Second Person Is Weird

After reading Aura, I realized that, to me, the strangest thing I felt was getting used to the second person point of view that the author was writing in. Maybe it was all the extra attention I paid towards the title in the wake of my failure with Chabon’s The Final Solution, or just the fact that I am always extra wary of books when I read them for this class, but I actually felt that I saw where the story was going from very early on.

What kept throwing me, however, was that the story was written from my point of view, especially with phrases like the one on page 35, where Fuentes tells me that “[I] could enjoy playing with the door, swinging it back and forth. [I] don’t do it.” Well yes Mr. Fuentes, I probably could enjoy playing with a door; I have the attention span of a ten year old and am very easily entertained. That I agree with him on. But then he tells me that I can’t.

See, what disagrees with me in this second person writing is the fact that I can’t disagree. Fuentes is engaging in an exceedingly blatant form of author manipulation when he quite literally tells the reader what to do, over and over again. Furthermore, it feels to me that he takes away our choice in the matter by telling us what our impulses are and overruling them.

Why Did I Like This?

I am a little concerned that I liked this book. I'm not sure what it says about me, but I'm just going to let that go and write about some things I thought about. I was drawn to the second person narrative, which I felt pulled me deeper into what took place. For some reason, I felt that the story was more suspenseful because of it. Perhaps because I cared just slightly more about what happens to "me" than another character. It also probably had something to do with the fact that I was completely helpless. As I kept reading, I knew I had no control over what happened to "me."
I took notes while reading and picked up on a few questionable parts of the text.
First, I found it strange that Senora kept denying parts of the house existing. She denied that there were cats even when Senor sees cats. She also denies that there is a garden. (i.e. "what garden?" p.63). I thought Senora remembered the house as it used to be and not as it is in modern day.
I also found it strange how many times animals came up. Cats, a rabbit, and a kid. Why did Senora hurt animals?
There were other thoughts, but one more I want to talk about is gender. From the epigraph, I knew there was going to be an emphasis put on female dominance over male. Aura has a unique charming power over Senor that is unbreakable. I thought that perhaps the gender of the rabbit may also have a significance, but I could just be making that up.

Cat's....Cradle?

When reading Aura, I couldn't help but notice the cats. This is probably a reflection of how we talked in class about creating meaning when it isn't there, but because we read Cat's Cradle earlier in the year, I was drawn to the cats in this novel. When I thought about it, there were actually some similarities to Cat's Cradle The cats in Aura seem to be purposeless, and yet the lady hates them. She tortures them for seemingly no reason, and this wins over the heart of her future lover in a later session of passionate lovemaking? What the fuck?!

However, never mind my disgust, there is clearly something going on here with the cats. They are first mentioned with a sound, "you stop when you hear the painful yowling of a number of cats" (37). Aura dismisses this by saying that there are a lot of rats in this part of the city, but I think that this howling that he hears may be a memory that was triggered, as he is the lady's late husband. In this way then, the cats may be a symbol of illusion. To the reader, they represent the illusion of the "two" women in the house where Felipe lives. Later, the old lady dismisses Felipe's comments about cats to deal with her rat problem as if to dispel his suspicions about the illusion. In addition to this, the cats only seem to come up when Felipe is in the presence of one of the women, which would further support the illusion theory.

As always, Professor Schwartz hit me by surprise from our last meeting. In our class on Wednesday, we were manipulated by our professor to think that the Final Solution had similarities with the Final Problem. However, to no surprise our understanding and perspective of the book was disoriented. When Professor Schwartz brought up the fact that we found out the thief and murder but never found out the meaning behind the parrot, I knew that we were in for a treat. We were once again manipulated on the topic as the author might have intended to do. Since it is never explicitly said that the parrot was talking about the train cart numbers, we will never be able to know the author's true intentions. Just like in both the Cat's Cradle and The Things They Carried, I feel like the author manipulates the readers into thinking a certain way. However I feel like Chabon does this in a different matter by giving various context clues throughout the novel. For example, the book begins with introducing the time to be 1944 which is clearly the time of World War II. Along with that, we find that the boy is Jewish and was taken in probably due to the war. Finally, as brought up in class, the parrot only talked numbers when a train was passing by. Horrifically, it is quite possible that the trains were filled with Jewish people being sent to concentration camps. In my opinion, I think this is the true meaning for the numbers the parrot talks about. As mentioned in class, the book edition I read had a picture if train tracks and numbers covering the background. Lastly, the fact that Hitler had his own Final Solution really opened my eyes. This and the context clues were what really swayed my opinion. However, as Professor Schwartz mentioned this could just be the difference of detection and invention.

Lost in Translation

While reading each page of Aura by Carlos Fuentes, I began to look at both the English and Spanish pages. I know a fair bit of Spanish, and was able to verify that the text that appeared on the left side aligned consistently with the text on the right side, at least with respect to literal translation. However, I began to think about the idea of translating a piece of literature. 

