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.
I felt a little confused at the end of the book, too. Then, when I wrote my blog post, I felt myself understanding more just through the act of trying to explain my thoughts to other people. By the time I got to class on Thursday, I thought I had a pretty okayish grasp of the novella--enough to enable me to hold up my end of the conversation. But when we started discussing how we would "teach" the book, I realized there was so much more room to expand my understanding. As we all shouted out random (and often silly) interpretations, I sensed myself forming a solid opinion--sometimes by rejecting others' interpretation, which naturally led me to consider my own. I think the format of our class on Thursday was an excellent way to "get our hands dirty" by working with the raw material of a recently read novel(la) and trying to sift out the significance. Let's do it again.
ReplyDeleteJust like you, when I finished the book my immediate reaction was "what the (explicative) just happened?" The chapter in the novella when Aura was washing his feet confused me too. It felt so out of place compared to the rest of the book. I thought the two women in the house were witches, and when the chapter brought Christianity into their home I no longer knew what they were doing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you guys. I was so confused at the ending of the book. It simply made no sense. It really leads us to a lot of questions as to who Felipe truly is. For instance, the question I had, was Felipe always the general simply living a cyclical life or was Felipe truly an outsider who fell into this situation? I guess only consuelo truly knows.
ReplyDeleteI also thought the drugs could be an explanation for the weirdness, and I went back through the book looking for evidence to support that theory, but I couldn't really find anything. The general's diary reveals that Señora Consuelo took narcotics in the past, but when trying to find links between Felipe consuming something and then subsequently noticing strange things, I couldn't find anything definitive.
ReplyDeleteI also thought the drugs could be an explanation for the weirdness, and I went back through the book looking for evidence to support that theory, but I couldn't really find anything. The general's diary reveals that Señora Consuelo took narcotics in the past, but when trying to find links between Felipe consuming something and then subsequently noticing strange things, I couldn't find anything definitive.
ReplyDeletewow got a lot of comments here. Mary, I agree with you. Thursday's class setup definitely expanded my understanding of Aura, and the representation of Jesus as a symbol of rebirth rather than sacrifice helped me rationalize the text I was looking at. Sandy, I thought they were witches that would end up sacrificing him, of course my reaction would be "what the (explicative) just happened?" Mike, it's good to know that I'm not the only one that tried to connect the drugs to something else. Tyler, your question is interesting, because as people mentioned in class, one can find evidence to support both sides of the argument. I personally like the idea that Felipe is not an outsider, because he seems to be fated, indicated by the advertisement, in his role as part of the cycle.
ReplyDelete