Luiselli - Faces in the Crowd: Ending the course confused af

For the last week of readings, I chose Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli. I'm not gonna lie, after reading blogs about the other novel we could choose for this week, I kind of wish I read the other one to write about instead because I truly don't know how to feel about this novel. I felt like I had to lock in (focus intensely) to every word that was written in this novel. If I could show you my notes, the first one literally says, "What is going on..." (LOL). The thing I found the most confusing was when the narrators or the setting would change all of a sudden, and I had to go back and reread so I'm following the story. However, after watching the lecture video, many things were cleared up. 

Some themes I took away from this book is reminiscing, writing and fact or fiction. This book definitely has themes of reminiscing about the past as the narrators look back in their lives in New York, and even comparing it to their current lives with the switch in settings almost every other passage. Another theme I noticed in this book is writing. For instance, there was a scene in the book where Ezra Pound saw his deceased friend at the train station (24). Stunned by this experience, “[h]e took out a notebook and began to write" (24). He did not waste no time, he simply fell to the ground and started writing what would become a 300 line poem. Another example was when the female narrator, in her current life with her family, is wanting to write again just like in her past. However, there are many obstacles in her current life. For instance, when she finds the time to write, it's only when her baby is sleeping. Her baby is holding onto her dominant hand so she tries to write with her left. When she tries to take her hand away from the baby, the baby starts crying. Therefore, she has to give back her hand to the baby so “she loves [her] again" (31). I feel like this scene emphasized the difference between her life now and before. She is reminiscing and tries to relive her past as she struggles in her current one. The last theme I noticed in this book is fact or fiction. Throughout this book, the first narrator seems to lie about many things. For example, she writes that her husband likes zombie films, which he then corrects in the next passage. When asked why she wrote that, she just says, "Because" (47). Another instance is as this quote follows, 

“What’s your book about, Mama? / It’s a ghost story. / Is it frightening? / No, but it’s a bit sad. /Why?Because the ghosts are dead? / No, they’re not dead. / Then they’re not very ghosty. / No, they’re not ghosts” (23).

The first time I read this quote, I was so confused on why she was just lying to her kid, but after reading more, I realized that this may be because Owen's ghost is not really a ghost. He is actually there, as evident when the boy saw him in later pages, emphasizing their parallel stories which eventually converges. 

Overall, this book was challenging to me because of the different timelines and the switching of narrators. Though, the story is quite interesting when you finally get what is going on (LOL).

Discussion Question:

Do you think the narrators would to be go back to their past lives and leave their current life?