Jorge Borges Reader Review

Jorge Borges Reader Response

            Jorge Borges is talented when it comes to writing short stories of suspense, but for anyone like me, Borges will be hard to read and enjoy. In his writings, “The Garden of Forking Paths”, “The Gospel of Mark”, and “Emma Zunz”, I feel like Borges is expecting his audience to know more about the subjects and topics he writes about than they should, especially in “The Gospel of Mark”. While reading “The Gospel of Mark” I thought that I had everything figured out, I even knew what the plot was about or so I thought.  I found that how I was viewing the story compared to how Borges was meaning to share by the story were two different views.

            As much as I would like to give examples of how his writings and short stories are similar to events in my life, I cannot, simply because Borges writes in a way that is too complicated for me to understand and enjoy. I do not wish to make anyone feel like Borges is a bad author, because he seems very intelligent; he is just not a person I can relate to. Give me Cortazar or Marquez to read and I will be entertained. I think I can relate to these authors better because reading their short stories, to me is like opening up a picture book with words, they both paint beautiful images through words that keep me so interested.

            I do not like to put down an author’s wirings or books because they put a lot of effort and time into it. I think Borges helped me see that I will not always relate to everything  I read, but to have an open mind in the beginning,  try to relate as much as I can, and  in the end I’ll appreciate the reading more.

Reader Response for Gabriel Marquez

            I personally enjoyed reading “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest drowned Man in the World” by: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, they were both very intriguing and made me intervene with the stories to understand what was going on.  His stories create a curiosity and image that kept me interested, which is what I like and understand while reading.

            In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, Marquez creates an image of this old, ugly man with no teeth, and wings that were ugly and infected with parasites to be an angel. With this image created, he is showing the reader how if something doesn’t conform to how society as a whole views it,  then it is wrong. In this case, by making the old man this ugly bird like creature, the people in the town tormented him and were burdened by him because he did not fit their ideal angel nor did he speak like the priest thought an angel should.

 For me, I was kind of disgusted when I began reading that this ugly creature could be an angel, because I’ve been raised to believe they are beautiful with white wings. This was humorous, because this is exactly what Marquez wanted to prove that not everything is how you’ve been raised to believe it is and when I finished reading the story my view was completely changed. I can relate to this story through everyday life mainly through personal image. In America, the ideal image is thin and pretty, only looking at the outside rather than on the inside. Beauty is not only what is on the outside, but also on the in, and society is blinded by that due to how the media portrays image to be. I also think that I can relate to this story through religious views, everyone has different views of religion and different Gods to worship so to speak, which brings controversy to right and wrong within religions.

In the second story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, Marquez creates this fantasy over a dead guy that also causes people of the village to become consumed and crazed by his handsomeness, just like people are with celebrities. This story was very amusing to me, the whole time not only because the man was dead, but also because the people were just acting crazy over him like they knew his whole life story. The class discussion over this story really helped me in what Marquez wanted the reader to understand from it.

 Basically people tend to become so manifested, and obsessed with a fantasy that they begin to believe it is real, losing the connection with the true reality of life, my favorite example was the Playboy magazines because it explains exactly this. I can relate to this short story through many of different ways, first by reading magazines or watching television. I find myself always buying the make-up, clothes, and perfume that my favorite celebrities are wearing, because I feel like if I can own/ wear all of it that I will become like them which is a fantasy. I also had a friend who was obsessed with Taylor Swift, she dyed her hair the same color, started taking vocal lessons to sing like her, and wore the same clothes. I thought she was rather crazy, but she truly believed she was, if not better than Taylor Swift and lost touch with the true reality.

Both of these stories, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” are similar because through both Marquez describes how people become so involved and reformed to how society portrays what is right and wrong, that they lose their own personal belief and individualism causing them live in a fantasied world. Through both stories, I personally feel like Marquez is trying to tell people to hold onto their beliefs and dare to be different from what is declared by everyone else as “right” and “wrong”. I think that through his writing, I look at Marquez as a person who is not afraid to state that he thinks differently from everyone else, obviously one can see this through both of his short stories. Why not dare to be different?

Julio Cortazar reader response

Julio Cortazar Reader Response

            The first instinct that appears to me personally when reading Julio Cortazar’s writing is, “what in the world just went on”. He is excellent at writing magical realism type stories because he makes a person think about what is truly going on and also appear as though they are a character of the story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Our Demeanor at Wakes”, “Continuity of Parks”, and “Axolotl” because they all kept my attention by being suspenseful for some and humorous for others.

            In “Our Demeanor at Wakes”, I felt a personal connection with this story, not only from working in a funeral home, but I’ve been to a fair share of funerals where a lot of people either stood around like careless zombies, or like in the story there were people just wreaking havoc like mad men. Overall this was my favorite story by Cortazar it was amusing yet sensual enough to get the point he was trying to make across that people should be essential not fake. I also really like “Continuity of Parks”, because I love suspense I read a lot of suspense novels and short stories, especially murder mysteries my favorite so far being “Kiss Cut” by: Karen Slaughter, which in an eerie way had me thinking if I was a true character or the reader as well.

            I liked “Axolotl”, but this reading was harder for me to focus on because it didn’t really hold my interest until the end. I really liked Cortazar’s choice in words while describing how he felt sorry for the Axolotls and how they were almost like one with the guy in the story. I feel the same way sometimes when I go to the zoo or just in my barn around the horses, except I can depict that I am human and not an animal.    

            I really enjoy Julio Cortazar and would strongly recommend his work to anyone who likes to be kept “on their toes”. Also I personally think he makes good points about “real life” through fictional stories and does a great job with confusing one with fantasy over reality. 

Reader Response to Popol Vuh

To me the PoPol Vuh was interesting and held my attention better than a lot of other short readings I have read. While growing up, I was raised to think that the beginning of the world and mankind began exactly as the Bible stated and that was it. Although I like the readings of the Bible and believe what is stated there, I really liked the Myan view of how the world and humans were created.

                In the Bible, I feel like when it was written the mistakes that were made in the past were either hidden or covered up to convey a perfect image to where the Myan people told of their mistakes with the creation of people, such as the animals, clay people, wood people etc. I enjoyed reading of their mistakes because life is full of mistakes and it just seemed more realistic to me.  My idea of the Myan people from the PoPol Vuh, is that they are smart, creative, and not afraid to admit their mistakes, to which they tie into the daily life until the Gods could create their perfect image of  humans who not only worshipped them but to look normal.

            If I had to choose I would rather read the Popol Vuh over a lot of religious beginnings and writings because it fascinates me and I love creativity and can relate to it. My favorite part of reading the Popol vuh was the creation of the mud/clay people, because they were closer to the perfection on mankind but always fell apart which I found amusing. I also like the part about the wood people even though in a way what happened to them was cruel just because they were still not close enough to the perfect image of man.

            Even though I find the Popol Vuh to be a fun read and a completely different view on the beginning of the world and mankind, I still side with my religious beliefs and Christian views. I think everyone should be entitled to believe what they want about anything religious or in general. Also if anyone were ask for a short religious reading, I would definitely recommend the Popol Vuh.