My Book Reviews - Tumblr Posts
Book Review: Antonio Machado. Selection of poems by Jesús García Sánchez.
I don't think I have the academic formation for a deep contemplation and careful appreciation of poetry, and I have read very little poetry before, but by the end of the book, I believe I reached a faint understanding of Machado and his life as a spanish poet at the turn of the 20th century.
Some of the most recurring themes I noted on this selection that include his most famous works and cover 40 years of his writing are the captivating spirit of nature, the inevitable passage of time, the yearn and love for youthness, the evergreen presence of Death and the war that ravaged Spain.
These two poems share the themes of nature (particularly, of Spring as a rejuvenating force) and the yearn of youthness. In both, the author gazes at the landscape around him as Spring turns everything green and new and alive. His train of thought is suddenly interrumped by the realization that his youth is gone, that life has passed. The key difference between them is the hopeful note the left poem ends with:
"— Oh, how late for my own joy! — And then, walking, like one who feels wings of another illusion: — And yet I'll reach my youth one day!"
Machado seems to understand youthness as a state of mind, as a quality one can cultivate or achieve rather than just an age. But then, on the second poem:
"Under that blossomed almond tree heavy with flowers — I remembered—, I've cursed my youth without love. Today, halfway through my life I've stopped to meditate... Youth never lived, who could dream you again!"
Then, maybe, love is what give us the will of living and youthfulness that pushes us through life.
On that vein, Machado says in one of his Proverbs:
"Words of love fit nicely in a little bit of exaggeration"
But Machado stares a lot at Death too. It creeps and pops up randomly through his verses, maybe suddenly faced by the mortality of his life by the War or the passing of a person close to him.
On the first poem, Machado dreams with a demon, who appears before him as the most beautiful angel, their eyes with a glowing heat of steel, the bleeding flames of their torch pushing the shadows of his soul. Machado is forced to accompany the angel and enter his own soul, ressembling a crypt, where he hears chains and caged beasts.
On the second poem, Machado writes about the death of another poet, Federíco García Lorca, murdered by order of Valdes because of his political views and his alleged homosexuality. But Federico walks with Her, Death, like if she were a muse, mourning about what's happening in Granada. In the poem, Federico even seems to pity Death, bowing to help her and restore her flesh, her eyes, her hair, her lips, singing them to her, as if thanking her for giving him edge to his poetry with her scythe and coldness to his songs.
Overall, Machado is a poet filled with zeist who loves life and delights about the cycle of death and rebirth in nature.
The poems I posted here were some of my favorites, but his whole Proverbs is filled with quotable excerpts and life advice. I don't want to give this book a score like I did in my previous reviews, it suffices to say that I enjoyed it and from time to time, it gave me something deeper to think about.
(I apologize in case of writing mistakes, this is my first review written from scratch completely in English)
My other 2023 readings.
Book Review: The Suicides Club, Robert Louis Stevenson.
To surprise of my forgetful memory, I had already read this short novel, but given that I didn't quite remember the specific details of it, I took great pleasure in reading it again.
The plot is quite simple, really: prince Frorizel of Bohemia is a man quite brave but easily bored, always on the hunt of new adventures. Fortune puts him on the path of a stranger acting extravagantly on the streets of London, gifting people cream cakes or eating them if they refuse it. When asked about his behaviour in private, the man reveals to the prince and his confidant, colonel Geraldine, that he's a member of a private and very secret club, the Suicides Club.
The Club is exactly that: a group of men who want to die but for one reason or another can't muster the will to take their own lives. But the real kick is how they decide who dies next and how they solve the problem of the suicide: homicide at the hands of a fellow member of the club.
I don't want to spoil any further the story, so I will just give a general overview of the structure and what I liked.
This short novel is divided in three chapters, each one from the perspective of a new character. The first, that of Florizel. The other two return eventually to the storyline of the prince, but succeed somehow into generating confussion in the reader about where the story wants to go or why it changed so drastically its perspective.
Given the collection this book is part of, I am a little puzzled at why would someone consider it a Crime and Mystery novel, at least in the traditional sense associated with Sherlock Holmes and Herculè Poirot.
Even more so considering this particular edition of the novel includes another short one: "The Misadventures of John Nicholson". I found it a very funny story on itself, but it stumbled like its main character through the plot without much thought or point to it.
