorías de Mamá Blanca

Me gusta como de la Parra describe sus caracteres en su novela Memorias de Mamá Blanca por que usa muchos imágenes que son muy únicos; por ejemplo, cuando describiendo Vicente Cochocho escribe "Siendo casi del mundo de los vegetales, aceptaba sin quejarse las iniquidades de los hombres y las injucitias de la naturaleza. Hundido en la acequia o adherido a las lajas, zaheriéranlo o no, sequía como buen vegetal dando impasible sus frutas o sus flores" (145) o de Evelyn, dice “dentro de su corsé, bajo su rebelde pelo lanudo, algo reluciente y lo más liso posible, Evelyn exhalaba a todas horas orden, simetría, don de mando, y un tímido olor a aceite de coco. Sus pasos iban siempre escoltados o precedidos por unos suaves chss,chss, chss, que proclamaban en todos lados su amor al almidón su espíritu positiva adherido continuamente a la realidad como la ostra está adherida a la concha" (78). Pero, no entiendo por qué hay un narrador diferente al principio, no creo que era necesario para las historias de Mamá Blanca y siempre quería saber que paso al carácter que empiece el libro. También, los descripciones son muy complicados, a mí, me gusta buenos imágenes, pero en español hallía serlo muy difícil a leer y entender; a veces, no podía entender un entero frase. Aunque, disfrutí el libro.

close reading

What more can we say about The Alchemist? It is not a book that was written for close analysis. An afternoon read in a hammock perhaps, but really-- I hate to admit it but, Jon is right. *sigh -- this book is really awful. Though, that said, does that mean I have awful taste in literature? I don't often enjoy such trash, why was I drawn to this book? I knew when I was reading it that it was not well written but I enjoyed it anyway-- twice! Why does this book sell so many copies? Are we really that desperate for inspiration that we let these glaring inadequacies go? Obviously there is little analysis done of the books people choose to read on their spare time, but isn't it better that they are reading books than voting for the next American Idol? Is it so bad that people enjoy reading trash if they have turned off their TV’s to do so?

However, this is a book being discussed in a university setting, which means that we must do a close reading of it, so if I must, I must:

• First of all, there is nothing deep or profound about the message within. What is said is meant literally. For example, Santiago’s treasure turns out to be just that, a treasure, gold treasure in fact. It is disappointing that his treasure didn’t turn out to be something more symbolic.

• Second, there is little variation in sentence structure (the first page contains three simple sentences, four compound sentences, one complex-compound sentence and no complex sentences), and also little variation in vocabulary (on page 116, starting at the star, until the end of page 117, “boy” is mentioned twelve times, “alchemist”, eleven times and “desert” seven times—this would seem like a lot if you were to actually count the number of words in that section, there aren’t many as the print is large and double spaced).

• Third, the “Personal Legend” description, as we discussed in class, is faulty. It’s vague and doesn’t take into consideration that a) life is complicated, and b) “dreams” are complicated. Not everyone has one sole dream or purpose. What happens when that dream is fulfilled? Just stop dreaming? And to say that one’s life has one purpose is oversimplifying things. Furthermore, it gives the impression that everyone has one great and amazing reason for being on the planet, but let’s face it, we’re not all Owen Meanie. If there was one simple reason for us all hanging out down here together on Earth, would there be so much violent disagreements over religion? Life’s just not that simple.