And to anyone who speaks/reads in Spanish better than I do, I'd like to put some good Spanish language literature on my reading list for the summer. My reading level is high enough to struggle valiantly through Ender's Game in spanish (although it helped that I knew the story). So I am looking for those classics of Spanish literature that any hispanic person should read. I have already read Don Quixote, with help from an English translation, and it was still way too hard- I need simple books that are also classics in Spanish.
Also Icarus mentioned that he is on some discussion boards in Spanish, and I might be interested in joining in on something like that if I could. Any info is welcome really.
[ July 05, 2006, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Just fyi, Icarus usually isn't around much if at all during the month of May. so don't be offended if he doesn't respond, he very well might not see this. Bump it again around June and you'll probably have better luck. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Not surprised, I myself should be rehearsing for upoming performances and finals- he's a teacher right? Thanks
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
He is a teacher.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Plus he hates us.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
No, Bob, he just hates you.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
lol
I talk to him fairly regularly, and they are right, he has way too much work to do in May as a teacher to pay attention to Hatrack. Hatrack IS a huge time-sink, as you know.
I will mention this thread to him tonight though. Posted by Ozymandias (Member # 9424) on :
where does he teach?
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
Near disney.
Posted by Ozymandias (Member # 9424) on :
well i guess i dont have him then... haha
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Wouldn't that creep you out? Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
BunnV speaks Spanish. I'll ask him if he has any suggestions.
Posted by Soara (Member # 6729) on :
Macario is a good book....
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Too late to call now, but I willl drop him a line tomorrow. Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
We-e-e-ellll . . . . in High School I remember reading (in addition to Don Quixote) Don Juan Tenorio. I reckon that's pretty much a classic. I also have recently gained (through Hatrack, in fact) an appreciation for the poetry of Pablo Neruda. I have a vague memory of possibly having read "El Poema del Cid," but I'm not certain if I read it, or if I merely read about it. I read a lot of other stuff in high school I don't remember . . . as a grown-up, I'm not as well-read in Spanish as I wish I were. :-\ I could ask my father if he has any suggestions.
If your goal is specifically to have read "the classics," that's cool. But if your goal is simply to get more practice reading in Spanish, let me suggest two things. First, Reader's Digest is probably available in Spanish where you live. It's not written on the highest reading level, in English or Spanish, so you'll find it an easier (and possibly more interesting) read than some high-faluting work of literature from a hundred years ago. I find it better than the other Spanish magazines I see in the checkout lane, because it focuses on things I can identify with, as opposed to latino celebrities or soap operas, neither of which hold any interest for me. As a second suggestion, I'd be happy to correspond with you in Spanish if you like. I'm always happy to practice my own Spanish and keep it from getting rusty. My Spanish isn't nearly as good as my English, but it's pretty good for living in the US. In fact, I know there are several people around here who always start Spanish language threads and the like . . . maybe we could start like an off-site e-mail discussion on something or other? Maybe even a reading group in Spanish!
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I think those are great ideas. Indeed, when my academic quarter ends I think I'd like to be part of a Spanish reading group. I am done with classes in just a few weeks.
Readers digest in Spanish? I haven't ever seen that, but I will look at the grocery store when I am there. I live in Northern California (UC Davis), where there is much less Spanish influence than where I grew up (SF). Still, I suppose I might be able to find magazines in Spanish at a periodical store, good idea.
What I am really after is just "good reading" books in Spanish. For instance, a popular book like "Ender's Game," but is only popular in the Spanish speaking world. Failing that, I would like to get an idea of the "pre-requisite" Spanish books; the kinds of books any self respecting Spanish speaker would have to have read. The English equivelants would be "The Grapes of Wrath," "Catcher in the Rye," "The Great Gatsby," etc. I believe I would like to get to know the Culture Classics of Spanish.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
This is going to be an extremely long post, from what I remember (and some help from Wikipedia), this I think hits most of the highlights of Spanish language literature, although there are obviously a lot missing. Some works are going to be harder than others, and it’s been so long since I’ve read most of these authors, that I can’t tell you which are easiest.
Disclaimer - this list is in no way meant to be definitive about anything since I'm not an expert - I just happen to have a freakish memory and to have taken a bunch of Spanish lit courses when I was in college.
