I have no idea where to even start
with this book. There’s the writing in 2nd person, the torturing of
cats, the people being turned on by the torturing of cats, the liver for dinner
every night, the always dark house, the possible cloning, the possible time
travel, and the very bizarre last scene. I have absolutely no idea what to make
of this book. I’ve tried to think about possible deeper meanings but I haven’t
come up with anything. So I guess I’ll start at the beginning with the quote by
Jules Michelet. The first line of the quote compares man hunting and struggling
to women intriguing and dreaming. These things don’t really seem to compare to
each other, but immediately paint women as the more dominant and intelligent
sex. It then talks about a woman’s desire and imagination, which could be
referring to the kind of imaginative way that this book is written. The last
line is a good embodiment of the book. It refers to the fact that men are
completely controlled by women, and dependent on them. Looking at the book,
Felipe had to have seen that a lot of things were weird about the house and
family as soon as he walked in. As he spent more time there he should have
realize that there were some very disturbing things going on. Instead of
leaving, like a sane person, he stays because he is so in love with Aura. In
the end we see that he was also in love with Senora Llorente. In both cases he
is at the mercy of the women (woman?) he is in love with. Another thing that I
noticed is that when you translate Aura from French, it means “will have”. I
think this could work in two ways. It could be the way Felipe was determined to
have Aura from the minute he met her, or the way Aura and the old women were
determined to have him. In but cases there was never a question of if they
would have them, it was always a sure thing, they would have the other.
You touched on a lot of really cool things in your post! I especially like your analysis of the title. As a book that contains three languages with French as sort of the go between, it makes a lot of sense that the title would have a meaning in French. I think that in addition to what you said about the title's relation to destiny, it also applies well to timeline. As the characters in this book seem to each be in cycles, it makes all the more sense that the title would emphasize an ambiguous time "will have" as in he will have done something. This brings in another tense that we don't typically see in English, but that enlightens our reading of this book immensely.
ReplyDeleteI share your confusion completely K.C. I also like what you got at about questions and choices in the book being fated to go a certain way. Of course any sane person would have gotten out of that house as soon as possible, but Felipe didn't really have a choice to leave or not. Since he is in some way the General, that house is his home and he is fated to be there forever. But putting all the supernatural business aside, all the characters, whether there were 2, 3, or 4 of them, seemed destined to a certain path, and destined to repeat that path again and again.
ReplyDelete