Captain Pantoja and the Special Service was written by Mario Vargas Llosa in 1973. I decided to read this novel because I’d heard of the author before, namely about the book “The Time of the Hero.” I really wanted to like this book, but truthfully I wa…
Posted in Blogs, Vargas Llosa | Tagged with
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service was written by Mario Vargas Llosa in 1973. I decided to read this novel because I’d heard of the author before, namely about the book “The Time of the Hero.” I really wanted to like this book, but truthfully I wa…
Posted in Blogs, Vargas Llosa | Tagged with
Mario Vargas Llosa’s Captain Pantoja and the Special Service was an eventful read. The book—both directly and indirectly—dealt with heavier themes of colonialism, discipline and control, sexuality, prostitution, and corruption, while simultaneously providing comedy. The first thing that stood out to me was how corrupt the military was. This was most explicitly shown to me […]
Posted in Blogs, Vargas Llosa | Tagged with discipline
Reading the first few pages of this novel already made me nauseous; needless to comment on the rest of the book which was only more and more outrageous as it went along. From the descriptors of the maths that are required to run a brothel, to completely grotesque descriptors about Captain Pantoja’s hemorrhoids, or cult … Continue reading →
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This week’s book got my attention from the very beginning and the end of the novel really took me by surprise. I overall really like this week’s novel as it has some very interesting themes that stood out to me. I would also like to point out that although it was a very short read, […]
This week I read “the Hour of the Star” by Clarice Lispector. This was an interesting read to say the least however I actually quite enjoyed the story and its unique writing style. I was excited to read this story because I saw it recommended in a video once, however, I was not prepared for […]
I’ve always been fascinated by the country of Brazil. It’s the largest country in Latin America in terms of both area and population and is in some ways the South American equivalent to the United States: similar size, multiculturalism, and political/economic/racial divides. Yet, despite its huge population and international influence in the domains of music […]
Clarice Lispector is an author who is famous for her capricious dance between the actual and the abstraction. Through her story The Hour of the Star providing the semblance of a plot, she is able to cover the meaning of existence, or in her least complex, simply dive into the everyday meanderings of […]
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with postmodern/postmodernity
Being the shortest book this term, Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star was an easy read in terms of length. However, despite the short length of the Novella, I found Lispector’s writing style to be challenging at times. This rather dense writing style…
Posted in Blogs, Lispector | Tagged with power-dynamics, self-worth
Being the shortest book this term, Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star was an easy read in terms of length. However, despite the short length of the Novella, I found Lispector’s writing style to be challenging at times. This rather dense writing style…