Grouped by category and roughly chronological:
Plays:
La Celestina – 16th Century anonymous play, considered to mark the start of the Spanish literary Renaissance
Lope de la Vega – playwright from 16th/17th Century, best known for El caballero de Olmedo.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca – playwright from 16th/17th century, best known for La vida es sueño
Antonio Buero Vallejo – 20th Century Mexican playwright. I have no idea how good or how well-known Buero is, but his play, En la ardiente oscuridad, gets read in lit classes all the time. (Not in verse)
Poetry (I may be weird, but I often find it easier to read Spanish poetry than prose):
El poema del mio Cid
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz – Mexican nun and poet of the 17th century.
Rubén Darío – 19th Century Nicaraguan poet, often considered to have started modernismo
José Martí – Mid to late 19th Century Cuban poet and hero Antonio Machado – Part of the Generation of ’99 (1899), one of the most popular Spanish poets
Alfonsina Storni – Early 20th Century Argentine poet
Federico Garcia Lorca – Early 20th Spanish poet and playwright; part of surrealist movement. Best known for the play, La casa de Bernarda Alba. I’d recommend his collection of poems, Romancero gitano.
Gabriela Mistral – Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate
Pablo Neruda
Octavio Paz – Mexican poet, essayist and Nobel Prize winner
Novels/Short Stories:
Lazarillo de Tormes – anonymous picaresque novel from 16th Century Spain, also an allegory based on the seven deadly sins - I’m pretty sure I read an abridged version of this, so that’s probably available somewhere.
Esteban Echeverría – 19th Century Argentine short story writer. Best known example of the Latin American romantic tradition (which is very different from US/UK romantic literature) and author of “El Matadero”, which I think is sometimes considered to be the first Latin American short story.
Jorge Luis Borges – 20th Century Argentine short story writer. Possibly the most important Latin American author.
Julio Cortázar – 20th Century author, part of the “Boom Generation”. Best known for Rayuela, a book which can either be read straight from cover to cover or by following his directions at the end of each chapter; also the short story “Las Babas del Diablo” which was translated and made into the film, Blow-Up. His stories always mess with your mind. I’d recommend the story “La noche boca arriba” in which a modern day Miskitu Indian is in a motorcycle crash and while recovering dreams he is about to be sacrificed to the Incan gods.
Gabriel García Márquez – If Borges isn’t the most important Latin American writer, than García Márquez probably is.
Mario Vargas Llosa – Peruvian author best known for La ciudad y los perros (translated in English as The Time of the Heros).
Carlos Fuentes (Mexico) – Contemporary Mexican author, best known for El muerte de Artemio Cruz
Isabel Allende – Chilean author, most famous for La casa de los espiritus. I personally love Paula, which she wrote as a letter to her daughter who was in a coma.
Laura Esquivel - Como agua para chocolate, almost everyone’s seen the movie, the book is much better. I’ve read one of her other novels, and it’s nowhere near as good.
Non-fiction prose:
El Inca Garcilaso – 16th Century poet/essayist, considered by many to be first truly Latin American author, wrote Comentarios reales de los Incas, about Inca life and the Inca perspective of the conquest
Rigoberta Menchú – Quiché Indian from Guatemala whose controversial autobiography, Yo, Rigoberta Menchú, helped to earn her the Nobel Peace Prize
Eduardo Galeano – Contemporary Uruguayan journalist who wrote Memoria del fuego, three volumes of narrative about Latin American history. It is very powerful and because it’s all a series of vignettes, it’s very easy to read.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
Now that I've exhausted my memory... I'd be up for a Spanish reading group especially since there are a number of authors that I listed above that I've read very little of. *cough*BorgesandGarcíaMárquez*cough**cough*
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Borges is wonderful in English. I know he's a must read in English, so he's got to be even better in Spanish. Get ready to have your mind totally blown. He writes things that turn your mind inside out and leave you wondering about everything you thought you understood.
My Spanish reading level is along the lines of "La Verdadera Historia de los Tres Cerditos" por S. Lobo, and "Mama Oca". I got LotR in Spanish for Saudade for a present, and despite knowing the English books nearly by heart, took 2 hours to read just the prologue.
