Poems on love and despair

Today I want to share with you two poems, one in English, the other one in Spanish, both of them written in the decade of 1630.


THE GOOD MORROW
John Donne (English), 1633

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then?
But suck'd on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?
T'was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dreame of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking soules,
Which watch not one another out of feare;
For love, all love of other sights controules,
And makes one little roome, an every where.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to others, worlds on worlds have showne, 
Let us possesse one world; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.


SONETO 126

Lope de Vega (Spanish)

Desmayarse, atreverse, estar furioso,
áspero, tierno, liberal, esquivo,
alentado, mortal, difunto, vivo,
leal, traidor, cobarde y animoso;

no hallar fuera del bien centro y reposo,
mostrarse alegre, triste, humilde, altivo,
enojado, valiente, fugitivo,
satisfecho, ofendido, receloso;

huir el rostro al claro desengaño,
beber veneno por licor süave,
olvidar el provecho, amar el daño;

creer que un cielo en un infierno cabe,
dar la vida y el alma a un desengaño;
esto es amor: quien lo probó lo sabe.


...In English...

To faint, to be bold, to be furious, 
 rough, tender, liberal, aloof, 
 courageous, mortal, dead, alive, 
 loyal, treacherous, coward, spirited. 

Not to find beyond the lover peace. 
To look happy, sad, humble, arrogant, 
angry, brave, fugitive, 
satisfied, offended, distrustful. 

To turn your face from clear proofs of deceit, 
To drink poison as if it were a soothing liquor, 
To disregard the gain, to love the suffering. 

To believe heaven can lie within a hell; 
To devote life and soul to a delusion; 
This is love; whoever tasted it, knows.

Seventeen poisoned Englishmen

Title: Doce Cuentos Peregrinos (Strange Pilgrims)
Author: Gabriel García Marquez
Publication: 1992
Country: Colombia
Language: Spanish

Although this collection of short stories was finally published in 1992, Gabriel García Márquez tells us in the prologue that he started writing them almost 20 years before.
The prologue ("Why twelve, why tales, why pilgrim") is the story of how the notes he wrote for 64 stories turned into these 12 short tales after a pilgrimage from the desk to the bottom of a drawer to the thrash can, and almost constitutes another tale itself.

Essentially, this collection of the stories of random latin americans in Europe talks about loneliness, even oblivion, the lack of self-identity that people experience when they find themselves alone in a foreign country far away from home. In some of them, the narrator is also a character witnessing the story. In some others, he's outside it.
In these tales there's not much of his "magic realism" that you can identify. They are great short narrative works, in his style of narrative: clear, not aiming for beauty in the form but powerfully strong in the content.
Let me show you just one extract of his description of Rome, from "The Saint":

"After lunch Rome would succumb to its August stupor. The afternoon sun remained immobile in the middle of the sky, and in the two o'clock silence one heard nothing but water, which is the natural voice of Rome. But at about seven the windows were thrown open to summon the cool air that began to circulate, and a jubilant crowd took to the streets with no other purpose than to live, in the midst of backfiring motorcycles, the shouts of melon sellers, and love songs among the flowers on the terraces".

I can say I have a favorite, which is, by far, "Seventeen poisoned Englishmen" (though I'd have translated it as "Seventeen Englishmen poisoned"...). I don't want to spoil it for you, so I included the whole story at the end of this entry, in pdf format. Or at least I think I did. This is the first time I embed a pdf document in a blog entry, so please, be indulgent...
This story is called Seventeen poisoned Englishmen, but it could as well have been called "A corpse floating in Naples harbor" or "A miserable priest begging for a coffee in a terrace". All those things happen at some point along the story, but the story has nothing to do with them (or with the Englishmen).
It narrates the experience of Señora Prudencia Linero in Naples. We know the reason of her trip, but it doesn´t matter at all.
I really don´t want to spoil it! I think I should just let you read it, and then we can discuss, if you want ;)
Will get you intrigued with the first paragraph:

"THE FIRST THING Senora Prudencia Linero noticed when she reached the port of Naples was that it had the same smell as the port of Riohacha. She did not tell anyone, of course, since no one on that ancient ocean liner, overflowing with Italians from Buenos Aires returning to their native land for the first time since the war, would have understood. But at least it made her feel less alone, less frightened and remote, at seventy-two years of age and at a distance of eighteen days of heavy seas from her people and her home."

Enjoy!

