"Had we been in a novel..." (Alexia Barrios

I must admit that I read very little today, but I would like to discuss here what I have taken in from the novel thus far. As I said in my previous post, I really like this novel; the eloquent style of writing accompanied with the depth added by the subtle yet thought provoking philosophical commentary in my opinion makes it a good read.

I have noticed while reading this novel that there are many parallels between this novel and others that we have read. A more specific example of this is that I found a correlation between Tony and the Underground Man from NFTU. There was a distinctive characteristic that these two characters possessed which is their comparison between literature and the real life that they live in. In NFTU we see when the narrator is recounting the incident between himself and an officer, he turns to literature as a place to extract inspiration for how the encounter should go. He attempts to transfer certain qualities of romantic literature into his own life. Tony in this novel does the same thing; he constantly turns to literature as a muse or as a symbol of what life should be like. Throughout the novel he compares the events that occurred in his life to that of literature, claiming that the event should have occurred more like it would have in literature. For example, when discussing his visit with Veronica to her parent’s home he says “Had we been in a novel, there might have been some sneaking between floors for a hot cuddle after the paterfamilias had locked up for the night. But we weren’t…” (30) It’s as if he holds up what he has read in literature side by side to his life and comparing and contrasting the two and almost always saying that the literature is the more correct one of the two. Overall, I am intrigued to see where this novel will go and what else the narrator Tony will discuss.