Useless Information? I think not.

Aura was an interesting novella to say the least. I was able to finish it in one sitting- no, not because it had such large margins and we only had to read one side of the book- because I found it so enjoyable. I never read a book that was in second person and I was always on my toes wondering what would happen next in this strange house. I think the book was so interesting also because of the seemingly unimportant information the author provided.

            Fuentes takes a daily activity like waiting for the bus and makes it more interesting by making it more personal. "The bus is coming now...You've got to be prepared. You...search among the coins, and finally take out thirty centavos. You've got to be prepared." (7). The 'you' automatically creates a bond between us and the character, but these sentences also allow us to experience what Felipe is feeling. As readers, we now know that is the type of person who plans ahead of time with all of his actions and has a very calculative mind.

            Later, when Felipe arrives at the house, the description foreshadows the dangers ahead. "The door opens at the first push of your fingers, but before going in you give a last look over your shoulder...You try to retain some single image of that indifferent outside world" (11). Without even realizing it, as I was reading this paragraph I was getting more nervous. Why would someone reminiscently look back at the real world unless they knew they were not going to return? 

Initial Reaction

My initial reaction to Aura was entirely dependent on its second person narrative voice. I felt as though I was being told to do things--in my opinion, it is written in a way that allows the author to make direct contact with the reader, to grasp the reader's attention immediately and drag the reader right into Senora Llorente's house as if he or she were Senor Montero. I have not yet read a book written in the second person, and thus was expecting it to be a difficult adjustment to make, but it proved to be easier than I imagined.
Before dialogue was provided, it was hard for me to tell if Fuentes's descriptions of the happenings were to be considered reality. Although countless details were provided, the first several pages of the book seemed vague. In my opinion, everything fell on the border between magic and reality. The haziness of it all--"You try to retain some single image of that indifferent outside world" (11)--initially made the general plot line unclear to me. The dialogue, however, then served as a method to ground the reader in some sort of reality.

Why I don't get it

Even though the desire to write an insightful blog post is there, I cannot bring myself to do so when I struggle understanding the plot.  I mean seriously what the (explicative) just happened?  My interpretation of plot events was completely off the mark.  Let's laugh at how bad my interpretations were.

I had the impression that Aura and Senora Consuelo were a part of some two-man religious cult involving sacrifices, maybe even human sacrifices.  The signs were all there, to me at least: Senora Consuelo is spotted by Felipe “performing a ritual with the empty air,” making motions “as if she were skinning an animal” (91).  Then, Felipe discovers the herbs that could act as narcotics as they “bring consolation, weaken the will, [and] induce a voluptuous calm” (102).  When Felipe meets Aura in her room, she “bathes the soles of [his] feet” and cleans them (107).  Jesus Christ had his feet washed by Mary Magdalene before he was crucified.  This inference definitely feels like a stretch in hindsight, but given the heavy Christ imagery throughout the book (even in the very room that Felipe got his feet washed there was a huge “Christ carved from black wood”) and my almost certain conviction that Felipe was going to be drugged at one point or another, I made the connection that Felipe like Jesus would become a sacrifice (107).  Again hindsight is 20/20.  When Felipe swallows the thin wafer that Aura gives him and falls into a trance-like state, I thought he was gone.  I thought the next part of the book would be Felipe wakes up, and we learn what type of torture he goes through.  One of the reviewers at the back of the book called Aura, “ ‘a beautiful horror story’ ” so I guess this is the horror part, right?  Well turns out I was not right, (thank God) but this novel is still a horror story.  Not the gory-kind filled with blood and torture, but that slow, creeping sensation of fear as we realize the relationship between Senora Consuelo and Aura.  In the end, I still wonder what exactly happened, and I hope class today will help me out.