Experiencing culture in NY

After a few months in NY, I decided it´s about time that I blog about what to do here. You can find really good help in tripadvisor if you´re trying to come up with a plan, specially if you come with little time and want to enjoy the best attractions without wasting time in other things.
But if you wanna go cheap and don´t want to pay for museums, ferries to the liberty statue, the "Top of the Rock" and such, here you can find quite a few suggestions! I´ll give you links for everything.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Although the suggested fee is 25$ (25$!!!!), or 12$ for students, this is only a "suggestion". You can go for free, or pay as much (or as less) as you want.
Check out what they have before going, and decide what you want to see depending on what you like. The 1st time I went I didn´t know exactly what they had, I spent all my time in the Middle Ages and Islam sections, and missed the magnificent collection of paintings!!
Also, remember: the ticket will also give you free access to the Cloisters if you go the same day.

The Cloisters
The Cloisters belong to the Met, but are in a completely different location, so check it out carefully. This is a collection of european medieval art, located in a building made from a few real abbeys that they brought from different parts of Europe, mostly France, and put together as a sole monastery-type building. You will see sculptures, tapestry, silver objects and such, but that you can find in any other museum, including the Met itself.
What I really enjoyed here was the location, in Fort Tryon Park, and above all, the magnificent views of the Hudson river from the viewpoint on the upper floor.
Wanna see my photos? Behold!

The MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art is free every friday from 4pm to 8pm, and they also have an amazing collection of paintings from artists like Cezanne, Picasso, van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin...
My special findings here:
Gerhard Richter and his works from Oktober 1971 and his blurring technique.

James Rosenquist and his Marilyn Monroe I

Andrew Wyeth and magic realism in Christina´s world

Ferry to Staten Island
This is the way to see the Liberty Statue if you don´t want to pay a single dollar for it. You just need to go to South Ferry Station and take the ferry for free. I don´t think there´s much to see once you get to Staten Island (I might be wrong...) but you will get a good view of the statue while enjoying a nice ride that lasts about 20 min.
Again, my photos.

Also, once you get to South Ferry, if you have time and want to take a walk by the riverside, the views are beautiful as well.

Parks
Of course, you want to go to Central Park. But if you enjoy nature, there are some other parks you haven´t heard about and you don´t want to miss.
My favourite so far is Fort Tryon, but you should also check out Riverside Park... And also, now you´re in the area, take some time to see the Columbia University campus and surrounding buildings, such as the Riverside Church and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.

Columbia University area: 120 st & Broadway corner

Tram to Roosevelt Island
Now this is nice!
Rooseveld Island is a small island between Manhattan and Queens. There´s really nothing significant to see there, but again, if you like nature, you´ll find it beautiful. It was October when I went there, and the colors were spectacular.

The tramway station is located in 2nd ave close to the 60th street corner. It will cost you like a subway pass, i.e. 2.50$, and you pay with the usual MetroCard. If you got the weekly or monthly MetroCard instead of the "pay as you go", it will cost you nothing. Essentially, it counts as if you were taking the subway.

The Chrysler Building from the tram

The Frick Collection
This is a small collection (small in size, but absolutely high quality) of paintings and bronze sculptures. It´s "pay as you wish" every Sunday from 11am to 1am. They have Vermeer, Goya, Velázquez, van Dyck or Turner, among others, and my personal discovery: Corot.

Museum in Eldridge Street
This museum is actually a jewish synagogue, the first one in NY as I was told, open in 1887. You can visit for free on Mondays, and there will be a guide to tell you about the synagogue´s construction and the history of Jewish people in NY. It was a short visit, about maybe 30 min, and it was really interesting.

The Guggenheim Museum
I must say, we were quite dissapointed about this one, we expected much more... And we were so happy that we went on the free admission hours, because we would have been really regretful if we had payed for it. But you know, the exhibitions change periodically, so they might have something better now. And even if they don´t, this is just an ignorant speaking!
Anyways, this is "pay as you wish" on Saturdays from 5:45pm to 7:45pm.

The Jewish Museum
When we visited it, they had a great exhibition of Chagall, but I don´t think they have it anymore. It´s free on Saturdays during the whole day, and pay what you wish on Thursdays from 5pm to 8pm.

