*Note: due to technical difficulties, I have posted this for Jill. Enjoy.
When reading, I always look for a moral. If a book or story has no tale of morality, peace, or just a happy ending I am disappointed. However, Aura was different. Aura is a confusingly fantastic novel. With Aura, instead of searching of for morals I searched for answers. When Aura ended, I did not judge it based on its moral themes or a happy ending, but rather on its capacity to make me want to know.
I could not put Aura down because I wanted to understand the relation between Aura and Consuelo, Consuelo and Felipe, and Felipe and Aura. My desire to find morality and justice was overpowered by my desire to understand.
While reading this book things that usually affect me didn’t bother me. For example, while reading The Things They Carried I skipped the chapter about the baby buffalo, because I could not handle reading about its torture. Page 59 of Aura says, “Cats… all twined together, all writhing in flames and giving off a dense smoke that reeks of burnt fur.” If this description was written in The Things They Carried I would have cried, but I wasn’t bothered by the description in Aura. Aura makes immorality seem ok. My curiosity overwhelmed my capacity to feel.
Aura made me think differently while reading because it was created not to make the reader feel for the characters, but rather to make the reader feel creeped out. It leaves no clear answers, blurring reality and imagination - removing the need for morality.
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