I include the first chapter because it has a stellar hook for a reader, and a translation below:
"John Varey Nicholson — one has to admit it — was what one could call a stupid man; nonetheless, men much stupider than our friend sit today at the Parliament [...] [John was] a creature totally abandoned by the Gods."
Overall, it was a pleasant and rather quick read, but not one I'll think much about in the future.
Again, I apologize for any crude error in my writing, I'm trying to practice more my English skills and this proves a helpful challenge.
My other readings of 2023.
Book Review: The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells
My review in a Tweet:
"Would men turn evil if they were free from society?" is a frequent question in fiction and phylosophy in general, and while it's present in this book, it has been exaggerated on literary analysis that followed it. Overall, an interesting read with a very dull middle part.
Complete Review:
I decided to pause my other readings to dive into special thematic books for Halloween, while also complementing the nights I watch movie classics. So, for the first special review, I chose "The Invisible Man", by Herbert George Wells.
Years ago, I read "The Time Machine" by the same author, and it left a good impression of his writing skills. This time, while it wasn't bad, I'd say it left me a little unimpressed. The prose and descriptions, like the dialogues, were precise and well written but a bit dense. Wells would go over too many details, and although it's probably a common product of its time, it lacks a more deep or meaningful story.
The book it's divided in chapters, but I think the plot it's separated in four parts:
The arrival of the Invisible Man to a small town, his secret protected by the costume he wears.
The reveal of the secret and the following chaos.
The origin of the Invisible Man, told by himself to an old friend he runs into.
The manhunt of the Invisible Man.
The first part it's quite interesting as a reader, because we know what his secret is, so it's fun to read the guesses of the townspeople and the "mysterious events" that surround the stranger.
The second part is also fun, because of the paranoia and desbelief that the reveal of the Invisible Man provokes.
This third part, his backstory, the one I was most eager to read about (driven by the curiosity of getting to know how would the author explain or justify Griffins' invisibility) turned out to be so dull and slow. The proccess is a bit uninteresting (applying the refracting properties of an object to another thanks to a machine barely described), but the tedious first days of Griffin as an invisible man and his laments for all the unfortunate stuff that happens to him because no one can notice him is so... unsufferable. Specially because H.G. Wells decides to describe a lot the most boring stuff. We barely get to see a truly evil Invisible Man.
He does tell to his old friend that he needs an accomplice to declare his Reign of Terror, but by the time we reach this point, we have 10% or 15% of the book left, so the last part is mostly his friends saying No to him and helping the local police capture him (because the narration of his first days invisible gave him the information he needed). Griffin kills a man and injuries badly a few more men, but besides that and stealing money and food, he's no more evil than any person left behind by society.
So maybe, another possible interpretation to this story is not "Do men turn evil when free from society's watchful eye?" but rather "Men will do what they must to survive in a society that won't notice (help) them". Then, maybe, after a life like that, they will grow resentful and bitter like Griffin.
Score: 6.5/10.
My other 2023 readings.
Book Review: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley
My Review in a Tweet:
Oh, Shelley, the care you put into the feelings and thoughts, dreams and nightmares of your characters shines through an exquisite writing. The dialogues read as if shouted to the crowd of a theater, trying to convey an emotion they feel new in its intensity.
My Full Review:
Continuing with the series of readings for Halloween, I went for the next one of the Classic Monsters (order entirely decided by the lenght of each novel). "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, published anonimously at first on 1818, tells a generally well-known story of a man meddling with powers of nature beyond his complete comprehension and control: the energy of life.
The novel is a collection of letters and retellings of stories from differents points of view, which makes it a little "The Thousand and One Nights"-esque, reaching a point where we are reading the letters the captain of the ship wrote to his sister about the story Viktor Frankenstein told to him about the things the creature narrated to him about the tragedy of the poor family that lived in the cottage the monster was hiding in.
While Viktor Frankenstein seems to understand the "science of life" well enough for him to actually create life (or more technically, give a new one to things that were once alive), he seems to lack... responsability? I wouldn't say morality, because all throughout the novel he seems troubled by his experiment, by what he did and what it caused to the ones he loved, but only after many killings does Viktor actually confess or tells another soul about what he did. By that point, one loses any empathy and pity one might feel or have felt for either Viktor or the creature, both too enraptured and imprisoned in their feelings of guilt, remorse, sadness and anger to consider what they are causing to other people's life.
It's understandable to certain extent why they believe they are in the right, but their constant victimhood and cries for death upon themselves or upon others end up putting them beyond redemption.
