To start off, I really enjoyed this course, largely because I can really say that my passion for reading which I lost once starting university because of how many ‘boring’ school books I had to read. All of these books provoked emotion in me, allowing me to engage more with the texts and keep me hooked page after page. I have to say, my favourite book we read this semester was ‘Black Shack Alley’, with ‘The Shrouded Woman’ running as a very close second. I loved these books for a multitude of reasons, a large one being the writing styles. These books were written in a way that really hooked me, and felt like I was seeing inside the minds of the narrators.
On the other hand, there were also books that challenged me and my interest throughout the semester. My least favourite book we read was ‘Combray’ by Marcel Proust. There are a lot of potential explanations for why I did not enjoy this book but the main one was most likely due to the fact that it was the first one we read, when I was still in a mindset that wasn’t super open to reading dense books. I do think that perhaps if I read it again, having returned to my once engaged reader mindset, I think that I would definitely have a different opinion, and not the text as difficult to get through.
One interesting thing I have learned in this class is the way in which I read, particularly when reading older texts. I learned that I tend to approach reading with a modern lens, which can make it difficult to look past certain aspects in older books, and not always get the true meaning or theme out of the book. I would say that this happened in almost every novel we read this semester, but it was probably most pronounced when reading ‘The Time of the Doves’. When reading the first half of the book, we see a fair bit of a character named Quimet. While he does disappear from the book, and the plot becomes more concerned with the mental state of the novel’s narrator Natalia, I found it hard to erase him from my mind. He was, by all modern accounts, a questionable husband, saying that Natalia needed to like all the things she liked, and had to find a way to like them if she didn’t already. He was also very forceful, which I found at times unpleasant to read. Now I did say this in my blog post on the novel, but I am aware that there is definitely a time period difference, and that at the time, relationships such as this one between a husband and wife, with a husband displaying aggressive and or controlling behaviours, was considered the norm and relatively accepted. However, I found that my mindset towards male characters such as Quimet was very consistent throughout the text, and was almost always the first thing that jumped out at me, and definitely had an impact on my interpretation of the story, whether I liked it or not.
Overall, I really enjoyed this course, the way it was structured and the texts we read were all interesting and fun! Thank you all for reading week after week and looking forward to one last class!
My question for you all this week is “who is your least favourite character (probably male, but maybe female?) from any of the books we’ve read this semester?’