Aura of Youth

The lines between past and present and real and imaginary are blurred in Aura.  First, I think the second person present style helps to establish this blurring between past and present.  It feels like present when read, but at the same time, it is written down from the beginning - inevitably an account of past events.  When Felipe Montero first meets the Senora, he describes her with "a face so old it's almost childlike" (Fuentes 17).  This paradox is continued throughout the book in the form of Aura, who is the manifestation of the youth inside of Consuelo.  They are often seen at different times, depending upon the context in while Montero sees them.  When being told information about the job, he sees her as the old lady, but when he is being invited into bed, he typically sees her as the beautiful young Aura. When they are seen together, they are eerily synchronized: "The girl nods and at the same time the old lady imitates her gesture." (25).  At first, Montero believes that Consuelo has some sort of spell over Aura and is trapping her inside the house, but it turns out the relationship is much stronger.  Aura is the youth inside the old lady, the youth that had died some 60 years ago along with her husband.  By hiring Montero to revise and complete her husband's memoirs she is trying to preserve that part of her life, her youthful days, as well as the memory of her husband.  Just as Aura is a youthful version of the old lady, Montero is filling the role of her dead husband, General Llorente.  Before Montero has agreed to anything of the sort, Senora Consuelo says "Then you'll stay here. Your room is upstairs." (23).  The preemptive use of your room suggests that the room has always been his - that the general's old room belongs to him.  She also says that he will "learn to write in [the general's] own style" (21), drawing even more comparison between the two. The most obvious comparison comes when Aura and Montero make love in the morning and she says "You're my husband." (77).  That one is pretty blatant.  When I first read it and didn't realize Aura and the old lady were one in the same, I didn't think anything of it, but now it is painfully obvious that, in a similar way, Montero and the general are on in the same.  Her husband supposedly died 60 years ago, but maybe he just left and is only coming back now to fall in love with his wife of the past all over again.

An Initial Reaction: Aura and Dracula?

While in the process of reading Aura, I was certainly taken aback and intrigued by the oddities of the style in which Fuentes wrote, but my strongest feeling throughout the text was a sense of déjà vu, which seemed somewhat mysterious to me. I knew for certain that I had never read this text before, or anything else with this particular and curious style – I think I would have remembered if I had. It wasn't until I had actually finished the book before I understood. My strange feelings of familiarity weren't stemming from the narrative style of the text, but from its structure and tone. Dracula. In the presentation of the conflict and description,Carlos Fuentes' Aura strongly resembled the first part of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

There are a few obvious similarities. The house is repeatedly described as Gothic and in a state of complete disrepair, imitating at the mental and moral degradation that its inhabitants either have already experienced or will experience. Despite their misgivings, both male protagonists nonetheless enter into the house, and in many ways are unable to or prevented from leaving. The protagonist is limited, in almost a claustrophobic sense, in his movement around the setting (Johnathan Harper, the initial narrator of Dracula, is given free roam throughout the castle, but almost all of its many doors are locked or barred). Thirdly, just the presence of and interaction with the other inhabitants of the house force the protagonists to question both their sanity and their previous assumptions about perceptions and reality.

There are more comparisons that could be made, dealing with the subject matter and focus of the two books (I think the combination of strength and complete dependency that both Dracula and Consuelo share is fascinating), but I would like to discuss the themes of Aura in a little more detail before drawing my own conclusions. Nonetheless, I feel a very strong comparison here, in ways more critical than simple descriptive similarity. Throughout our discussions, I think I will be focusing very closely on the themes that these two novels share.

Just a Dream

When I first started Aura, I honestly was not particularly interested in the book.  But as it progressed and as Felipe became more entangled into the mystery of the house, I found myself captivated. The dark images and the aspects of magical realism drew me into the book and I soon found myself wondering what creepy plot twist was going to happen next. I was also drawn in by the abundant imagery, especially the use of colors. The contrast between Aura’s green dress and eyes and the ‘dark old house’ emphasize Aura’s mystical and dreamlike nature, drawing Felipe toward her in the same way that the reader is intrigued by the text.

Although each dark twist in the book leads to the reader finally learning that Aura was actually just a dream all along, the book just cuts off without really answering how or why Senora Consuelo recreates a younger version of herself. It seems like it is solely for Felipe to fall in love with her, yet what does that mean about Felipe if he coincidentally is just a younger version of Senora Consuelo’s dead husband? This layering of past and present and magical realism kept me engaged in the book, but then just left me confused when it all ended, which might have been Fuentes’ plan all along.