This isn't to say the novel becomes unbearable because of this, on the contrary: the rich language with which they denounce the moral wrongs and the Providence's punishments they suffer and endure is very passionate and compelling, probably very typical of the Gothic movement the novel belongs to (I should read more literary theory).
I am a bit surprised and perplexed about which story beats have been used and expanded upon on different media such as movies, series, cartoons and other literary retellings. I think the character of Clerval has been very rarely used, if at all. The incident of the little girl that almost dies but is rescued by the creature is much more used, but it's quite a short part of the novel, and it's only mentioned once again, almost by the end of the book.
I'll make one short commentary in Spanish for any other argentinean readers that might come across by this review: que Viktor se case con la prima me pareció medio santiagueño (?
It was a very good reading, I enjoyed it a lot more than "The Invisible Man".
9/10.
My other 2023 readings.
Book Review: The Father Thing, Philip K. Dick
My Review in a Tweet:
In retrospective, I felt like I read it more like a chore, trying to read all five volumes this year. It has some good stories that left me thinking about the implicancies, but it was mostly filled with basic or uninteresting science fiction stories.
Complete Commentary:
I'm back! I just finished the third volume of Philip K. Dick's short stories, "The Father-Thing". I have to say, from the get-go, that it was probably the weakest one so far, with lower lows and not so great highs.
The more frequent topics and themes on this anthology are:
Ideologies and their radical extremes: from absolute polarization of society to political opinions taken to their most extreme realization, the author critizices and explores different ideas of his time, some of them being direct comments on recent publications.
Humanity and evolution: what will it be of humans in the future? The fate Philip K Dick envisions for us is rather dark or depressive in most of his stories.
Technology and humanity as a trait: Our relationship with technology is an evergreen topic in science-fiction, but in this anthology, it has a withered quality.
Clash of civilizations and classes
I'll make a short commentary for every short story, already ranking them from the one I liked the most to the one I liked the least:
Upon the Dull Earth: I realized while ordering up the stories that this was the one I liked the most and not the next one on the list. It feels more like a fantasy short story, but the ending is closer to a (cosmic?) horror tale.
The Golden Man: fantastic pace, fantastic ending.
Shell Game: the absolute paranoia of this colony and the TWIST. Loved it.
Sales Pitch: PKD said many people didn't like this story's ending and that he agreed with them. I disagree with both, the ending is great, but maybe because we like more cynical stories nowadays.
The Hanging Stranger: I love the ending, more themes of paranoia.
The Last of the Masters: it's unusual to read about anarchy, but it was very interesting, specially on the efforts to preserve some kind of hierarchy and burocracy.
Foster, You're Dead!: amazing satire, still relevant today.
War Veteran: I would really like to see this story adapted in a movie or series, it has great potential as a political intrigue/thriller.
A World of Talent: I rank it this high because of how convoluted and complicated the mutants' powers were. The plot itself dragged a bit too much.
Strange Eden: I like the ethereal feel of the story and the kind of "cautious tale" of the ending.
To Serve the Master
Fair Game
Pay for the Printer: I feel like we are headed this way with automated production and the lack of appreciation for manual crafts.
The Turning Wheel
Tony and the Beetles: relevant in today's political landscape.
Exhibit Piece: I despise the nostalgic feeling present in science fiction stories that imagine such a disastrous future that anything is preferred than that present, even flawed pasts. Even then, it's well narrated.
Null-O.
The Chromium Fence: I liked this satire as a valid commentary on today's need to always "pick a side", how pointing out valid critics to either viewpoint is considered as expressing symphaty for the other one. I disliked the ending, it felt like an easy way out.
The Eyes Have It: I liked it because it was fun, but I put it lower on the list because it feels very out of place in this anthology.
The Father-Thing: I liked better the author's explanation of this story, not the story itself.
Psi-man Heal My Child!: after reading A World of Talent, it felt very repetitive and unnecessarily complicated.
The Crawlers: pretty uninteresting.
Overall, I would give this book a:
6/10.
My other 2023 readings.
Since we are nearing the end of the year, I want to start organizing my readings for 2024. I'll post one more review for sure for a comic book I read last week, and maybe two more from books I'm finishing this week.
(My three last books of the year probably)
So, my goals for next year are both broaden the type of books I read and practice more reading in foreign languages.
Send me a book you like and I'll consider it for my 2024 readings.
