Overall, I have liked this course. Reading novels and complete works in Spanish was new for me. Despite the fact that it was at times frustrating, I liked reading fewer but longer selections. I also appreciated the fact that the writing we read was modern as opposed to Spanish written 500 years ago. It makes a huge difference not only in terms of comprehension, but in terms of interest too.
At the beginning of the course, I never would have guessed that the theme of family would have ended up being so diverse. Thinking back on what constitutes family in each work, they are all so different. It really speaks to the endless variations, relationships and circumstances of families in reality. Despite the fact that family is unique to each individual, at the same time it is something that everyone has in common. Regardless of circumstance, everyone has a family. Every person has a mother and father and therefore familial relations as a result. My point is that there is no one definition of family that every individual subscribes to, yet it is a commonplace term used, and people understand what is meant by it. Out of curiosity, I just looked up “family” in the dictionary. One dictionary gave me 4 definitions, and the other gave me 15! This supports my comment about no one single definition of family.
I think I would have to say that Cien Anos was my favorite book. I liked that we were able to spend a lot of time on it. I know that there is so much in that book that we easily could have spent another month on it. I think part of the reason why I like it so much, in addition to the plot, was because the more I read, the easier it got. I think this was because I became more familiar with the writing, characters, etc.
April 10, 2007 at 3:53 am |
Kerry, I was struck by your last paragraph because I liked the idea of familiarity but I hadn’t put it into words. I think that is what reading Cien Anos was for me. The characters had time to develop and become more than one dimensional people. And yes, I started to get used to Marquez’s style of writing. It seemed to make the book more alive and there were times (though not a lot) where I didn’t want to put it down because I wanted to know what was going to happen next.
Taking literature courses do stretch us to think beyond one view point and find out what others thing and believe. It’s a good way to learn about life.