My grasp of language is enough to understand most sentences on a literal level, but most idioms or metaphoric language would probably go over my head. This means that there is an amount of trust I have to place on the translator, that what they are conveying to me is the closest possible to what the work says in the original language. For some reason this thought caused me to be more suspicious than almost any other work that we’ve read so far this year.

Sure, for many aspects, such as the plot, there aren’t too many decisions that have to be made. However, the diction an author uses in writing a novel is integral in creating certain moods and tones. In this way, the translator may face a dilemma similar to O’Brien’s passage on truth-happening versus story-happening. A less accurate word to word translation might more accurately convey the “feeling” of the story. And yet, this means that the novel is heavily influenced by the style and choices of the translator, becoming something at least slightly different from the original. 

One of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, is Japanese. All of his works are translated into English by one of three different translators. Over the course of reading his novels, I’ve come to identify and have a preference for two of the translators, and a dislike of the third. However, the fact that I’m able to distinguish the translators means that the work has become something beyond just Murakami’s work. Perhaps the differences in translations in all of these works are minor, and don’t truly change the meaning or feeling of the novel, but I suppose I’ll never know without having a fluency in two languages.

Disney's The Haunted Mansion

I’ll get to that part.

First off, I really liked this book??? It’s kind of weird to admit because this might have been one of the weirdest stories I have ever come across.

Like some of you guys have mentioned, I read this in one sitting not only because I forgot about it, but also because it was really addicting. I was constantly questioning what was going on and just wanted everything to be explained. And I don’t ever think it ever really was… like sure we pretty much put together the fact that Aura is a younger Consuela and that Felipe is transforming into General Llorente, but we never exactly find out how or why this is happening (unless I missed it, which is very possible).

I predicted somewhat early on in the story that  something spooky was going to happen to Felipe as soon as he said that the advertisement “seems to be addressed to [him] and nobody else… all that’s missing is [his] name” (page 3, 5). He happens to walk into a creepy, Haunted Mansion-type building. I don’t know how familiar you guys are with that movie, but I’ve seen it approximately three zillion times. There are a lot of similarities—how Felipe enters the house blindly (literally) on business that seems too good to be true, how the only other three characters in the story (including the butler) are almost ghost-like, and how a love story is wickedly trying to be preserved. That’s basically the extent of my comparison and analysis to The Haunted Mansion, but it was cool to kind of read the story with that movie in the back of my mind.

Classic "Boy Meets Girl", am I right?

Weird book, huh? I am going to write my blog post about the epigraph of this book, because Janelle got angry when no one addressed the epigraph of The Final Solution.

“Man hunts and struggles. Woman intrigues and dreams; she is the mother of fantasy, the mother of the gods. She has second sight, the wings that enable her to fly to the infinite of desire and the imagination…the gods are like men: they are born and they die on a woman’s breast…” – Jules Michelet

So, what does this quote mean? It seems to place a lot of power in the hands of women. I interpret man to be “hunting” for a woman who is “the mother of fantasy”. It also implies that man’s great downfall is women. This quote, along with those beginning all of the previous books we have read, provide insight as to what is going to happen. Felipe is initially drawn to the job for money. Then, he is tempted by Aura. She is “the mother of fantasy” and he must have her. However, we later find out that Aura is really a younger version of Consuelo. So it truly is a “fantasy” that is tempting Felipe. In the end of the book Felipe is changed into General Llorante, the deceased love of Consuelo. Just as Consuelo is projecting her youth through Aura, she manipulates Felipe to embody Llorante. Therefore, women, whether it be Consuelo or Aura, lead to Felipe’s (as we know him) ultimate demise.

Colors, colors everywhere

My initial reaction to the story was "wait, this plot seems very familiar." I think I have read this book before or have had a teacher talk about it before because the ending was exactly the way I thought it was and as I was reading I realized that I had definitely heard this somewhere before. Although I wasn't very surprised, I was still very much confused by the plot. So I decided to write this post on something that I understand, or at least think I do. 

Something that constantly came up as I was reading this book was color. It seemed like the author intentionally put an emphasis on the colors of things that were representative of each character. For Aura, it was her sea green eyes that stood out to Felipe and became a major characteristic of hers that the readers would remember. Even on the cover of the book, the cat's green eyes stood out from the dark colors surrounding it. Another was the silver white hair of Senora Consuela which became a major attribute that depicted her old age and loss of youth. Senora Consuela struggled with wanting to look youthful and her silver white hair illustrates to the readers her inevitable outcome. Senor Consuela, though was (apparently) not in the book, also had a color that attributed to him which were his yellow tinged memoirs. The mustard yellow tinge gave off the feeling of an older time and somewhat of an emptiness or absence of character which is relative to Senor Consuela.

The effect of color in the story seemed like the author's attempt to draw attention to each individual character especially in a house that had darkened lighting. The cover's cat also happens to be all black except for a slight pinkishness in the ear and very green eyes which are what attract the readers' attention the most. I think this technique added suspense and an eeriness to the house that made the readers very drawn to the book. 