You get a prize if you also tell me why you like it (?
Book Review: Ultimate X-Men, Mark Millar, Adam and Andy Kubert.
My Review in a Tweet:
I like how corny Marvel comics are. Being so cuddled by the MCU, it felt refreshing to see many characters just existing there and moving the plot by acting rather than being, like they didn't need to justify their existence for a greater plot and could just inhabit the universe.
Full Review:
Being primarily an MCU enjoyer (I wouldn´t call myself a fan now), seeing the plot of the Sentinels as the first thing in this comic book was jarring, as I was expecting a more introductory story before anything like that. It is an early story anyway, as the X-Men as a group are barely getting started in Men of Tomorrow. Scott Summers/Cyclops serves as the founding leader of the team under the tutelage of Charles Xavier as a group of mutants who seek to discourage the U.S. Government from implementing the Sentinels program, protect other mutants and impede Magento from recruiting them to his side.
The hard-cover book includes a second story arc, Return to X-Weapon, where Wolverine takes center stage and fights to rescue his newfound team after nearly betraying them in the previous story.
I rescued that panel in particular because it was hilarious to me for some reason (Quicksilver complains to Scarlet Witch that Magneto said that his superspeed mutation was effeminate).
Both story arcs were neatly written, with not much time to spare on developing the mutants, but maybe it's commonplace on issues dedicated to a team rather than to an specific character. Magneto and Xavier, as well as Wraith, have their time to shine and expose their views. I was delighted to see Nightcrawler on this, so half an extra point for that.
Overall, an amicable reading, not too deep, fun for moments. The artstyle is a bit underwhelming and there aren't many interesting compositions, but besides that, enjoyable.
6.5/10.
My Other 2023 Readings.
Book Review: Batman. Dark Nights: Metal. Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jim Lee, Andy Kubert, John Romita Jr.
My Review in a Tweet:
It's so disorienting to read comics sometimes. I could follow the story but I had no idea where it came frome, because I don't even know what other comics I should have read before. Despite that, it was a good story with amazing artwork and really interesting character designs.
My Full Review:
I should clarify from the get-go that a friend lent me this book so I read it mostly out of curiosity. Having to fill in the gaps of the previous issues of this comic can be a difficult task if you have no idea what to read (I went in blindly, fearing spoiling myself) and have no access to the comics.
Despite all those (clearly personal) obstacles, I found the reading quite interesting, at least beacuse of the intrincancies of the plot and the flashy new designs some of the characters were sporting. I knew secondhandly the Batman who Laughs, but I wasn't sure why he was here. I enjoyed his presence nonetheless.
Seeing Baby Darkseid was great, I saw that design before but I didn't know it was from this specific comic:
The other highlight for me was Dream from the Eternals:
A fun comic that I didn't quite understand but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. The artstyle was a delight to me, with more interesting compositions and framings.
7/10.
My Other 2023 Readings.
Book Review: The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
My Review in a Tweet:
I haven't been this enraptured, this mesmerized, this captivated by a book in years, and I don't say that lightly. It's great on every aspect you could think of, and then some other you couldn't even conjure. Can't believe I neglected it for so long. Highly recommended if you like fantasty of any kind.
My Full Review:
I had it sitting on my bookshelves for months before I decided to start reading this book. It felt menacing, despite it being the pocket edition. The sheer volume, the brickness of it felt like a challenge I hadn't the courage to face.
But once I did, I realized the real danger was being unable to let it go: I was prisoner of the author, being held by his marvelous ability to thread the story of Kvothe in seamless chapters, that natural the flow of the story felt, you couldn't even tell where he jumped from present to past and back.
The vivid images still dance in my mind hours after I finished reading the book. I rushed past the other reviews I had pending so I could write this one because I neded to talk about it. My copy of the book was a present from a friend so I texted her inmediately, but that didn't suffice, I had to write longer than all caps screaming to each other.
The rich world the author builds feels vast and mysterious, with a lot of hidden things lurking just beneaht the surface waiting for both the writer and the reader to discover them. I really hope (haven't looked it up yet) that there are books in the vein of the Silmarillion and Tom Bombadil where the myths and tales of this universe are further expanded.
The prose of Rothfuss is so elegant, filled with clever descriptions and unexpected analogies that not even the most fictitious elements of his story remain ungraspable to the reader.
The characters are so diverse and interesting: each and every one of them leaves a perdurable memory, no matter how brief and casual their impact and presence on the story is.
