Blog #8- The Intruder

The Intruder by Jorge Luis Borges is a short story that becomes very barbaric and immoral to the reader. The Nilson brothers of Turdera are unapproachable and notorious men in the community  known as “drovers, horse thieves, teamsters, and once in a while, professional gamblers. Cristian, the older brother, used a woman named Juliana Burgos as his servant, sex slave, and more importantly, the woman that he unadmittedly loved. Of course,  however, his younger brother Eduardo fell in love with her as well. After this is revealed in the beginning paragraphs, Borges begins to reveal odd details and an unfathomable plot follows. Instead of the two brothers killing each other, they decide to share Juliana. After figuring out that the other brother is jealous of the other because they both love her, they decide to sell her to a whorehouse. This seems to fix the problem, until both brothers find each other going back to see her. As if this isn’t an odd enough plot by now, Borges really mixes things up when Cristian and Eduardo buy her back and the kill her one night and leave her body for the vultures to eat. Borges’s purpose seems to change throughout the short story until I looked back after I finished reading. In the beginning, it seems that it will be a story about the jealousy between the two brothers that will have a deadly ending. Then, after they sell Juliana, I thought maybe Borges would make this story about the brotherhood and loyalty of Cristian and Eduardo. After reading, however, this is an untypical plot  because usually the fate of the brothers in a story like this is death. Instead, this odd and uncomfortable story becomes about the relationship between the brothers and the intrusion that Juliana causes.  Rather than getting rid of “the other man”, they get rid of the intrusion- Juliana herself.  Although this very brutal and inhumane, it makes this short story intriguing to read because of its nonrealistic plot. Also, this story arises the question of Borges as an author himself. He clearly is not a feminist, using a communal woman to connect two men physically and emotionally.  Obviously not identifying with the purpose of this story, yet finding it intriguing to read, I am left speechless by the cruelty of the whole situation. The ending sentence, “One more link bound them now-the woman they had cruelly sacrificed and their common need to forget her”, makes me think that Borges wrote this short story to draw attention to the barbaric natural instincts of man. 

Blog #7

After finishing The Secret Agent, I am able to look back and analyze how and when my reading changed. Although this was a challenging book in the beginning, the plot slowly picked up speed and many things began to happen very quickly. The chapter when Chief Inspector Heat has a conversation with Winnie, and Winnie finds out that her own husband played a role in Stevie's death, is in my opinion the best chapter in the book. Not only does Winnie, a character who is thought to be innocent and minor, becomes a cold-blooded murderer of Verloc. This was a major plot twist that I did not expect, and its irony allowed this chapter and the book as a whole to become extremely powerful. Winnie murders a murderer, revealing a major theme throughout the novel. I did not expect Winnie to become such an authoritative and influential character because of her lack of action throughout the early part of the book. From this point on, the action and suspense keeps building. She runs into Ossipon and convinces him to run away with her with the money she received from Verloc. As we find out, he only pretends to agree until she boards the train and he jumps off last minute with her money. In addition, Winnie’s suicide just adds chaos to the whole situation.

This chapter is not only a major plot twist, but it is the most important one in which Conrad reveals themes about the book and his view of society in the early twentieth century. As if plotting to bomb the Greenwich Observatory wasn’t enough of a statement about society, Conrad develops a plot in which there is lack of trust, loyalty, and morality. Although this theme is dispersed throughout this book in small parts, Conrad is able to convey this theme in one climactic chapter. Violence and death become prominent motifs in the book as well, and they become very important when they transform characters like Winnie and Ossipon into corrupt citizens, making these characters dynamic.



It is because of this chapter that I not only was able to connect everything together, but it drastically changed my opinion of the novel. I was not a fan of this particular book in the beginning, but once I understood what Conrad was doing with the plot, I greatly enjoyed finishing the novel. The book was very blasé until this chapter, then it suddenly catapulted into this very meaningful and forceful book. The fact that Conrad has the ability to do this and change a reader’s opinion of the book as a whole a single chapter makes him a very competent author.