Carnegie Hall
There´s no way you can make this for free (not legally, at least), but this is absolutely worth paying! In fact, this might be the only touristy thing I´ve paid for since I got here, and not only once. If you´re a music lover check out the calendar, find something you like and make sure it´s in the Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, because it´s magnificent. I know you don´t want to spend money, neither do I, but they have some really cheap seats. You shouldn´t pay more than 20$ for this. You should go for the cheapest of the cheapest, and take the "obstructed view" seats, because I´m telling you, I don´t think they make a big difference. Oh, and the acoustics are better in the balcony that in the dress circle.

Barnes and Noble

This is a very famous chain of bookstores here. If you´re not American, you might be surprised by the "bookstore culture" in the US. There are huge bookstores with Starbucks coffeeshops inside. You can pick a few books, sit at a table in Starbucks and spend some time reading while you have a coffee.
Want to read some book but don´t want to spend 3$ in a coffee? That´s OK too!! You will see a few people sitting on the carpeted floor, and that´s perfectly normal. No one will come and ask you to leave, you can spend as much time as you want there. So this is not a tipical touristy thing, but it´s so surprising if you´re not used to it, that it´s worth spending half an hour in any of their bookstores.
There is one B&N bookstore in Lexington ave & 86th street, and a smaller one in 3rd ave & 54th st. Those are the ones I know in NY, but there are a lot more if those are not convenient to you.
And if you´re actually looking for a cheap cheap cheap bookstore, check out The Strand!! This one is in Broadway & 12th street. You´ll find cheap old editions and 2nd hand books, and you can sell your books too.

There are a few more things for free that I haven´t tried yet, such as the Museum of Natural History or the Neue Galerie, which is free the first friday every month. Will try to keep this updated.

If you´re coming to NY some time around June, check out the Museum Mile Festival. It´s one day in June when all the museums along 5th avenue are open and free from 6pm to 9pm. I suggest you to pick one that is usually not free, like Neue Galerie, and get there early because the line will be really long and you might not make it if you get there after 7pm!

Will also blog about Philadelphia in another entry, and the buses you can take from NY to Ph.

Hope this is useful! :)

José Saramago

There's this post I'm delaying because I don't want to be the one who writes it, but I do want to write about my last conquests by José Saramago.

In my vast ignorance about non-Spanish literature (which I'm trying to fix) I didn't know about him until one day back in 2008, on a bus trip, I saw one of those huge posters by the road, showing a photo of him and some novel I don´t remember. I did some little (tiny) research and went to the library with the intention to pick The gospel according to Jesus Christ. They didn't have that one and, when I was trying to take All the names, another book felt down (Homecoming -Die Heimkehr-, by Bernhard Schlink - review here) and I picked that one instead... Didn't happen to be the wrong choice until the last 50 pages or so, when the author had a personality crisis or something and the story turns into a completely different one, but whatever.

So... Back to Saramago, since then, I had always wanted to read something by him, and I won't say I never had the time because I did, but it was like one of those things you vaguely want to do but never actually do..., until the first time I came to the U.S. with James Joyce's Odyssey in my backpack and it turned out not to be the most productive reading for me, at least at that point of my existence.

So, the first novel I read by Saramago was Blindness (Ensaio sobre a Cegueira - "Essay on blindness" in English), which I downloaded in pdf for free while in NY.

In this novel, he tells a story that happens who knows where, when the citizens suddenly start to get blind inexplicably. Of course panic spreads, because nobody knows how this "white blindness" is transmitted.
If you're not used to his style (I wasn't yet) and maybe also even if you are, you might find it not easy to read. You'll see, he uses these kilometric sentences that sometimes are so long that they don´t fit in one page. He never uses full stops but you'll have a lot of commas to separate narration from dialogues. You'll know when a dialogue starts when you see a capital letter following a comma, and you'll know that there's someone else speaking when you see another capital letter following another comma, and so on. Also, he never uses proper nouns in this novel, so the characters are "the first blind guy", "the doctor", "the doctor's wife", "the girl with the dark glasses" and such.

After that one, I read The Elephant´s Journey (A Viagem do Elefante) (haven´t finished it yet, because I´m reading it in english and I´m lazy), Cain (Caím) and Death with Interruptions (As Intermitências da Morte).

Cain is my favourite so far, but I´m gonna let someone else blog about it (hopefully, some day).

I´m just gonna try to explain why I think his style works so well, to me at least.