Kvothe is our main character, but he gets to be a narrator of his own story whenever we dive into his past, becoming a somewhat unreliable narrator. The whole book feels like that: we as readers submerging in the story narrated by Kvothe himself, gasping for air during the interlusions where the omniscient narrator takes the job back to move the story in the present time.
A wonderful work of worldbuilding, characterization and narration only hindered by the bittersweet taste of finishing the book eager for more. I hope to get my hands on the sequel soon, but I probably should let this world rest a little before diving in it again.
9/10.
My other 2023 Readings.
Book Review: Historias de Cronopios y de Famas, Julio Cortázar
My Review in a Tweet:
Imagine you get a box filled with puzzle pieces, but they are all from different puzzles. You may see a familiar figure here, another face there, but no matter how you try to arrange the pieces together, you are sure it's not the meant image. Reading this book is like that.
My Full Review:
I became aware yesterday of my inappropriate lack of Argentinean authors in my reading list this year, and trying to mend that a little, I found this little book in a bookshelf while visiting my parents for the holidays.
While quite short, this book reminded me how much I ignore. I felt in a clear cultural disadvantage, where Cortázar (who some people may call the greatest Argentinean author) was playing a joke at my expense. I don't say this negatively.
Historias de Cronopios y de Famas is a collection of short stories, vague poems and... Nonsense. That's when the ignorance I felt started to creep in. I'm not sure of the exact literary current Cortázar belongs to, but this book read to me like an absurdist ramble without crossing over to dadaism.
I tend to believe that there are some clear themes of social and economic classes coating the short stories of the Cronopios, the Famas and the Hopes: they work as fictional and bizarre versions of Argentina's middle-to-low, high and (cultural) elite class respectively (I'm not sure about the Hopes). Cronopios are despised and treated condescendingly by the Famas, mocking their behavior and traditions, all too jovial and effusive and lazy; the Famas think too high of themselves and tend to use and abuse the other two; the Hopes seem to be trapped in an academic gasp, stunned by the lack of refinement of the Cronopios.
Even the short stories not directly related to the Cronopios and Famas act as a display of Argentina's idiosyncrasy, helped by the explicit mention of some elements, some places of this country (and more specifically, from Gran Buenos Aires).
But you have to remember that none of the stories really make sense. They are almost poetical, oneirical, nearing the realm of magical realism, very popular in Latin America.
The narration and writing themselves demand a lot of the reader's attention and time, forcing them to engage with the book to find some sense.
Again, I say all of this in a positive light: it's a challenging book in almost a literal sense, it presents itself innocently, like a bunch of nonsense, but soon you start to feel like there's something more underneath, like if under this outer coat of surrealistic and abstract tales laid a more tangible and grounded coat of the same color, merely a different tone but same color nonetheless.
I'm not sure how well this book would be received by non-argentinian or non-spanish speaking persons, but it's a good book anyways.
7,5/10.
My Other 2023 Readings.
Book Review: El Juguete Rabioso, Roberto Arlt
My Review in a Tweet:
It felt like reading The Catcher in the Rye but from Argentina, tinged with the economic and social issues of the early 20th century. Silvio Astier is a boy too old to be called a man and a man too young to be called a boy (no mistake made there).
My Full Review:
I read this book because of a sack of small reasons: it was short, I was one book shy from 30 in 2023, I wanted another argentinean author on my list and I had a physical copy of it.
El Juguete Rabioso (literally: The Rabid Toy) is the first novel of Roberto Arlt and, according to the copy I read, one of the founding books of the modern novel in our country. Commonly given as a mandatory reading in high school, I often saw this book here and there, postponing it indefinitively.
Now that I have finally read it, I think Arlt's place in our literary pantheon of writers is rightfully earned. The short novel is a quick glimpse into the life of Silvio Drodman Astier, a poor young boy from Buenos Aires, living in Floresta (at least from the second part on), fighting to stay out of the street and help his mother and sister.
The problem is, Silvio is too smart, too culturally cultivated for any of the jobs he can get as a poor boy from Floresta. He struggles with a feeling of entitlement to a better life in contrast with a sense of defeat while facing the circunstances he lives in.
The novel is carefully written, with a mix of refined language and old local slang that reflects on the dual nature of the character: a street rat at worst, a curious and smart young man at best.
His inner monologues are some of the best and most interesting parts, as his feelings of guilt, resentment and fear clash against each other.