Reality Is Controlled By The Puppeteer

Reality is not external; it is a state of mind. The only ability all people are giving is to dictate their reality. However, sometimes when influence through the right medium a person can lose their reality, and take on another’s. This concept comes to light when reading Aura. Felipe through the process of living in that house came part of the house. He lost a sense of who he was as person, thus, his reality was distorted. Reality is directly tied to a person’s personality, habits, and outlook on life. Through the manipulation of his reality, his personality begins to change in order to reflect the General’s. In addition the most complex factor that shook Felipe’s reality and ensured he was lost in the world of the house was his perception of time. Towards the end of the novel Felipe was unable to see the difference between Aura and Consuelo. It goes deeper than the idea of them mimic one another. However, their actions were a sign that they were the same person.  If this was true the idea of being the same person means that Felipe was transform to a time when Consuelo was young and was force to see her experience inside the house through Aura. With all these factor Felipe lost his reality. This draws the conclusion that manipulation of ones reality is also the manipulation of the person. It is the idea that humans are puppets with an established puppeteer i.e. reality, but if the puppeteer was to change so does the puppets movement in order to fit a new master’s actions. To ensure an individual’s reality is not manipulated is by separating oneself from the situation; to cling to a memory outside the realm which one is stuck in. At the end Felipe was unable to do this and was lost in another man’s reality.

Out of Sight Out of Mind

I felt that the idea of out of sight of mind really resonated throughout this book from the very beginning. Felipe doesn’t even remember the advertisement until he sees it a second time. Once in Senora Consuelo’s house darkness hides almost everything. This is especially true with Senora Consuelo, as she seems to not know half of what is going on in her house. She is even oblivious to the idea that rats have nested next to her chest, which hold remnants of her husband’s memoirs. Who knows what the rest of the house looked like. Felipe wandered around in the dark half of the time not questioning what may lay in the unknown. Darkness in the end even hides the truth from Felipe. It is not until moonlight comes through a crack, that rats had made in the wall, and Aura’s true identity is revealed. Does this idea of out of sight out of mind create happiness or is this simply an idea to aid in creating a new, more beneficial, outlook on something?

Emotional Freedom?

After reading the first few pages of Aura, I sensed something a little strange, yet I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it. My first thought was that it must be the 2^nd person narrative, which I found extremely annoying at first. But as I continued reading, I realized it was beyond the unusual narration, it was something fundamentally missing. Finally it hit me. Emotion. Nowhere in the text was there anything that even hinted at the emotional feeling of a character. It was left up to me, the reader, to add in this crucial aspect of any story. After this realization, the book became much more exciting because I was an active participant in the story, I could introduce any feeling I wished, guide it in any emotional direction I wanted. The reader must take in the eerie descriptions, dialogue, and odd physical actions to not only synthesize a fear but also experience it. Although the narration is telling “you” exactly what is happening, down to the most discrete details of taking off clothing or what is being served for dinner, the lack of emotions bring a great freedom to much of the novel.

Because the emotions are largely absent, the anxiety, thrill, and suspense are not tied up in the characters but rather in the mind of the reader. Felipe Montero is nothing more than a vessel in which the reader uses to travel through the emotions of the novel. He is the sum of his experiences, of the physical actions that he performs. Montero never experiences the suspense of learning that Aura and Consuelo are the same woman and he doesn’t feel the tension of being trapped in the home.  His actions are indifferent, robotic to an almost disturbing level. The only emotion we get from Montero is his love for Aura/Consuelo, yet even this comes from his physical draw to her beauty rather than an emotional connection, leaving the reader to fill in the emotional void. By the conclusion, the ending leaves the reader feeling a bit tricked by their own minds. Although Montero performs the actions that lead to his relationship with Consuelo, we brought him there emotionally. By the conclusion, I realized this "emotional freedom" I believed I had throughout the novel was nothing more than an illusion. The novel was strategically written to bring the readers to the same emotional conclusion.

