Posted by Guillermo Maynez on 5/10/2007, 15:31:29, in reply to "Re: Nationalities" --Previous Message--
189.135.237.222
"Pedro Paramo" is a masterfully written work. But be aware that it's, as Rizwan says, a dense and complex book, where there is no clear timeline and the living talk to the dead. It has much to do with the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), and with the culture that the terrible and useless civil war left. About Spain, there are several works much worth reading. One that comes to my mind immediatley is "The Hive", by Camilo Jose Cela. It is very readable, but has no plot. It is a large mosaic of Spain's society after their Civil War (1936-1939). It recounts the lives of the many characters who attend a local cafe in Madrid. I liked it very much. I will search my library for Mexican and Spanish novels that may interest you and then post a few suggestions.
: Hey Joffre,
:
: I read Pedro Paramo a few years back after reading
: Susan Sontag praise the book. In fact, the edition
: I've seen here in the States has the Sontag intro
: included. The novel definitely is an interesting
: read. While the book is very short, it took me much
: longer to read it than some other books several
: hundred pages longer, simply because I found it to be
: so dense and so abstract at the same time.
:
: Rizwan
:
: --Previous Message--
: Someone will surely call me ignorant for saying this
: and point out a few books that are probably well worth
: reading, but since Don Quixote there hardly seems to
: have been any Spanish novel (from Spain) of much
: importance. The few that do exist are apparently not
: so well known as many other books, and this is how you
: have missed them. I suggest Mist by Miguel de
: Unanumo. I have read that a couple times and could
: participate.
:
: I hesitate to suggest books since I just don't care
: enough about discussing them to commit to reading
: certain ones at certain times or to feel any extra
: interest in reading a book that hasn't yet caught my
: interest just so I can talk with others about it.
: However, I will suggest one more.
:
: I am quite interested right now in reading the Mexican
: novel Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. I learned of it
: from the Francine Prose book, Reading Like a Writer .
: This is from wikipedia: "Gabriel García Márquez
: has said that he felt blocked as a novelist after
: writing his first four books, and that it was only his
: life-changing discovery of Pedro Páramo in 1961 that
: opened his way to the composition of his masterpiece,
: One Hundred Years of Solitude." Perhaps that will
: be encouraging.
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