Aura's aura

Just like Felipe, the reader is lured into the house of Senora Consuelo and is forced to rationalize the impossible.  This reminded me of a concept I learned in psychology class which argues that humans have a natural inclination or need to place order or meaning on all events or beliefs.  Although some portions of the plot unravel in Aura, explanations for the major oddities of the book are never really explained. This causes us as readers to search for a meaning and certain understanding of the unexplainable events in the book. It seems as though there is no understanding in this book, as the ridiculousness certainly overshadows the logic. Fuentes is almost challenging the reader to explain situations with little rational meaning. This being said, the disturbing nature and open-endedness of the mysteries in the tale undoubtedly impact the reader (or me at least) on an emotional/ really disconcerting level.  Fuentes really pulls the reader into the story by using the second person. I didn’t feel like I was part of the story, however, feeling no real connection with the four distinct characters, but did find myself thinking hypothetically and abstractly when “you” was used in the text. It sparked thought and put me in a sort of fantasy state. I think this is what allows the reader to really be affected by the creepiness of the story and feel the chills in our bones. The story functions to create extremely unnerving literal auras around the characters, house and story as a whole. The writing transports us into this aura so we can feel it first hand.

Would You Kindly

On the third pages from the front cover, a symmetrical drawing of birds takes up the large portion of the space. Flip over and in the middle of the page is the book title and its author, printed in large bolds and also symmetrically inverted.  The text is also presented bilingually. That’s a lot of mirror images and literal dualism, the kind that don’t clarify the text as much as they further perpetuate the mystery of the house on the street of Donceles, a street mixed with old and new houses, side by side. Before I go any further, perhaps it is appropriate to invoke a line from the hyper-meta comedy series Community

Community Animated GIF

And in the back we have Jeff aka Consuelo

The text is claustrophobic. The read is fast. The wording brings back this nostalgic Bioshock sentiment and so does the ending, or what I think is a pretense of an ending, because frankly with a twist like that Fuentes has no intention of bringing closure to those he traps within the abyss that is Doncoles 815. Or 69. For a second after I finished Aura, I had a moral obligation to myself to trace my steps back to the beginning where everything started, where I was thrown into the shoes of Felipe. But then I realized there would be no end to the horror that lurks around the corner like a Consuelo (yes it should be a phrase now) should I choose to continuously slave across the pages over and over again. Consuelo is Aura and Felipe is Llorante. It should be kept at that. I’d be damned to join the vicious cycle. Quite literally. Perhaps Andrew Ryan said it best. A man chooses, a slave obeys. So perhaps Consuelo is right. Aura would come back.  And Felipe would, too, bounded by his contract as he is. But even then, I won’t.

A Dreamlike Aura

            I found Aura very confusing and kind of horrifying. I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t seem to put it down despite it being so odd. The elements of mystery throughout it kept me turning the pages. I wanted to know what the deal was with Aura and her aunt. I think I gathered that they were the same person… possibly… and that Montero and Senor Consuelo were the same person. Or maybe they were becoming the same person, I’m not entirely sure.

I thought that it was kind of written like a dream. The second-person perspective made you a character in the story, but you had no control over what happened to ‘you’. We just kind of watch the events unfold, helpless to do anything to change what might happen. While reading it I kind of pictured everything hazy and dreamlike. I couldn’t fully picture the house or the characters in the story. This is partly because they were never fully described. The house is constantly dark so you never know what it looks like. Also, for most of the book Senora is in the dark so ‘you’ in the story and ‘you’ reading the story never really see her. Aura is described as having almost hypnotizing green eyes but no other features are really emphasized besides her hair. At one point Montero says that he wants to memorize her features but every time he looks away from her face he forgets them again. In most of my dreams, people’s faces always have a fuzzy quality, like I’m looking through water at them. Additionally, inexplicable events kept happening to Montero. Aura seems to walk around the house like a ghost, disappearing and reappearing. Also, the burning cats that Montero may or may not have seen seem like something that would come out of a dream… or maybe a nightmare. Actually maybe it has more nightmarish qualities than dreamlike ones.

That's the weirdest book I've ever read (FIGHT CLUB SPOILER ALERT)

            As soon as I finished reading Aura my mind immediately jumped to the film, Fight Club. Aura and Consuelo turn out to be the same person, as do Montero and General Llorante, which is extremely similar to the merging of the narrator and Tyler Durden at the end of Fight Club. Additionally, I felt as if I was Montero/The General because of Fuentes’ use of the second person in writing this novella. Reading a text that constantly uses the word “you” is a strange experience. It adds another layer of narration because Fuentes is telling you, the reader, what is going on in the story, but the use of the second person in a way makes you tell yourself the story. It is like he’s telling you what to do and say. The visuals in my head at every point of the book were like a first person video game. I did not imagine Montero walking around the house. I imagined myself walking around the housing talking to Aura and Consuelo.  It was to say the very least, “trippy.” The overall strangeness of the novella made the twist at the end less shocking. I was not surprised that something supernatural occurred because of how bizarre the book had been up to that point. The oddity of the book made the twist more appropriate in the context of the story. Usually films with twists such as The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, and The Usual Suspects are shrouded in mystery throughout the film and, in that respect, Aura followed a similar formula.