Wow we’ve finally made it to the last book of this semester. I decided to read “Faces in the Crowd” by Valeria Luiselli for this week because I saw it was a lot shorter compared to the other book this week, and I felt I’d be really busy with finals coming up. I’m glad I picked this book because this was exactly the case. I wasn’t sure too how I’d feel about the book initially because it isn’t usually a book I’d pick up and read. If I’m being honest, just reading the summary of the novel kind of bored me a bit since I’m more into reading action, romance or dystopian-type genres. The novel is like a 2-in-1 since our narrator, a mother of 2 boys living in Mexico City, reminisces about her younger self when she was living in New York City.
At first, I wasn’t sure what the stars between the paragraphs meant, but I figured out how they were used to differentiate between what was actually happening in the mom’s life and what she was writing about. I also found the whole switching between 2 stories confusing since when I get immersed into one part of the story and it suddenly switches, I sometimes forget I’m reading 2 stories in 1. However, the idea of using the star symbol as a breaker between the 2 stories was definitely helpful and clearer in telling us they switched between storylines. It’s more of me problem in my head that mixes up the 2 stories sometimes, and having to reread the paragraph again to make sure I know which story I was reading.
Moving onto the actual story itself, even at the start of the novel, what caught my eye was her describing how busy her life is taking care of 2 boys while trying to write her book. She describes it as “a sustained breath. I have a baby and a boy. They don’t let me breathe. Everything I write is—has to be—in short bursts. I’m short of breath.” (4) I really liked the connection between her saying novels need a sustained breath and her using a similar ideology to describe how busy it is in her life, which is why the format of this novel is a little all over the place. Having multiple things and perspectives all happening at once can be a bit much, just like her life trying to juggle being able to write freely while needing to take care of motherly chores. But I really admire her for pursuing her writing while having the duty of taking care of her kids.
Later on in the novel, when we meet a Mexican poet, Gilberto Owen, we see the obsession take over her as you see the lines starting to blur between what’s reality and what’s her imagination. How she started imagining encounters with him and inventing details about his life was creepy to me. I saw a classmate’s blog mentioning this, and I 100% agree about how similar her idealisation of Owen is and how some people make assumptions about celebrities’ lives. I think one of the reasons she does this is to feel a deeper and closer connection with Owen and also feel a sense of connection to her Mexican heritage. But I also think she does this to attempt to escape her reality? Since she’s living a challenging life, she creates these fantasies about Owen to escape the struggles she has to face as a mother, creative writer and immigrant.
Honestly, I didn’t love this book. I went into it not really excited to read it, but even afterwards, I found it quite boring and all over the place.
Discussion Question: Did you like how this novel was formatted, having 2 stories in 1? Do you think the fragmented format of this novel reflects what she’s writing about?
Meave's RMST 202 blog 