I'm Trapped

            In Aura, Fuentes explores the ideas of freedom and being trapped. At first, it seemed strange that Felipe takes the job, as it requires him to give up his personal freedom and live in that shady house with a crazy old lady. We learn, however, that he does this because he needs to save up money for his “future creative liberty” (67). Felipe chooses to give up his freedom now in order to have some in the future, which he, toward the beginning, is quite hopeful and optimistic about as he already gets a head start on his own writing. As the novella progresses, we find out that this is futile since the house becomes “a prison cell” that traps him (141). Fuentes describes the moon which “tries to free itself” from the clouds and “escapes for only a moment” before slipping back behind the clouds (140). This parallels Felipe’s own inability to escape, as he even had a moment of hope early on, just to find out he’s trapped. All of his hope he once had for his freedom in future is gone. Fuentes enforces the feeling of captivity by trapping the reader in the story through the second person narration. Felipe has promised to love Aura forever, a decision that will tie him to her eternally, even after her death. He is stuck in Aura and Consuelo’s perpetual cycle of aging and youth. I feel that there is a greater significance to Felipe’s entrapment here, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. If I can sort out what the house and what Aura represent, I can dig deeper into the idea. I think that the ideas of time, beauty, and love can tie into it somehow, and I’m hoping that our discussion in class tomorrow will help clarify things. All I know is that Fuentes definitely created a suffocating environment that traps both the reader and Fuentes and eliminates any hope of personal freedom.

The Aura of Aura

I was planning on finishing Aura before writing this blog post, but then I decided now was the time. My junior year of high school I read Aura in a Spanish literature class. When I began this book in English, two conflicting emotions hit me. The first was satisfaction, at how quickly the book flew by, reassuring me that yes, I am fluent in English. The second one, though was disappointment. The unbroken darkness of the house was less haunting. The 2^nd person you notes in English Aura’s that“eyes are sea green and that they surge, break to foam, grow calm again, then surge like a wave.” (Fuentes, 27) But when her eyes open slowly, “se hacen espuma, vuelven a inflamarse como un ola” (Fuentes, 26) they are a whole new set of eyes. The words may be as close to a direct translation as possible, but because of the variation of sound, because of the increased beauty reading what Fuentes wrote in the language he learned to express himself in, those same words have a whole different feel. We have discussed a lot in class about the dependence between author and character. The author does not have the identity of author without the character, but the character too would not exist without the author. I believe there is a similar co-dependence between language and literature. Books could not exist without language, but similarly without literature and speech putting words together, language would have no significance. To me, the “meaning” of a word stems from a combination of its sound and it’s written, or known definition. Last year Li-Young Lee, a poet, visited my creative writing class. He spoke about how man didn’t invent language. He used the example of a tree, saying that the essence of the tree produced the word itself and man spoke it to spread all that is confined in “tree.” I am now in first term German, and the more languages I dabble in, the more I realize the infinite possibilities of language. I feel that to be able to articulate myself fully, I would have to be fluent in every languages, plus the million more that may never exist. This could sound depressing, but I in fact mean it in an exciting way. There are so many combinations of words we have yet to discover, and this, in itself, is a reason to keep writing, keep reading, keep speaking, keep dancing with the language as the song. 

Tired or Hypnotized?

        I'm not entirely sure if it was from not getting any sleep last night, or the books overall hypnotic powers, but as I was reading this strange and wonderful tale I slowly began to slip into a deep trance. The power of present tense make me become further and further detached from the actual world surrounding me and thus I became more entranced within the reading itself. I feel that this may have been one of Fuentes' overall goals in this novella, given the trance like state that we find Aura in and the hypnotic powers that Consuelo has over her. I'd have to say that aside from the strange, strange ending sequence, the fact that I actually began to become hypnotized was quite intriguing. I've never had a book have such a profound physical effect on me. Even as I type this blog post, I find myself slowly coming out of my stupor yet still being held in its clutches. However, I may be the only one feeling this and for all I know this could just be my overall sleep deprived mind telling me to get some rest. However, deep down, I'd like to think that Carlos Fuentes is such a persuasive and effective writer that he has a hypnotic effect on me.

