Olivia's Blog

  Valeria Luiselli's  novel “faces in the crowd” kinda felt unsatisfactory and not because nothing happens, but because what happens keeps folding in on itself and made me a little confused reading it because she kept blurring the line between who's writing, who's being written, and whether any of it is "real" in the first place. The base of the novel is essentially a young Mexican woman living in New York City, translating poetry and becoming obsessed with the “non-mainstream” Mexican poet Gilberto Owen. But that's only one layer. She's also a mother in Mexico City, years later, writing a novel about her younger self. And Owen himself starts appearing. LITERALLY walking through her pages, her memories or even maybe her hallucinations. The narrative shuttles between times, cities, and perspectives until you're not entirely sure whose story you're reading anymore. And this is what made this novel so cool but also kinda confusing to follow which obvi...

  The first thing that came to mind when reading this book was a reading I did for a SOCI class by Baudrillard  “Simulacra & Simulations: Disneyland” In which Baudrillard argues that in a modern society, we no longer live in reality but we live in simulations of reality. He uses the example of Disneyland and says that Disneyland is disguised to look obviously fake which makes the rest of America seem real by contrast. And touches on how the whole system for example: media, culture, and consumerism, is also simulated.  After reading this, it really made this book more eye opening and really made me think about the reality I’m living in, and how many gaps in my mind have I replaced to be different versions of reality that I now think to be true.  It is true, that sometimes, I make up false narratives to people to either make myself look better, fit in, or using the idea of “fake it ‘til you make it”, which I tend not to fully believe myself and have a good sense of...

  I think this is one of the most interesting novels i’ve read so far during this class. It kept the element of true crime/true events throughout the theme and most of the events (and I am a true crime junkie) and the sociologist in me was also able to make inferences about how symbolic it was of them to burn the money and how the act of robbery was an act of resistance against capitalism.  As said in the video too, how “money is one of the most powerful fictions that structure social relations” & “the thieves show it is very easy to burn the stuff, it is just that nobody thinks to do so.”  The first thing that came to my mind when I read this was how, connecting it back to capitalism, of how easy it is to start to oppose the system but no one chooses to do so. And the ending when they burn the money was quite symbolic because money is the very driver of society. And after risking everything they have to steal it and at the end of the day, it ends up going up in flame...

  This book sent a mix of emotions while I was reading it. Although it wasn’t exactly portrayed in the book, the age different between the characters… like can we talk about it? The lover, of whom we don’t even know his name, is in his mid-twenties and she is 15 and a half??? Like that is absurd. I know times were different but this is a whole case of pedophilia. Anyways.  The novel focuses more on the racial aspect of their relationship and how the deterring factor for the lover’s dad was her ethnicity. It really brings to life racial segregation. In a way (ignoring the fact that she is 15 ½ and he is in his mid-twenties), they are both exploiting each other in different ways. She is exploiting him for this money and using his emotional vulnerability to her advantage and he is using her for emotional stability.  There is so much wrong with this situation. First of all, can we talk about her getting in a random man’s car when he asked her? Like did your parents not give y...