Fourth "Spirit" blog in a Row...

In some of my earlier blogs, I said that Estabon Trueba never felt any remorse for the things that he did. After looking at chapter six I have to retract that statement and insert this one: He begins to feel regret for his past outburst, but this guilt doesn’t seem to stop him from making even more bad decisions and having more fits of uncontrollable anger.

Chapter seven is called Revenge. The most obvious revenge that takes place in this chapter is Trueba trying to catch Pedro Segundo Tercero. Ironically, Trueba is ticked off that Tercero and Blanca have been messing around. Clara exposes this irony by telling Trueba that the only difference between what Pedro Tercero and Blanca are doing and what he himself did was that Pedro Tercero and Blanca love each other. Trueba responds to this by flying into one of his fits of anger and beating his wife. He is almost immediately sorry for his actions, but Clara never talks to him again.

Trueba still tries to kill Tercero even though his daughter loves him. This is the most outright form of revenge in this chapter, but this is also the chapter where we start to see revenge coming upon Trueba. He is extremely distraught that Clara won’t talk to him and he suffers quite a bit. Also, when Trueba finally catches Tercero, with the help of Estabon Garcia, he finds that the revenge that he wanted so badly was not nearly as simple or satisfying as he thought it would be.  Another source of revenge in this chapter is Garcia. He holds a huge grudge against Trueba which is intensified when Trueba calls him a traitor and refuses to give him the reward for finding Tercero. Garcia’s character has been filled with foreshadowing  ever since Trueba first raped Pancha. Because of the cyclical nature of the book, it seems pretty evident that Trueba is going to pay for the violence and evil that he showed to the peasants.

Trueba the Terrible

I find it very hard to enjoy anything about the “House of the Spirits”. I guess this isn’t totally a bad thing because I don’t believe this book was meant to convey warm cozy feelings to the readers. One of the biggest things that frustrated me is the class system and its affects on the un-named country in the book. The book is partly told from Estaban Trueaba’s viewpoint and therefore it makes it kind of hard for him to be the villain. On the other hand, Estaban Garcia is portrayed as evil clear through even though he didn’t really do anything more than Trueba did. It seems crazy that Trueba would be able to narrate the book like he did after seeing the evil that his actions spawned. I believe Trueba is the main villain in the book and the fact that he seems to be ignorant of evilness only makes me dislike him more. He is so conceited and full of himself that he is able to justify all of his evil deeds by paying money or writing off the victims of his deeds as meaningless peasants. It is frustrating that he didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with what he did. At the end of the day, though, this is just a book. It’s easy to point fingers at others and tell them their problems, but sometimes it isn’t as easy to see our own. I guess Trueba’s issues are overly transparent and somewhat easy to point out, but I think a valuable lesson can be learned from his life. Sometimes when I make mistakes or my attitude isn’t right I find myself making excuses and trying to justify my behavior as being alright. I have to make sure that I exceed the standards that I set for other people, or else risk being conceited and deceived like Trueba… So even though the book itself is a drag, it made me think of some way to try improving my life. Therefore I can’t call this book a total epic failure…

Clara the Self Sufficient

In retrospect, it probably would have been wise to do my four blogs before the end of the semester, because now I am stuck doing my blogs on the “House of the Spirits”. I am not going to come right out and say the book was bad, but I will say that it is kind of hard to write four blogs on it.

For the topic of this blog I would like to talk about Clara and how she was able to live with a moral cripple like Estabon. Obviously this couldn’t have been an easy thing to do, but I think the fact that she knew what he was like before she even married him made it a little easier on her than if she suddenly found out what he was like three years into their marriage. Because of her clairvoyance she knew what he was like but also knew it was her destiny to marry him. Since it was her own choice to go through with the marriage, knowing all along that he was a weirdo, self-pity wasn’t really an option for her.  Also, because she never loved him, I think it was easier for her to cope with the fact that he was a dirt-bag.

Throughout her life Clara is always very independent. She doesn’t have to radically break any traditions of the time to be an extremely self sufficient person. When I say self-sufficient I mean as far as her emotional and psychological person. She never really seems to need anything from anybody, unless it is help doing remedial chores around the house… or retrieving her mother’s dismembered head from a bush…

Random Speculations on House/Spirits

It’s not often that you read a book as full of symbolism as The House of Spirits. Even its name has symbolism: The house on the corner is built like a normal house and looks like a normal house from the outside, but it has a bunch of crazy impractical additions built onto it based solely on Clara’s whims which serve along with the ever-present spirits to make the house a metaphor for the novel itself. It can be read as a regular run of the mill romance novel, but it actually contains a complex web of foreshadowing and twisting of the plot, which most of the time I was oblivious to(1).

Another unique aspect of this book is that instead of being “linear” it is more circular. The way that it is narrated serves to magnify this.  A lot of decisions that are made by characters, especially Esteban Trueaba, have blatant consequences down the road. For example, because of his exploitation of the female peasants, his granddaughter is kidnapped. But because of his generosity in loaning money to Transito, his granddaughter is rescued. Stuff like this seems to happen throughout the book, and there are probably numerous instances where it went right over my head and I didn’t even notice it. At the end of the book Esteban Trueaba begins to become aware of how his actions and attitudes have impacted his life. When he “sowed” violence, meanness and anger (which was quite often) he “reaped” bitterness and loneliness, and when he did something nice (which seemed very seldom) he got blessed for it. You would think that he would have put two and two together a lot earlier, but that wouldn’t have served the authors purpose of making males out to be predominately violent, easy to anger, and somewhat dull-witted…

                                          

1.        SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The House of the Spirits.”

SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.