It's like Teleportation, Just Less Technical

You are reading this blog post. You realize that the author is simply imitating the style of Aura. You start to become less and less interested. Your eyes drift from the luminescent writing and you start to envision shenanigans of the upcoming weekend. You sap out of your tempting daydreams and realize that you were just reading something. Your eyes float back to the screen.

Sorry about that. I guess I got slightly carried away, but I do think that the use of second person narration in Aura is the most interesting part of the novella. Immediately as readers we are drawn into the story and forced to experience the events as if we were there, as if we were Felipe. The heightened sense of attachment heightens the suspense. Each nightmare, each cat cry, each inexplicable sight is our own. Second person narration is dangerous, though. If a writer does not create a world that is engrossing enough a reader will place their personality into the text and lose sight of what they are reading. Fuentes does not fall into this trap. His world is just unexplained enough to make it feel like reality. The beauty of Fuentes’ writing is in how he balances revelation with confusion and the second person narration is the perfect tool for his prose. 

Mirror, Mirror

I found this book to be confusing and creepy. Something that stood out to me was the reflection between Aura and Consuelo. I am not too sure but I think they might have been the same person, similar to a mirror image of each other but in a youthful and elder form. Aura projects a youthful Consuelo. This is seen at the dinner table when “Senora becomes motionless, and at the same moment Aura puts her knife on her plate and also becomes motionless, and you remember that the Senora put down her knife only a fraction of a second earlier” (69). Consuelo is dictating Aura’s actions based on those of her own. It is scary that they reflect each other and become “motionless” at the same time. The bilingual text also adds to this parallel because the text itself is a mirror image. I did notice though that the English is all in present tense, while the Spanish is in future tense. However, if Consuelo is living through Aura, does that mean she had sex with Felipe? 

Aura's Tension

Carlos Fuentes’ Aura, much like Octavia Butler’s Kindred, deals with a dredging and smudging of the past, albeit in a very different manner with different intent. Instead of returning to the antebellum South with Dana, the reader, after being introduced to the second person tense of Aura, actually becomes Felipe Montero, a schoolteacher and nascent historian who accepts a job editing the documents of frail, old Consuelo’s late husband, General Llorente. What Fuentes achieves through this stylistic choice is a somnambulant, hypnotic hold on the reader, one that further contributes to, as Jessi mentioned, Aura’s magical realism. Time becomes irrelevant once the reader, through the eyes of Felipe, enters the darkened walls of Consuelo’s domain. There is an intoxicating sense of being led by a host of unseen and unknown forces through the text. Each event the reader experiences as Felipe seems highly inevitable yet not precisely foreseeable, and, unlike Kindred, tension arises from these forces as they grind against one another. Aura’s very existence, or lack there of, for example, begs the question of her origin: Where did she come from and how? Does Felipe play a part in her creation / projection? The interesting part of this reaction, for me at least, was that it only occurred after I had finished reading Aura. Maybe this is just an indication that I am a poor reader, or perhaps Fuentes’ intent was to immerse his readers in the perplexing, disarming sense of chronology that Felipe experiences as he pores over his own past in a decaying house inhabited by a dying woman and the ghost of her youth.

Lolita Times Poe Times Antonia Banderas

I want to say something about imagination purely as a tool in the art and science of scaring people. 
The idea isn't original with me; I heard it expressed by William F. Nolan at the 1979 World Fantasy 
Convention. Nothing is so frightening as what's behind the closed door, Nolan said. You approach the door in the old, deserted house, and you hear something scratching at it. The audience holds its breath along with the protagonist as she or he (more often she) approaches that door. The protagonist throws it open, and there is a ten-foot-tall bug. The audience screams, but this particular scream has an oddly relieved sound to it. "A bug ten feet tall is pretty horrible," the audience thinks, "but I can deal with a ten-foot-tall bug. I was afraid it might be a hundred feet tall."