Will give you as an example the beginning of The Elephant´s Journey (sorry for the length):

Strange though it may seem to anyone unaware of the importance of the marital bed in the efficient workings of public administration, regardless of whether that bed has been blessed by church or state or no one at all, the first step of an elephant’s extraordinary journey to austria, which we propose to describe hereafter, took place in the royal apartments of the portuguese court, more or less at bedtime. And it is no mere accident that we chose to use the vague expression more or less. For this enables us, with admirable elegance, to avoid having to go into details of a physical and physiological nature, often sordid and almost always ridiculous, and which, set down on paper, would offend the strict catholicism of dom joão the third, king of portugal and of the algarves, and of dona catarina of austria, his wife and the future grandmother of the same dom sebastião who will go off to lead the attack on alcácer-quibir and die there during the first assault, or perhaps the second, although there are also those who say he died of an illness on the eve of battle. This is what the king, with furrowed brow, said to the queen, I’m worried about something, my lady, About what, my lord, The gift we gave to our cousin maximilian at the time of his marriage four years ago always seemed to me unworthy of his lineage and his merits, and now that we have him close to home, so to speak, in his role as regent of spain in the city of valladolid, I would like to offer him something more valuable, more striking, what do you think, my lady, A monstrance would be a good idea, my lord, a monstrance, I find, is always most welcome, perhaps because it has the virtue of combining material value and spiritual significance, Our holy church would not appreciate such liberality, it doubtless still retains in its infallible memory cousin maximilian’s confessed sympathies for the reforms of the lutheran protestants, or were they calvinists, I was never quite sure, Vade retro, satana, exclaimed the queen, crossing herself, such a thought had never even occurred to me, now I’ll have to go to confession first thing in the morning, Why tomorrow in particular, my lady, given that it is your custom to go to confession every day, asked the king, Because of the vile idea that the enemy placed on my vocal cords, oh, I can feel my throat burning as if it had been scorched by a breath from hell itself. Accustomed to the queen’s sensory excesses, the king shrugged and returned to the difficult task of finding a present that might satisfy archduke maximilian of austria. The queen was murmuring a prayer and had just begun another when, suddenly, she stopped and almost shouted out, There’s always solomon, What, asked the king, perplexed by this untimely invocation of the king of judah, Yes, my lord, solomon the elephant, And what has the elephant got to do with anything, asked the king somewhat waspishly, He could be the gift, my lord, answered the queen, standing up, euphoric and very excited, He’s not exactly an appropriate wedding present, That doesn’t matter. The king nodded slowly three times, paused and then nodded another three times, after which he said, Yes, it’s an interesting idea, It’s more than interesting, it’s a very good idea, an excellent idea, retorted the queen, unable to suppress a gesture of impatience, almost of insubordination, the creature came from india more than two years ago, and since then he’s done nothing but eat and sleep, with his water trough always full and a constant supply of food, it’s as if he were a kept beast, but one who’ll never earn his keep, That’s hardly the poor creature’s fault, there’s no suitable work for him here, unless we were to send him to the docks on the river tagus to transport planks, but the poor thing would only suffer, because his professional specialty is transporting felled trees, so much better suited to the curve of his trunk, Send him off to vienna, then, But how, asked the king, That’s not our affair, once cousin maximilian is the owner, it will be a matter for him to resolve, he is, I assume, still in valladolid, As far as I know, yes, Obviously, solomon would have to travel to valladolid on foot, he has the legs for it after all, And then on to vienna as well, he’ll have no alternative, It’s a long way, said the queen, A very long way, agreed the king gravely, and added, I’ll write to cousin maximilian tomorrow, and if he accepts, we’ll have to agree on dates and ascertain certain facts, for example, when he intends leaving for vienna, and how many days it would take for solomon to travel from lisbon to valladolid, after that, it’s up to him, we wash our hands of the affair, Yes, we wash our hands, said the queen, but deep inside, which is where the contradictions of the self do battle, she felt a sudden sadness at the thought of sending solomon off to such distant lands and into the care of strangers.

(Here to read the whole first chapter)

