One of the principal contrasts (from the beggining, to the end of the novel) that I noticed with Eva Luna is her knowledge of sex. She starts out as an innocent virgin, not really knowing anything of sex, but gradually loses all innocence though experience at the whore house, through romance novels, through the experience with Kamal, and then towards the end, she is very open to speak about sex.
I mentioned in last week's blog that I thought that there was too much drama crammed into the five chapter plot of Eva Luna. I thought that Isabel Allende was going out of her way to make the story as detailed as possible. I have two responses to this now...1. Eva Luna is a character who lives her life off of stories. She loves reading them, creating them, hearing them, and writing them. Each character that is introduced in the novel has his or her own story, that can be very interesting depending on the reader’s taste. I also thought that the details of Allende’s own personal passion were revealed when she was describing Eva’s feelings about writing. 2. Opinion. I do not consider this book to be one that can be read quickly. When I actually took my time (and I’m a really slow reader), I enjoyed the many stories that were in each chapter. When I had to read faster because I had a time limit, I was annoyed with all the detail and the many characters who I had to remember from the first five chapters. This course is partly about who decides that literature is bad and why, and I think that the atmosphere in which the book is read in is a great aspect of this topic.
There is so much more about the book that should be mentioned, because it is such a detailed and complex book, but I would like to read this book again, but slower, to be able to really grasp the whole story, and have more of a chance with all of the vocabulary, because I truly believe that a book can’ t be judge by it’s first reading....(unless you really hate it and don't want to read it again.)
Added after...........
I liked the atmosphere of the book because it was positive, and I really enjoyed reading the stories of the characters, but I found the political portion of the book really boring...except that it was contrasting with the lighter characters like Eva and Mimi, and I liked how a man as busy with the war as Humberto could still have a love life.
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5 comments:
Elena, I think you're absolutely right to say that "Eva Luna is a character who lives her life off of stories. She loves reading them, creating them, hearing them, and writing them." At the same time, I didn't find myself very convinced by this. Perhaps because we didn't get to hear any of her stories--except the one, very near the end, about the woman who sold stories for a living. Of course, we should also no doubt see the whole book at Eva Luna's story or stories, in that Eva is the narrator. But in either case: do we think that Eva is a good storyteller? I can't say I ever feel that she is. We're told that people like her stories, and that (for instance) her soap opera is a big success. But it's never entirely clear why.
On another tack, I also think that you're right to say that the book is also very much about Eva's developing relationship to sexuality and the body. There could be some interesting tension here between her investment in the body and her delight in the word. But I'm never entirely convinced by what the book has to say about sex, either. At least not when it comes to Eva: Mimà is perhaps a more convincingly sexed character, and it's maybe for for that reason that I find her more interesting.
I like your observation about Eva discovering sex and her sexuality. I, like Jon, am not completely sure what the book wants to say about that stuff, except that it adds passion, romance, and a little bit of taboo.
Jon, I now see and agree with you that we do not know much about Eva's capability of telling stories. Perhaps if one were to re-read the novel and further analyse her character, they would come up with more detailed answers to this question, but on the other hand, maybe there isn't very much to this capability, and that is why you were not convinced?
On a completely different topic, I responded to other blogs and said that I liked the second half of the book for two reasons that I would like to restate here. The first is that there were too many details in the first half, when Allende was describing Consuelo, that they made the section very boring. I soon realized while I was responding to this blog, that Allende uses the same amount of detail in the second half, but I liked the story better, so I didn't really notice all of it, so this is where opinion came in.
The second reason (and I believe that this is due to the "opinion" and "interest" factors that I mentioned in the first reason, and that the two reasons are connected) is that the story of the first five chapters is "all over the place" because as I mentioned in my first blog, there is too much drama, and it seems unrealistic that one person can move locations so often, and the stories of the second half seem more central....for example, the main details about her life with Riad were to explain how his wife reacted to life, and that was one big story instead of the constant change in Consuelo's life, and then continued in Eva's. To be honest, Consuelo's life really bothers me because of this constant change.
Am I making sense or should I explain further?
I hadn't thought about Eva's experiences with sexuality througout the novel but now that you mention it it seems rather obvious, of course that was one of the themes of the story. I did enjoy the first 8 or so chapters, I think it was a nice story but after finishing the book I felt the only adjective I could come up with was "nice". I kept rolling my eyes through the last, at least, 3 chapters. The ending was so unconvincing it really fell short for me.
Like Ashea, I hadn't thought of Eva's experiences with sexuality however I personally think it was not an important theme of the book. As Jon mentioned, Mimi's experiences with sexuality was much more interesting, and I think that Mimi's story may have overshadowed Eva's own experiences. On another similar topic, I thought that Rolf's experiences with sexuality was an obvious attempt to get the reader's attention and considering he ends up with Eva instead of the cousins makes his character less credible.
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