Cockroach was by far my favourite piece of literature this year,
and can definitely be classified as one of my favourite novels. Ironically after
the few pages, I was not a fan of the story, but grew increasingly more
interested in where the narrator was going to go. Post tutorial; the many perspectives
and opinions on the ways in which the narrator would transform himself into a
sub-human being fascinated me. Many found this surrealism to be the grasping
point of the novel, the part where to understand the story as a whole would be
to accept the possibility of the reality of this transformative character. I
found myself gradually making my way to this conclusion as well, but did not
know how to quite explain this progression of acceptance. I did not at all feel
the weight of the negativity thrown upon Canadian society by the narrator, yet
I also didn’t feel fully sympathetic to him either. My perspective was strictly
from an outside readers view, grasping the concept of surrealism, but not quite
understanding the connection. This detachment from understanding the narrator
is what I found so fascinating, and drove me forward in reading.