Yes, if you see this mass (or this mess) of words without full stops, without paragraphs, you might not feel very inclined to read it (did you read it? Right, that´s what I mean). It looks like there´s no pause for breathing until the end. And it looks like you will never be able to get to the end, or even to the third or fourth page... But once you start reading it, he gets you so interested in the story that you will not even notice the lack of conventional punctuation. Rather, you will notice it, and you´ll see how naturally the story develops.
To me, during the parts where the narrator is speaking, it's like he's trying to recreate the way he would tell the story if he was telling it out-loud to a friend (i.e. you), whereas for the parts where there's dialogue, he tries to emulate the scene, to set you in the very room where the characters are, so that you're not just listening to a narration but actually witnessing the action. And, in order to do this, he gets rid of those artificial elements of written language that don't have a translation or an equivalent in spoken language, such as the dashes in dialogues or the capital letter in proper names (when he uses them).
This way, contrary to what it may seem if you just limit yourself to take a superficial look at the bunch of lines, and lines, and lines, page after page without a breathing pause, the story goes on fluently without being constantly interrupted, artificially, by things like:
- Blah blah blah - the King said.
- Blah blah blah blah - the Queen replied.
- Blah blah? - he asked her.
- Blah blah - she stated.
No, you don't need all that "the King said", "the Queen replied"..., you don't need him to tell you that, because you're seeing it as it happens, first-hand.
Another characteristic of Saramago that I've noticed, I think, in all the four novels I've read by him, is the fact that, as a narrator, he (or they, because he always refers to himself in plural as if he was a part of some group) is somehow above the story, he's better than the characters and he takes the liberty to judge or criticize them or to make comments completely outside the story.


But not only he is a great story teller, he's also a great story maker. I told you about Blindness. If you haven´t read it, you might think it´s a stupid story: people getting blind by some sort of magic. Great. And I haven´t told you about Death with Interruptions yet, but here I go: once upon a time in the present time, this woman named Death quits her job and people stop dying. Also, great. Both of them sound like the kind of stupid stories that I, grown up and busy adult, don´t want to waste my time with.
Yes. The facts that originate the stories are absurd. What happens next is rather comic. The way he tells it is quite satirical. But what is great about it is that, if you think of it, this might actually be the reaction of people if they did suddenly get blind, if they did suddenly stop dying. And because, given the absurd circumstances that trigger the story, that might actually be the reaction in reality, he has the justification to be satirically critic towards society and its strata. With special attention to clergy!

Funny thing, in Death with Interruptions, written in 2005, he states something that anticipates the fact that origins the whole Cain pilgrimage in Cain, written in 2009:
It´s easy enough to understand, it takes very little imagination to see why death´s workplace is probably the dullest of all those created since cain killed abel, an incident for which god bears all the blame. 
About this particular book though, I'll probably post something in detail sooner or later (later, I guess, let's be honest). Because, although overall I liked it, I got kind of disappointed...


But anyways, this "anticipation" business made me realize, because I had recently read Garcia Marquez's No one writes to the colonel and noticed the same thing (read this post about it), that, the same way some readers read several books at the same time, also some authors write several novels at the same time. Yes, I know it's ridiculously obvious, but I had never thought of that before! And I discovered that I enjoy crossed references between them when I'm able to identify them. Rather, I enjoy being able to identify crossed references between them...

I think this is it for now. I hope it's not me the one who posts about Cain (wink-wink).
I already have several other books to post about: Brave new world, Strange pilgrims and Animal Farm, which I'm reading right now.

I have to say, I hate when they don't translate the title of the books accurately!!
The Spanish name for Brave new world is Un mundo feliz (A happy world).
The English name for Ensaio sobre a Cegueira  is Blindness.
The English name for Memoria de mis putas tristes (Memory of my sad whores) is Memories of my melancholic whores.
The English name for Doce cuentos peregrinos (Twelve pilgrim tales) is Strange pilgrims.
Why??!

Author Gabriel García Marquez dies

Gabriel García Marquez died today at the age of 87. I was going to blog about him, but I just found this New York Times article that is much better than anything I can write...

So, instead of writing anything myself, I decided to copy here the opening of some of his great novels, for you to enjoy (and maybe to get you interested!).


El coronel no tiene quien le escriba / No one writes to the colonel (1961)

The colonel took the top off the coffee can and saw that there was only one little spoonfulleft. He removed the pot from the fire, poured half the water onto the earthen floor, andscraped the inside of the can with a knife until the last scrapings of the ground coffee,mixed with bits of rust, fell into the pot.While he was waiting for it to boil, sitting next to the stone fireplace with anattitude of confident and innocent expectation, the colonel experienced the feeling thatfungus and poisonous lilies were taking root in his gut. It was October. A difficultmorning to get through, even for a man like himself, who had survived so many morningslike this one. For nearly sixty years---since the end of the last civil war--the colonel haddone nothing else but wait. October was one of the few things which arrived.
(Check out the first 30 pages of this novel in English here)