Blog #6
In the first half of Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent, major characters are introduced and the characterization of Verloc and his family helps give the reader a grasp on this complex plot. Mr. Verloc owns a shop in Soho, London, where he not only houses is family, but hosts meetings for a group of anarchists. In addition to being an anarchist, he serves as a secret agent for an unnamed foreign country. Verloc is called into his supervisors’ office, and is told to “shake” England by blowing up the Greenwich Observatory. Already in these beginning chapters, Mr. Verloc is introduced as a man with a lot of responsibilities and power.  The reader can see his conflicting jobs, one of which he hides from his wife, Winnie. Not only does this affect the reader’s opinion about Verloc and his morals, but the structure of Conrad’s novel plays an important role understanding the plot. In Chapter 4, Conrad jumps ahead to the actual event of bombing the Observatory. Instead of waiting until the end of the book, Conrad introduces the climax (or what seems to be the climax at this point in the book) of the major event that Verloc was ordered to carry out, which goes terribly wrong. This allows more characters to be introduced, such as Chief Inspector Heat and The Professor. Because there is this lapse in time between the chapters, the reader has knowledge that the characters do not. The structure is not in the ordinary chronological order of events, and the reader is taken from the present to the future which allows loose ends slowly come together. Although this is complex and makes reading difficult at times, it has allowed me personally to make connections and predictions. However, even though my predictions and inferences could be wrong, it makes Conrad a great writer because this type of structure allows Conrad to suddenly and drastically change the plot and actions of the characters.

Blog #5

After finally finishing Family Album, I had a difficulty determining whether the ending was successful or not. It left me speechless, not because something extraordinary happened, but because the ending was completely predictable and tied the rest whole story together. After finding out that Clare was Ingrid and Charles’s child, not Alison, the reader is pulled into a deeper understanding of the novel and why Alison’s portrayal of her family is so superficial. She insisted that Ingrid “go away” for a while until Clare was born, and then they both return to Allersmead as if nothing happened. Charles’s affair with the au pair did not affect Alison as it should in a normal marriage, and she demanded that no one know about it, not even Clare. However, as the children grew up, they all began to suspect that Clare was not their sister, yet it was as if this idea was to be known only subconsciously; no one ever talked about it or questioned it. Then came the predictable and ordinary ending: Alison and Charles grow older, all the children continue living separate lives, and Allersmead slowly falls apart. Charles and Alison don’t have the money to renovate keep such a large and empty house, but Alison holds onto it with everything she has because it is a symbol of the life she created with the perfect family. Then, in the last chapter, Charles dies of a heart attack. It seems odd at first because no one is deeply upset or expresses any grief about this death. But looking back to the rest of the story, it is very fitting because Charles had no significant role in any of the children’s lives, and he never affected Alison’s way of life. Charles was almost just a role in presenting the “perfect and successful” family that Alison strived so hard for. It is after Charles’s death that Alison finally agrees to sell Allersmead, and maybe it is because she can no longer grasp this dream of hers. She has come to the realization that life must move on, and hopes that a young, growing family will buy the large Edwardian house and create memories like her family did. Although this ending is predictable and fitting to the rest of the novel, it is needed in order to close all loose ends. It allows readers to make a judgement and look back to the rest of the novel, and that is what makes Lively’s ending a success. 

As the story continues to unfold and more is revealed about each of the characters, details are becoming more important in understanding the imperfect and disturbing family. After the anniversary dinner, Alison and Charles are laying in bed when Alison asks why they got married. Charles remarks that she became pregnant, and Alison agrees as she lies there crying. This helps the reader to understand why exactly Charles and Alison are so disconnected and why Alison tries so hard to make her family perfect. Charles and Alison clearly got married for the wrong reason, yet they are still together twenty-five years later. In a later chapter of the book, Katie and Roger get together to talk. Attention is brought to the fact that there are no grandchildren yet. None of the six children have produced any offspring, and this disturbs Katie. Katie is the one child out of all of them who is trying to have a baby, and is not successful. She mentions that it is causing trouble in her marriage, and the fact that she seems to be the one with the problem does not help. Roger notes jokingly that she should have inherited some type of fertility, considering the size of their family. The conversation continues around this topic, and how their mother planned to get pregnant without Charles’s consent. This accusation seems incredulous, but it is as if both Katie and Roger know something about the family that is not yet known to the reader. In the same chapter, the family vacation to Crackington Haven is described. Everything is normal until Ingrid, the au pair, mentions that her male friend, Jan, will be visiting them for a couple of days. Not only is this surprising to Alison, but when Jan arrives, everyone is not quite sure of how to act. Alison is very fidgety, and Katie wonders if she minds Ingrid’s relationship. At the dinner table, Charles is indifferent to Jan and does not have much to say. All of these details about fertility, planned (or unplanned) pregnancies, and absurd behavior around Ingrid’s relationship hints something to the reader that there is an underlying family secret. Not only do all these details alone not make sense and are a bit confusing, but they are slowly tying together to reveal something surprising to the reader.

In the beginning of the novel, the cellar was mentioned briefly and gave the impression that something ominous happened down there. At the dinner table at the anniversary celebration, Paul drunkenly says ,”I think we should play a game after dinner. We should play the cellar game.” There was silence after this mention of the game, and Alison questions what Paul was talking about. The next chapter is all about this “cellar game” and does not seem to move the plot forward. It does, however, give the reader and idea about each of the children’s roles and memories of childhood. In addition, the reader gains an insight regarding the relationship among all of the children and how they interacted. 

