Blog #2 : Mama Blanca's Memoirs

    Wow! What a read. Teresa de la Parra's Mama Blanca's Memoirs was a powerful way to start off the semester. 

    One of the first moments of the book that really struck me was the absence of the children’s mother. Blanca Nieves has something to say about each person’s role in the home, and has stories about how many of them have played vital parts in her life, but when it comes to her mother, I feel a sort of disconnect and distance between them. When the girls were hiding while new guests were over, and listening and watching their mother entertain, I think that the jealousy that came through in them… in watching their mother give her smiling, beautiful attention to these strangers rather than to her own daughters, came from the fact that they didn’t get that side of their mother. I reflect on my own childhood, in watching my exhausted mother come home after a long day of work spent smiling and laughing at others, without much left for me. That longing for attention, that jealousy… I empathize with the girls. 

    Blanca Nieves does get some alone time with her mother, and in those moments of her mother working against her body’s natural appearance, they do share sweet memories. I think in those moments, where Blanca Nieves learned about vanity and “honour”, she also learned about her sensitivity, grief, hope, and emotions. Between the two of them, they developed a routine of storytelling, of diving into a magical world riddled with happiness, and at times grief. I believe these moments are when Blanca Nieves really felt safe, and learned how to dose herself with the realities of the world. 

    Many times Blanca Nieves puts emphasis on the inability of words to describe the emotions of the characters, and the depth of the meaning. Whether it be her inability to translate the feeling and memory of her Cousin Juancho, or the inability that her mother has to verbalize how the loss of her daughter Aurora makes her feel. This longing for a way to say what cannot be said, and translate emotions that cannot be seen, which is an imminent struggle Blanca Nieves faces throughout the Memoirs. This made me reflect on how fortunate we are to have technology that can take a snapshot of our memories, something that we can pass through time unchanged. Although, these idealized memories may not be as golden if they were more tangible. Question for Discussion: Do you think that the nostalgia and inability to fully grasp memories make them more fond? 

    All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this read. It made me reflect back on my own life, on the nostalgia I feel for my childhood home, and how the magic really is gone when you go back. Sometimes the memory is better than the reality.