El coronel destapó el tarro del café y comprobó que no había más de una cucharadita. Retiró la olla del fogón, vertió la mitad del agua en el piso de tierra, y con un cuchillo raspó el interior del tarro sobre la olla hasta cuando se desprendieron las últimas raspaduras del polvo de café revueltas con óxido de lata. Mientras esperaba a que hirviera la infusión, sentado junto a la hornilla de barro cocido en una actitud de confiada e inocente expectativa, el coronel experimentó la sensación de que nacían hongos y lirios venenosos en sus tripas. Era octubre. Una mañana difícil de sortear, aun para un hombre como él que había sobrevivido a tantas mañanas como ésa. Durante cincuenta v seis años -desde cuando terminó la última guerra civil- el coronel no había hecho nada distinto de esperar. Octubre era una de las pocas cosas que llegaban.
(Read this novel in Spanish here)


Cien años de soledad / A hundred years of solitude (1967)

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Col. Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of 20 adobe houses built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.
(Read this novel in English here)

Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo. Macondo era entonces una aldea de 20 casas de barro y cañabrava construidas a la orilla de un río de aguas diáfanas que se precipitaban por un lecho de piedras pulidas, blancas y enormes como huevos prehistóricos. El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo.
(Read this novel in Spanish here)


Crónica de una muerte anunciada / Chronicle of a death foretold (1981)

On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on. He'd dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit. "He was always dreaming about trees," Placida Linero, his mother, told me twenty-seven years later, recalling the details of that distressing Monday. "The week before, he'd dreamed that he was alone in a tinfoil airplane and flying through the almond trees without bumping into anything," she said to me. She had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people's dreams, provided they were told her before eating, but she hadn't noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son's, or in the other dreams of trees he'd described to her on the mornings preceding his death.
(Read this novel in English here)

El día en que lo iban a matar, Santiago Nasar se levantó a las 5.30 de la mañana para esperar el buque en que llegaba el obispo. Había soñado que atravesaba un bosque de higuerones donde caía una llovizna tierna, y por un instante fue feliz en el sueño, pero al despertar se sintió por completo salpicado de cagada de pájaros. «Siempre soñaba con árboles», me dijo Plácida Linero, su madre, evocando 27 años después los pormenores de aquel lunes ingrato. «La semana anterior había soñado que iba solo en un avión de papel de estaño que volaba sin tropezar por entre los almendros», me dijo. Tenía una reputación muy bien ganada de interprete certera de los sueños ajenos, siempre que se los contaran en ayunas, pero no había advertido ningún augurio aciago en esos dos sueños de su hijo, ni en los otros sueños con árboles que él le había contado en las mañanas que precedieron a su muerte.
(Read this novel in Spanish here)


El amor en los tiempos del cólera / Love in the time of cholera (1985)

It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. Dr. Juvenal Urbino noticed it as soon as he entered the still darkened house where he had hurried on an urgent call to attend a case that for him had lost all urgency many years before. The Antillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, and his most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with the aromatic fumes of gold cyanide.
(Read this novel in English here)

Era inevitable: el olor de las almendras amargas le recordaba siempre el destino de los amores contrariados. El doctor Juvenal Urbino lo percibió desde que entró en la casa todavía en penumbras, adonde había acudido de urgencia a ocuparse de un caso que para él había dejado de ser urgente desde hacía muchos años. El refugiado antillano Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, inválido de guerra, fotógrafo de niños y su adversario de ajedrez más compasivo, se había puesto a salvo de los tormentos de la memoria con un sahumerio de cianuro de oro.
(Read this novel in Spanish here)


Del amor y otros demonios / Of love and other demons (1994)

An ash-gray dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst onto the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday in December, knocked down tables of fried food, overturned Indians' stalls and lottery kiosks, and bit four people who happened to cross its path. Three of them were black slaves. The fourth, Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles, the only child of the Marquis de Casalduero, had come there with a mulatta servant to buy a string of bells for the celebration of her twelfth birthday. They had been instructed not to go beyond the Arcade of the Merchants, but the maid ventured as far as the drawbridge in the slum of Getsemaní, attracted by the crowd at the slavers' port where a shipment of blacks from Guinea was being sold at a discount. For the past week a ship belonging to the Compañía Gaditana de Negros had been awaited with dismay because of an unexplainable series of deaths on board. In an attempt at concealment, the unweighted corpses were thrown into the water. The tide brought them to the surface and washed the bodies, disfigured by swelling and a strange magenta coloring, up on the beach. The vessel lay anchored outside the bay, for everyone feared an outbreak of some African plague, until it was verified that the cause of death was food poisoning.
(Read this novel in English here)