Lately I've been trying to improve my Spanish by learning how to sing Spanish language music I like. I love some of the music of Carlos Vives, and listen over and over, read the lyrics, and look up the words, then practice singing it. I had my first experience while singing of Spanish words actually meaning to me what they mean, instead of meaning English words. It was such a cool feeling!
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I hate to be difficult, but I would more enjoy reading books that are *not* high school Spanish lit selections. Doesn't mean it has to be easy or genre, but just *different*. Since I *did* have four years of Spanish Lit in high school--not that I remember much!--I just don't prefer to feel like I'm reading the same sort of thing again. I imagine we should be able to find something that is sufficiently literary and yet not high school required reading. For instance, Esquivel sounds intriguing to me.
Posted by Fusiachi (Member # 7376) on :
Good selections above.
For some more modern reading, I reccomend Paulo Coehlo. His writings were originally in Portuguese (he's from Brasil), but the Spanish translations are excellent. El Alquimista and Veronika Decide Morir are both exceptional. They're written in very clear prose, and great for an intermediate-level Spanish learner.
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
I'd be interested in joining your reading group, though my Spanish is.. not that great. As for recommendations, I've always had a certain soft spot for Si le das una galletita a un raton- probably not what you're looking for. Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
Icarus - I don't think you're being difficult. When I made the list I posted, I was thinking more along the lines of what Orincoro was talking about with "'pre-requisite' Spanish books; the kinds of books any self respecting Spanish speaker would have to have read. The English equivelants would be "The Grapes of Wrath," "Catcher in the Rye," "The Great Gatsby," etc. I believe I would like to get to know the Culture Classics of Spanish." I wasn't necessarily suggesting them for a reading group. I just don't know a lot of Spanish popular fiction - the closest I come are authors like Esquivel and Allende, and then people like Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez and Esmeralda Santiago and all three of them write mostly in English...
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, it doesn't have to be "pop" as in "watered-down." For instance, lots of Americans I knew who do reading groups read currently controversial or highly-regarded or topical books. To use two potentially banal-seeming examples, reading Oprah book-of-the-month selections or even the Da Vinci Code. I'm guessing we could probably come up with a worthwhile reading experience that we could agree on.
I'll see what I can come up with . . .
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Please do, I wouldn't really mind reading something on the equivelant level with "Da Vinci Code," given that I will be struggling with the vocabulary and grammatical concepts anyway. It might as well be something somewhat interesting and topical too.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I've been keeping this conversation in the back of my mind, and I thought of it again today when I ran across something potentially interesting. Arturo Pérez-Reverte has a novel called El Club Dumas which sounds interesting to me. I ran across it on a fairly literary website, leading me to believe it may possess some depth, but the storyline sounds accessible and not at all boring.
Chicago Tribune Plenty of thrills...Perez-Reverte pulls it all together with elegance.
New York Newsday A stunner...an eerie, erudite mystery.
New York Daily News A cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice...a beach book for intellectuals. -- New York Daily News
Kirkus Reviews An intricate and very bookish mystery novel—set, in fact, in the rarefied world of book collecting and dealing—from the sophisticated Spanish author of The Flanders Panel (1994, not reviewed). The story begins with the hiring of professional "book-hunter" Lucas Corso by Boris Balkan, a translator and collector who seeks authentication of a handwritten manuscript chapter of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers that has fortuitously, as they say, come into his possession. Traveling back and forth between Paris and Madrid, Corso matches wits with Liana Taillefer, whose husband's suicide was somehow connected with his ownership of the Delomelanicon, an illustrated medieval volume said to contain secret instructions for summoning the devil, and of which only two other copies are known to exist. Corso is soon involved in a byzantine international intrigue carried on by those who want, or have information about, the Dumas chapter and the infernal Delomelanicon, including: urbane and ruthless bookseller Varo Borja; an aged German baroness; a threatening man with a facial scar whom his quarry Corso bemusedly nicknames "Rochefort" (after Dumas); and a preternaturally self-possessed teenaged girl who says she's Irene Adler (this being the name of Sherlock Holmes's most infamous mystery woman). Pérez-Reverte plaits all these teasing strands together with imperturbable skill, leaving the reader wondering until almost the final pages about the significance of his seductive title, and the allegation that Alexandre Dumas's narrative genius was the result of his pact with Satan. A lot happens in this novel, despite its constant recourse to prearranged meetings and extended conversations, and its enormity of detail about the nuts and bolts of book manufacture, publishing, searching, and dealing.
