Sunday, March 16, 2014
Ortese has a unique writing style, which utilizes long, rich sentence structure to describe the events in her novel, The Iguana. The Iguana is an abstract tale of a rich, young Milanese Count who travels to a remote island to buy cheap real estate. While at the island, the Count sympathizes with an ostracized Iguana, who has been rejected by the others on the island and forced to be their maidservant. The people of the island have escaped the difficult financial struggles of the mainland, and therefore have no wealth to their names. The complexity of the novel lies in the relationship between the Count and the Iguana. The Count is sickened by the way that the Iguana is treated by the people of the island, yet he is not completely convinced that the mysterious creature is completely innocent, as she appears. It is unknown why the Count hides his sympathy for the Iguana. The reader wants the Count to stand up for her against the cruel and degrading behaviors of the Marquis, yet he maintains his silence throughout the majority of the novel. Only towards the end does the Count reveal his intentions to rescue the Iguana and allow her to live a life of leisure away from those who have enslaved her. The iguana, however, does not express gratitude towards the Count because she is too attached to the Marquis, who once loved her. The complexity of the Iguana and her solitude is difficult for the reader to interpret. The reader is challenged to determine what is evil, what is good, and what the internal nature of the Iguana truly is.
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And I think this is what the narrator, Ortese, is trying to get the reader to see. Many times throughout the novel she says, "reader" and then we as readers are forced to step back from the novel and escape from its complexities to reflect on what is being told to us. We see on page 152 that the count sees the Iguana as a devil and as a creature he loves. He asks, "Why must you act like a little devil?" (Ortese, 151-152). When he asks her this question I think this is also Ortese directing this question at us, as readers. Any question in this novel is not just a question asked to the character, but it is also asked to the reader. This book is not just about the story amongst the characters in the novel, but the reader becomes a character too. Every question like this one of whether or not the Iguana is the devil comes back to us. It does point to one of the complexities to the Iguana's character. Is she human? Does she have a soul? Is she beautiful or ugly? These are all questions to who the Iguana is and essentially larger life questions to the reader. This novel is about the fantastic and puts the reader into a world where there is the supernatural, lost concept of time and space. These issues are further brought to light by the Iguana's character and thus makes everything be questioned. It's not about looking at the count and the Iguana's relationship, but instead it is a novel asking the reader to look at his or her relationship with the characters and the world created in the space of the novel.
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