Un perro cenizo con un lucero en la frente irrumpió en los vericuetos del mercado el primer domingo de diciembre, revolcó mesas de fritangas, desbarató tenderetes de indios y toldos de lotería, y de paso mordió a cuatro personas que se le atravesaron en el camino. Tres eran esclavos negros. La otra fue Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles, hija única del marqués de Casalduero, que había ido con una sirvienta mulata a comprar una ristra de cascabeles para la fiesta de sus doce años. Tenían instrucciones de no pasar del Portal de los Mercaderes, pero la criada se aventuró hasta el puente levadizo del arrabal de Getsemaní, atraída por la bulla del puerto negrero, donde estaban rematando un cargamento de esclavos de Guinea. El barco de la Compañía Gaditana de Negros era esperado con alarma desde hacía una semana, por haber sufrido a bordo una mortandad inexplicable. Tratando de esconderla habían echado al agua los cadáveres sin lastre. El mar de leva los sacó a flote y amanecieron en la playa desfigurados por la hinchazón y con una rara coloración solferina. La nave fue anclada en las afueras de la bahía por el temor de que fuera un brote de alguna peste africana, hasta que comprobaron que había sido un envenenamiento con fiambres manidos.
(Read this novel in Spanish here)



That's it for today. You can find in Wikipedia a list of his works, in English and in Spanish. My next one will probably be Doce cuentos peregrinos (Strange Pilgrims in English, though the literal translation would be Twelve pilgrim tales).

Enjoy your reading! :)

Réquiem por un campesino español (Requiem for a Spanish peasant)

Author: Ramón J. Sender
Year: 1953
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain

This short novel by Ramón J. Sender was first published in Mexico in 1953, under the title "Mosén Millán" (Father Millán), and censored in Spain until 1960, when it was finally published as "Réquiem por un campesino español" (Requiem for a Spanish peasant).
The novel has two different storylines: in the present time, a priest (mosén Millán) is waiting for his audience to start the requiem mass for Paco the peasant, one year after his death; in the meanwhile, we learn about Paco's life -and death, eventually- through the priest's remembrances.

The story takes place in a village somewhere in Spain, right before the break of the Spanish Civil War. In case you don't know, the Spanish Civil War took place during 1936-1939, the contending bands were the "republicans" (legitimate government by that time) and the "nationals" (coup d'état), and it resulted in about 500.000 dead from both bands (source: wiki), victory of the "national" army and beginning of Franco's dictatorship, that would last until his death in 1975.

As a result of the war, many republican artists were killed and many others were exiled. Sender was exiled to Mexico, where he wrote the novel in question. And Paco, the peasant, is a republican.

The novel, quite short (about 40 pages), written in plain language, easy vocabulary..., was extremely boring to me. Maybe it is because I was annoyed by an altar boy intermittently singing a romance that was meant to be clever but I found quite silly and unnecessary, maybe I didn't care about the peasant's childhood and action seemed never to come, truth is it took about 25 pages to get me interested in the story. I picked the book at the library because it's one of the Spanish post-war literature masterpieces but, in my opinion, that's what it is. Post-war literature. Which is great, don't get me wrong, and I can absolutely see its value in the historical context where it was written, but I just didn't like it.

So, my recommendation on this novel... You totally have to read it if you are interested in Spanish contemporary history. Otherwise, there are better books in the world.

El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (No one writes to the colonel)

Author: Gabriel García Márquez
Year: 1961
Language: Spanish
Country: Colombia


This short novel written by Gabriel García Marquez tells the story of an old colonel, whose name we'll never know, who has lived his last 50 years waiting for a letter that is supposed to arrive with next Friday's mail. This letter will come along with an important economical compensation for his merits in the army, under the orders of Aureliano Buendía, a character that is mentioned a few times along the novel and becomes one of the members of the Buendía family in A hundred years of solitude (1967).
In fact, it's not until now (while writing this post) that I found out that the Colonel was written before the solitude! Not only that, but also Macondo, the village where the Colonel lives, which is also the setting where all the 100 years of solitude unfolded, appeared for the first time in other two of his works back in 1955.