~Stephen King, Danse Macabre

First of all, sorry about the abnormally long quote. It refused to be paraphrased without becoming disjointed. 

Aura does the 'Danse Macabre' (the balance of revealing and hiding horrific details) perfectly. There is more mystery in the book than there is substance. Creepy atmospheric tension is built through the book with the amorphous religious prostrations of Señora Consuelo, the burning cats on the roof, and the constant darkness. Felipe falls in love with Aura, of whom he knows nothing but the depth of her eyes. Her past, her character and her attachment to Señora Consuelo are unkown. He does not understand anything. Both Felipe Montero and the reader are kept 'in the dark' about the true nature of Aura and Señora Consuelo until the last page, and even then, many of the mysteries, such as the role of the cats and the mysterious servant are still unsolved.

This is very unsettling, yet the fear of the book is mostly resolved as we learn that Aura is just a younger projection of Señora Consuelo, and Felipe is just a younger projection of the General. Yes, it's messed up that "you're touching her withered breasts when a ray of moonlight shines in and surprises you" (145), but at least the Señora wasn't torturing Aura; holding her in some sort of sadistic relationship. It makes us uneasy to realize that when we thought Felipe was making love to the young, beautiful Aura, he was actually doing it with the toothless and shriveled old lady, but hey, at least nobody has died. Right? The bug could have been a hundred feet tall. With the mystery partially unraveled, the atmosphere retreats from sinister to merely creepily tender, as Felipe discovers that he does truly love Señora Consuelo ("You too love her, you too have come back...") (145). So the end isn't that unsettling, but the rest of the book is, because you don't know what is going to happen.

Another reason the book is so ominous is because it mixes beauty with repulsiveness; this paradox is essential to plot. Even though  Señora Consuelo is hideous enough to drive Felipe away, Aura is beautiful enough to keep him there. The paradox of fear versus hope also adds to the horror; even though there's more than enough spooky stuff going on to make Felipe freak out, make like a banana and split, the prospect of rescuing Aura is enough to make him stay. Felipe is bound to stay in the house, and endure the creepiness and bad omens because of his immense desire for Aura. As Bane said in The Dark Knight Rises, "There can be no true despair without hope." (Not sure that quote is entirely relevant, but I'm listening to The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack, and it sounds pretty badass right now.)

Can I also say that I love this book? It's like Lolita times Poe, times Antonio Banderas.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping

            Aura, in a word, was spooky.  The darkness, the rats, the secret trunk…all of these aspects of the novella created such an unnerving mood.  For me, the way time is portrayed throughout the story made it even more unsettling.  The use of second person present tense creates a strong connection between the reader and Felipe, making us feel as though we are in the house with him, in the present.  But as we continue, particularly when we begin to read the General’s manuscripts, it becomes evident that time is not a simple notion in Consuelo’s house.

            As Fuentes drew connections between the past, present, and the future with the discovery of the photographs and Aura’s miraculously fast aging, I began to feel anxious, like I was trapped in the house and needed to get out quickly, before I learned too much.  But when Felipe realizes that the he is in fact the General, I came to the conclusion that there was no hope of escaping.  Aura’s life is a bizarre cycle in which Felipe is forever intertwined: old Sra. Consuelo becoming young Aura, finds the general and makes him fall in love, then quickly ages again.  When he realizes this, time becomes irrelevant: “You don’t look at your watch again, that useless object tediously measuring time in accordance with human vanity, those little hands marking out the long hours that were invented to disguise the real passage of time” (139).  This “real” time that Felipe alludes to is magically realistic and impossible to explain, as it brings the past and present together into one.  To Felipe, this seems more real than anything a clock could measure, though, making us believe that the magic of this house is more real than the tangible.  For me, entrapment by time is far more frightening than any sort of physical confinement, and the way that Fuentes used time truly enhanced the spooky mood of the whole novella.