Whenever I read a book, I always put sticky notes on pages where I just notice something odd happening or something that I think is or will be important later on. My very first sticky note was on page 39 at “’Excuse me,’ you say, looking at the two extra places, the two empty chairs, ‘but are you expecting someone else?’” When I first read that it stuck out to me as odd. My first thought was that maybe the fourth chair was for the servant. Now, it makes a ton of sense that the chair was there for the late General Llorente.
Next, I noticed two instances when Senora Consuelo did not appear to know what Senor Montero was talking about, like the cats and the garden. This made me think that perhaps she was slightly senile and living in the past, or living in some type of different environment. I’m still not exactly sure why those two instances occurred.
Now, I have a lot more sticky notes and I feel like I could talk about every one for a long time, but I’ll just focus on one more. On page 91, Senor Montero sees Aura in the kitchen cutting up this animal. Then, he goes into Senora Consuelo’s room and sees her making the motions of skinning an animal. Even after finishing the book, this still confuses me. Was Senora Montero directly controlling Aura’s movements and actions? Or was Aura doing what Senora Montero did herself when she was that age- like, is Senora living in her past right now? I’m very confused on this at the moment. I’m excited to find out what others think in class tomorrow.
Yooo I do the same thing with sticky notes too! It's actually super helpful, especially in this class because we talk about key, weird points.
ReplyDeleteEven after our discussion in class on Wednesday, I think I'm still confused about the fourth seat at the table. It makes sense relative to the theme of the book, but we were never presented with the General first-hand, so I never really saw him and Felipe as two entities following a cycle like Aura and Consuela do.