Week 6: Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

 Reading Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo this week was certainly easier to follow then last week's readings, and I enjoyed being able to feel as though I could understand and unpack the writing. Unlike last week's reading, the confusion I felt while reading Pedro Paramo felt more narrator based confusion rather than philosophical.  From my initial understanding of the story as I read, it begins with a story of a man in search of his father. As you read you begin to understand the reasoning behind his search for his father as a request of his dying mother. Something I did find a little shocking was how the story shifted from being centered around the young man to being centered around his father. This shift between lives continued and caused a sort of circular feeling to the text that gave it a lot of differing perspectives. The shift in direction and perspective made it engaging to understand who is narrating. Additionally, descriptions of the town in which the story takes place were a little unclear at first as they do change depending on the perspective of the story. 

One thing that stood out to me was the author's intention to keep things unclear, which ultimately defined the novel's progression and story. As the novel went on and the context grew, there was still a sense of uncertainty regarding who exactly is narrating and why each narrator holds such opposing perspectives and understandings of the town. As I read I kept thinking back to a quote in this week's lecture that emphasized the fact that this town is in a permanent transition phase, where there is mourning for the dead which can not fully die, while the living can no longer fully live. When hearing this notion in the lecture I was certainly intrigued as its profound nature puzzled me. However, this statement made much more sense in the context of the book. Themes of death are consistent across the book and the story itself feels embedded in this state of being in between death and living. Once I understood this as intentional, it became more clear to me that the uncertainty I felt towards who was narrating or who was truly living, was Rulfo’s way of maintaining this state of in-between for the reader themselves. Afterall at different stages of one's life their understanding of their surroundings and world change, and Rulfo furthers this transitional period to include the perspective one gains after death, something we don't often get to experience as a reader. 

I'm curious to know, have any of you experienced reading a book like this before where the narrator is constantly changing, if so how did this novel's use of the line between death and living add or take away from your experience of reading?