However..., I had read A hundred years of solitude before, and for some reason it was nice to go back to this decadent village where everything is static, stuffy, dusty and ruined.
Although written, as it was, six years before the solitude, this story takes place about 50 years after Aureliano Buendía's death, which might be about 30 years after the end of the hundred years of solitude (and about 150 years after the foundation of Macondo, whose decadency we attend along that novel).

It's funny, though.
If we take the facts chronologically according to the story, we have that a certain José Arcadio Buendía founded a village named Macondo. Somewhere along the future generations of his descendents we find an honorable general called Aureliano Buendía. During the glory days of Macondo, the so called Banana Boom, the Americans come to the village and settle their banana plantations. But Macondo was fated from the very day of its foundation, and eventually the Americans will leave. Decades after its slow but inexorable decadency, and also decades after general Aureliano's death, we find our unnamed colonel, walking the same ruined streets and alleys. Which is to say, after a few decades of not having news from Macondo, we find out that the village remained just the way we left it, and there's still someone alive to remember the Buendía family with us.
If, on the other hand, we take the facts chronologically according to our reality, we find that one fine day, during a train trip, García Márquez passed by a banana plantation named Macondo that got his attention for some reason. After that, in 1955, he mentions the village for the first time in two works (that I haven't read). Then, in 1961, he puts our coronel in a ruined Macondo, though he recalls those glory days following general Aureliano's orders. And finally, in 1967, he decides to tell us the whole story of Macondo and its founding family.

Anyways, all this was just the excitement of my discovery!
Let's talk about the novel..., though there's not much more to talk about without spoiling it, so I will just say this: it's not thrilling. Solitude, misery and old age are the main topics. It's a very well written short story that is nevertheless very slowly unfolded, in a village where nothing happens, where nothing has happened since we left it 30 years ago.
You don't need to read the solitude first, but you most probably will enjoy this one better if you did. Which, again, is funny, if we have in mind that it wasn't written until six years after...

El cartero de Neruda (The postman)

Author: Antonio Skármeta
Publication year: 1985
Language: Spanish
Country: Chile

The cover of the edition I got says: "Mario Jiménez, a young fisherman, decides to give up his job to become a postman in Isla Negra, where the only person who ever sends or receives mail is the poet Pablo Neruda. By this plot, as original as seductive, the author gets an intense picture of the tumultuous 70´s in Chile, as well as a captivating love story and a poetic recreation of Pablo Neruda´s life."
Written in 1985, it was originally named "Ardent patience", until in 1995 it was re-named as "Neruda´s postman" ("The postman" in the English edition) after the success of an italian-french movie called "Il postino", which was nominated for five oscars (and got one).
I will be honest, the author is definitely not one of the best I´ve ever read. At some points of the story, especially when describing love scenes (or the girl object of our protagonist´s love), I had the feeling that he was actually trying to emulate Neruda, but he´s far from making it. Too artificial language breaking into the middle of a story that is otherwise quite plain, so it gives the impression that it´s an unnecessary mass of pompous words and twisted sentences. This of course is only my point of view but, as this is my blog so far, you will have to content with that.
But it´s also true that, when he puts Neruda aside and goes back to the simple, easy, plain, straightforward language that dominates the story, he is, in general, quite good, and then, from time to time, he has some brilliant points, like this ones (my faves, translated by yours truly, I´m sure you´ll get a better translation if you get the book!):
                               ..................................................
- My girl, if you mix poetry with politics, you will soon be a single mom. What did he say to you?
- Metaphores.
The mother held the knob of the rustic bronze cot, squeezing it until she thought she could melt it.
- What´s wrong, mom? What are you thinking?
The woman came to her side, let herself faint on the bed, and in a weak voice said:
- I never heard such a long word from you.
                                .................................................
The girl bit her pillow, and then, showing those teeth which, as well as seducing, were able to fray both clothes and flesh, yelled:
- This is ridiculous! Just because a man told me that my smile flapped in my face like a butterfly, I have to leave to Santiago!
- Don´t be stupid! - the mother exploded as well -. Now your smile is a butterfly, but tomorrow your tits will be two doves wanting to be cooed, your nipples will be two juicy raspberries, your tongue will be the gods´ warm carpet, your butt will be a ship´s canvas, and that thing now smoking between your legs will be the jet-black oven where the proud metal of the race is forged! Good night!
                               ................................................

And also, as unusual as it might seem, I enjoyed especially the prologue, where the author explains how he got to write that story.

In summary, it´s a short, touching story that will also help you learn about Neruda and about Chilean political history and the 1973 coup d'état. Easy reading, I recommend it.