Randall Jarrell

                              Author, poet, literary critic, Randall Jarrell was probably best known for his poetry depicting the non- glamorous side of warfare, specifically world war II. Contrary to hundreds of poets throughout history who have glamorized warfare and individual military heroes, Jarrell, in his poems, portrays the soldier as a nameless innocent child that is killed while performing a remedial task (Death of a Ball Turret Gunner). This poem is not inspiring, does not arouse patriotism, is very gloomy, and verges on depressing. The last line especially is bluntly dismal. Before the last line it seemed that the poem was being told by a live person, but the last line leaves no doubt that the story was being told from beyond the grave. I guess, in a way, you could call this poem inspiring if it inspires people to shun warfare. Jarrell had first hand experience with war fare in the air corps and army during w orld war II. Judging from his poems, I would say that his opinion of warfare was that it is pretty not to great ... To say the least.

 

                              Jarrell’s first poetry book, Blood for a Stranger  was published in 1942, the same year he enlisted in the air corps and his second one, Little Friend, Little Friend was published in 1945. These poems showed to the average citizen the intense fears and moral struggles that almost all the soldiers faced. In the recruiting ads and government propaganda people weren’t told about the how terrible war can be. Not only could you be physically injured, but you could just as easily be mentally scared for life, with hideous scenes of warfare seared into your memory. So perhaps Jarrell was trying to be inspiring after all… If we as average citizens were made aware of the atrocities of war, perhaps we would be a little less likely to “shoot first and ask questions later” so to speak.

Mies Van Der Rohe

“Less is More.” This short statement was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s motto for architecture. Some people might look at his architecture and say that it is drab or plain. But put in the context of the time that he was creating, it becomes a magnificent and revolutionary work of art. Van der Rohe designed his buildings to fit the time period. While other architects were trying to copy techniques from the Victorian era, VDR started experimenting with an architecture that would define the industrial era. What he came up with is now referred to as International Style Architecture. The most common properties of VDR’s buildings are their rectangular form, their use of steel, glass, and concrete to from walls void of ornamentation, and their spacious interior.

In class recently we talked about the sculpture called “The City Square”. This reminds me of VDR’s brand of architecture. His “skin and bones” style shown in buildings like the “Friedrichstrasse Office Building” (1919) and the “Glass Skyscraper” (1921), were built in such a way that you can see the steel girders and other structural elements through the transparent building materials of the exterior. The very simplicity of these buildings, as well as his others, add a kind of elegance to them that not many other architects have or had. I think that VDR is comparable to Frank Lloyd Wright. Not because their buildings looked similar, but because of their ideals. Both designed buildings that would fit in to their surroundings and function. FLW built houses that would blend into nature and provide a residential dwelling. VDR designed buildings that would fit into the industrial and business settings of the mid 1900’s. Both provided revolutionary alternatives to “the old way” of architecture. On the other hand, FLW’s “form over function” is a total contrast to “less is more.” Which do you think is more appropriate?

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright: revolutionary architect, innovator, furniture designer, and wanna-be philosopher. Far and away the most well-known architect of the 20^th century, the American Institute of Architecture calls him the greatest American architect of all time. Born two years after the end of the civil war, FLW lived long enough to see the first satellite launched into space (92 years). He advocated the use of materials native to the surroundings of the particular building, claiming that the building needed to grow from its surroundings. “A building is not just a place to be; it is a way to be.”

With one of my high school classes we visited a number of FLW houses/buildings and learned about his life. Aside from the fact that he ran his personal life into the ground, he seemed to escape from the mold of other famous innovative artists insomuch as he was able to capture the interest, approval and even the admiration of the public.

One FLW house that I was able to visit was Taliesin West. This was his own personal summer house built in the Arizona desert. As was his custom, he built it to blend with the surrounding environment and enhance it, instead of bringing a loud contrast to it. I think this is comparable to Hans Zimmer, who we discussed in class, whose music was meant to supplement the scene rather than steal the scene. Unlike other architects of the day, FLW designed more for aesthetics than he did for efficiency. He claimed “form over function.” He considered himself an artist and his work was art, not construction. He pioneered “organic architecture”, which is basically building while keeping in mind the environment.

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
 Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
 But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
 To say that for destruction ice
Is also great,
 And would suffice.

Before I feebly attempt to explain what I think this poem means and how it makes me feel, I just want to clarify the fact that these are just my personal opinions, and if they do not coincide with yours then I humbly apologize…  I don’t have to agree with what you say but I will respect the fact that you think differently.

You can tell that this poem, published in 1920, is different from others of its time before you even read it. Like some of Ezra Pounds poems that we discussed in class, it is short and to the point. I believe that like some of his other poems (ie The Road Not Traveled) this one has both a straightforward and more subtle meaning. Outwardly this poem seems to ask the question: will the world be destroyed when the sun explodes, or will the explosion of the sun miss the earth, and thus leave it to freeze to death. Keep in mind that this poem was written during a period when huge advancements were being made in astronomy, and the fact that the sun could explode was a very new idea and the issue of the how the world was going to end was a pretty big debate at the time. What I think Frost was really trying to say (as evidenced by lines three and six) is that the flaws of human nature are capable of destruction. At that time in history there were no nukes or weapons of mass destruction so I don’t know if Frost meant that the destruction of the world would come at the hand of the human race or if he just wanted to mention man's capability for destruction. But if he actually thought that humans would be earth's downfall then it appears that he wasn’t too far off because it wasn’t even thirty years after this poem that the cold war threatened the world with total destruction by being blown up in an atomic fireball and/or by nuclear winter… which sounds ironically similar to Frost’s Fire and Ice