Bibliophiles will love this witty and clever fabrication, though its very specialized content may place it just outside the range of the general reader.
There is also an English-language movie of this book starring Johnny Depp, which I have not seen, called The Ninth Gate. Seeing the movie might be a nice wrap-up to reading the novel concurrently.
Anybody interested in reading this book?
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
That sounds intriguing. I know it would be far over my head, though. I am tempted to get it and try, however.
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
The Ninth Gate is a good movie.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I would be very interested in a Spanish email exchange. I don't think my Spanish is good enough to join a reading group.
If anyone would be willing to exchange maybe an email a week with me in Spanish I would really appreciate it. I'm planning on studying abroad in Mexico next spring, and my Spanish needs a lot of work before then.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I'd be happy to, with the warning that I have an unfortunate tendency to lag behind in keeping up with e-mail committments. But if you don't mind a merely more-or-less weekly correspondent, I'm your man. Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
That would be awesome, I'm writing and email right now. I haven't had any contact with Spanish since the school year ended, so I apologize for the rustiness.
In all honesty, the rustiness is probably just me being bad at Spanish, and has nothing at all to do with the length of time since I've used it. But I still apologize for it.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I Think I am going to order that book, I just recieved my copy of "La Voz de los Muertoes." Intimidating, but I know the story already, and it shouldn't be TOO much harder than "El Juego de Ender."
[ July 04, 2006, 11:53 PM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Why don't you change the thread title to something book-clubbish so that others who might be interested check in?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Risuena? aiua?
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
It might be a bad sign when you see the letters "IPA" and the first (and only) thing that could possibly stand for in your mind is India Pale Ale.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
The book sounds really interesting but I am insanely busy for the next month. So much so that I'm not even going to think of buying the book because I am weak and cannot resist temptation.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
blacwolve, did I never write back to you?
I'm horribly sorry, if I dropped the ball. I completely forgot I had offered to correspond.
-o-
Would a different choice of book get this idea back off the ground? Today I thought of this thread again when I read about a writer named Rafael Marín. He may be vaguely familiar to comics fans because of his work on Fantastic Four in 2000 and 2001. He may also be special to Hatrackers as the translator of many Orson Scott Card novels, including Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead (and Dan Simmons's Ilium in a nice bit of juxtapositional irony). He has also written several original novels in Spanish. His first (I believe), written when he was just twenty-two years old, is Lágrimas de Luz (Light Tears). According to this review of the novel, many consider it the work that gave rise to modern Spanish science fiction.
I could not find the book for sale at Amazon or BN, but I did find it at Casa del Libro which is kind of a Spanish equivalent of Amazon. Unfortunately, the book is expensive to begin with, what with the euro to dollar conversion, and then the shipping is as expensive as the book. It comes out to about forty dollars US, which is a lot more than the other book. But if you'd prefer science fiction, then this seems like a good science fiction option.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I think I might try with some Jorge Luis Borges, because he's short and succinct (and I know I don't have the perseverance to read a full length novel), he's really important (so my time spent will be worthwhile), and I already know I like him a lot. Probably I'll try reading my favorites that I've already read in English (like "The Lottery in Babylon") and then I can use my English texts to serve as a backup tool, for global meanings. I wish there were a good way to find out word by word meanings. My Spanish English dictionaries don't have verb forms detailed. They require more knowledge of Spanish Grammar than I currently possess to look them up, in other words. I can't find an alternative to this. Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, babelfish is unreliable for lengthy passages, but have you tried it for individual words?
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I find it better than the other Spanish magazines I see in the checkout lane, because it focuses on things I can identify with, as opposed to latino celebrities or soap operas, neither of which hold any interest for me. As a second suggestion, I'd be happy to correspond with you in Spanish if you like. I'm always happy to practice my own Spanish and keep it from getting rusty. My Spanish isn't nearly as good as my English, but it's pretty good for living in the US. In fact, I know there are several people around here who always start Spanish language threads and the like . . . maybe we could start like an off-site e-mail discussion on something or other? Maybe even a reading group in Spanish!
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I am tempted to get it and try, however.
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