Attack on Titan Vol7

Attack on Titan, Vol. 7 by Hajime Isayama

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

dates read: 3/15/25-3/16/25

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i learned a new word...

anglophone means an english speaking person

workout 3/19/25

22 minutes on the treadmill between 12-14 incline and 1-2.5 speed
12 minutes on the stair master between 1 and 6-7 speed

notes before my mammoth review

Mammoth review

In this book, we follow a young unnamed female protagonist who is driven by frustration with her life in the city and embarks on a journey to reclaim her dignity and find meaning. On this journey she hurtles toward her unusual concept of motherhood, taking her to a far-off countryside place (change place to something else). There, she faces some hard realities that come along with living well and truly alone for the first time, such as learning exactly who you are, what it means to be free, and seeking out a life lived just how you want it.

Points to hit:
-animal cruelty
-strong intro
-smoking while pregnant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfXzaWPttAg
 
“Once I find a voice that seduces me enough that creates enough curiosity for me to see where it will ta ke me, that’s when I start making those connections with the unconsciousness. There’s no planning whatsoever and I let one image run after the other and finally I do a transcript of this voice that is coming to me.” 8:45 - 9:09

“In Mammoth […], I was interested in exploring the instinct […] of a woman not to build herself socially as a mother but the animal instinct of gestating.” 13:40 - 13:58

“Mammoth's protagonist is a disenchanted young lesbian. She's inexperienced, irritated by life, eager to gestate, and determined to strip everything else down to essentials. She seduces men at random, swaps her urban habitat for an isolated farmhouse, befriends a shepherd, nurses lambs, battles stray cats, waits tables, cleans house, and dabbles in sex work—all in pursuit of life in the raw.” Description

https://trabalibros.com/noticias/mamut-eva-baltasar-entrevista

“And yes, "Mamut" is the most radical since it is the one that makes the move to get out of that discomfort, it doesn't know where it is going but it knows what it is fleeing: an environment that is leading it towards extinction.”

“I see motherhood as something multifaceted and I have dealt with the subject throughout the triptych, seeking to delve into those darker, more hidden or less explored sides.”

“Knowing that she was going to be the protagonist who closed the triptych, the most austere, the hardest and also the most violent, I wanted the language to accompany her in the same way, so I tried to refine it as much as possible without losing poetic weight."

Mammoth - Eva Baltasar Review

Mammoth by Eva Baltasar

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

dates read: 3/12/2025 -  3/19/2025

In this book, we follow a young unnamed female protagonist who is driven by frustration with her life in the city and embarks on a journey to reclaim her dignity and find meaning. On this journey she hurtles toward her unusual concept of motherhood, taking her to an abandoned countryside home where her only friend is the neighboring shepherd. There, she faces some hard realities that come along with living well and truly alone for the first time, such as learning exactly who you are, what it means to be free, and seeking out a life lived just how you want it.

I find that this book lacks a certain je ne sais quoi that Boulder did not struggle with. I struggled to name what exactly bothered me until it hit me: this main character is unapologetically violent. The narrator in Boulder was extremely permissive, taking autonomy away from the overseeing eye of her partner. In Mammoth, this narrator takes back her autonomy by screaming, yelling, and cursing in your face, and when you hand it back saying, "Listen man, I don't want any trouble. You can have it back." She describes in detail how she wants to murder stray cats.

This book was very unapologetic. To a fault.

The author stated in an article for the Trabalibros publication, "Knowing that she [the narrator] was going to be the protagonist who closed the triptych, the most austere, the hardest and also the most violent, I wanted the language to accompany her in the same way."* Eva Baltasar was successful in this to a fault.

( spoilers )

?[ On a side note, is it a legal requirement in Catalonia that every time Eva Baltasar opens up a Word document and begins to write a novel, in the last 10 pages she has to include something completely crass and asinine that throws you off before you finish the novel? In Boulder, it was breastfeeding while getting head. In Mammoth, it is smoking not one but two cigarettes at a time whilst knowing she is pregnant. What is going on here? (hide spoiler)]

*link: https://trabalibros.com/noticias/mamu... | I used Google Translate to get this quote. It might be wrong. I don't speak Catalan.



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