At the first mention of this game, it seems as if this is some horrible memory that haunts all the children. However, this chapter describes it as a place of imagination and creativity where the cellar could be made into anything they wanted, or more importantly, what Paul wanted. He is the oldest, so he gets to make all of the rules. If one of the children do not comply to his rules, they must “forfeit”  which results in being forced to do something entertaining to the others.This could mean being forced to eat a spider, like Sandra had to one time, or walking around the house in underwear and getting in trouble with Alison or Charles. If someone refused to accept a forfeit, he/she must take a penalty which is “chalked up on the board, to be there for perpetuity.” As kids, the appeal of this game was the sense of privacy and secrecy and a place that belonged solely to the six of them. 

It is significant that there is an entire chapter in this book that is devoted to just describing the cellar game. The six children despise it now, but it had significance. They could be whoever they wanted and lived whatever life they pleased in the cellar without their overpowering mother. It was maybe even painful for them to grow out of that childhood stage of pretending because they were always forced to live with reality and with no escape.  It could also be a painful memory because it was a time when they were once dominated by Paul, who now has grown to be their mother’s favorite despite his troubled life.

Another event that is talked about in the present is the anniversary celebration of Alison and Charles. It is their twenty-fifth anniversary, and none of the children are excited about returning to Allersmead.  It is as if Allersmead brings back painful memories for each of them and returning home will cause these memories to resurface. At this point, all six children have separated themselves from each other and have created their individual lives except Paul. They have not kept in touch, and as Sandra enters the home, she remembers how she “often forgets about Roger. And Katie too. They were always on the fringes of her vision, back then, of little interest unless you needed them to make up the numbers in some game.” This shows how distant each of the siblings are and disconnected the family is from each other. Not only at this point in there lives, but as children too. As much as Alison tried to make her family perfect and flawless, there was nothing perfect about that family. 

Even as Alison continues to try and perfect her family by having everyone come home to celebrate her and Charles’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, there is still and underlying discomfort amongst everyone. As everyone attempts to make conversation, yet no one has anything in common to talk about. As they are preparing to eat dinner, Alison is in tears about Paul’s absence. When Paul finally arrives, it is revealed to the reader that Paul has an issue because he shows up “either drunk or stoned, or both.” As he sits down at the dinner table, he asked Alison which of the children is her favorite, and she simply laughs and changes the topic. It is clear that all of the other children think Paul is the favorite child. With his drug and alcohol addiction, he is still living at home. Alison is always concerned about him and defends his actions. This is an unexpected turn of the plot for the reader because it seems that when all of the other children left Allersmead, they began their own lives and created their own success. The reader now sees Paul as this black sheep in the family who causes trouble for everyone. This unexpected information changes the perception of the reader and dynamic of the story as the novel continues because each person is now developing their own identity and profile that slowly ties everything together. 

Penelope Lively’s novel, Family Album, can be seen as a novel that portrays the “perfect” family. “Allersmead” is the name of the huge family home, housing all six children of Alison and Charles Harper and the au pair, Ingrid. In the opening chapters of this novel, the reader perceives the Harpers as a picture-perfect and typical family. Alison is the home-loving and overpowering mother who will do anything it takes to have the perfect family, at least on the surface. As the book continues, however, it is revealed that Charles is actually a preoccupied father who is only concerned about his writing, leaving Alison in charge of the household and all six children. It is not a happy family, as the book reveals, and there are darker and deeper mysteries and flaws within the family than it appears. The book changes between the present time, where all children are grown adults and have individual, separate, and isolating lives from the rest of the family, and past events, which reveals how much Alison tried to make her family perfect, despite underlying and anything-but-perfect truths. As the chapters alternate between the past and present, the past events act as a “snapshot” or insight into how much Alison strived for domestic perfection. The syntax of the sentences and the shortness and abruptness of them also act as snapshots in the story because of their clarity and neatness, which is how the family is perceived.

The first chapter that takes the reader into the past is one that describes Gina’s eighth birthday party. Every detail of the party is planned by Alison, but “usually, when it is a someone’s birthday Dad stays in his study with the door shut.” This is the first indication to the reader that Charles is not a big part of the family, and it is not as close-knit as Alison makes it out to be. At Gina’s birthday party, Gina falls and gets a head injury as she searches for a gold coin for the treasure hunt. The party is over, and Alison is devastated that everything did not go as planned. As Gina is in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, “Alison weeps. This is not happening. Things like this do not happen. Not to this family, not to her.” On the other hand, Charles is angry at Alison because she hid the coin where Gina fell and got injured. This clearly indicates that the relationship between Alison and Charles is incongruous, and the true family identity begins to unravel. 

Currently Reading..mixed feelings so far