The secondary characters function as common figures of Argentina's society from the early 20th century, when inmigration and poverty were high and people struggled to stay afloat. Their jobs, their cultural background, their relationships with one another highlight Silvio's own characteristics.
7/10.
My Other 2023 Readings.
Book Review: Poemas Esenciales de Rafael Alberti
My Review in a Tweet:
"If poetry isn't important, then why do they kill poets?". Rafael Alberti is an angry witness of the killings of his comrades, while spending his life lamenting the time he couldn't spend in the sea.
My Full Review:
Rafael Alberti, spanish poet of the 20th century, was an angry and bitter man.
And why wouldn't he be? His fellow poets, murdered by fascist regimes in Spain and Chile. His life-long lover, the sea, taunts him and pulls him in every time he's afar. Even the culture of his motherland seems to conflict him at times.
This particular selections of Alberti´s poems constitute a biography of sorts, a touch-and-go parade through some moments of his life. The more recurring themes along his verses are the sea and the sailor's lifestyle, bulls and the toreros that defy them, Spain and the many cities Alberti lived in, the Communist Ghost and the fascist regimes that appeared in Latin America and Spain during his lifetime. Some of his poems work are obituaries of other poets murdered by their political views.
I particularly enjoyed his VERSOS SUELTOS DE CADA DÍA Primer y segundo cuadernos chinos (1979-1982) where he just casually adds new verses to a small notebook he carries in his trips. The shifts in his mood and the sudden topic changes with no warning and without rhyme or reason further enhance the journal nature of those poems and verses. Some passages are hilarious, some are melancholic and some would make prudes blush.
I reiterate my opposition to grade poetry books like I do with every other, suffice it to say that I liked it, even if I didn't quite get everything in it.
My Other 2024 Readings.
Book Review: Antología poética de Alfonsina Storni
My Review in a tweet:
Storni's poetry swings between a crude and raw lament, and a gentle and melancholic yearn, walking on the edge of happiness and depression. Some of her works elude me beyond my grasp because of an innate womanhood that drives her art.
My Full Review:
Alfonsina Storni is a renowned poet from Argentina, a feminist icon of the past century and a topic of discussion with my mother. I inherited my passion for literature from her, so when she told me she couldn't connect with Storni's works, I had to find out if I could.
Now, having read some of the works thanks to this old selection of her poems, I feel like there's a world right next to the one I have lived in so far, a faint mirage of the world seen through the eyes of womanhood.
This isn't to say that I can't relate to or understand the feminist cause or the difficulties inherent to living as a woman, but Storni's poems make it seem and feel like an invisible pain that all women share in silence.
I knew before reading anything from Storni that she had a thing for the sea, a primal yearn to it, but it extends to all of nature, albeit a more gentle one towards everything else that isn't the deep blue of the ocean. She feels a deep connection to all living things, specially plants, and it shows in her poems, feeling herself like a tree of golden leaves and short branches.
She also finds a lot of inspiration in love and men. Those were some of the poems I found most entertaining, for they were sometimes hopeful and full of desire, and sometimes sad and almost remorseful.
In "Uno" ("One"), which I won't bother to translate to avoid butchering her poetry, Alfonsina talks so earnestly and almost in a lustful way of a stranger she meets on a train, pinning for him in a too familiar way. The comparisons she makes are reminiscent of nature and its goods and beauty, pointing at the honey color of his skin, the spring feeling of his presence and the copper sideline of his face.
Another common topic on her poetry is womandhood and, more specifically, the relationship between her and her mother. I found the next poem, "Palabras a mi Madre" (Words to my Mother), the most cruel, not because of ill feelings between one another, but because of the unexplainable distance and misunderstanding that taints their bond.
Overall, a conflicting and alienating reading, because it made me step out of my own experience as a man and peek behind the courtain of the women's world, for which I thank her.
My Other 2024 Readings.
Book Review: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
My Review in a Tweet:
It feels like cheating when you point out the similarities between two works then the author himself mentions a character by name, but this book truly feels like a Lewis Carroll or even James M. Barrie story. Lots of suspension of disbelief tho.
My Full Review:
I truly dislike saying this about a book, but I have finally finished reading "Neverwhere". There are a couple of reasons why it took me so long, but the main one is the constant and intentional nonsense you are forced to deal with.
The biggest responsible for that is the worldbuilding (or the lack of it): Gaiman cheats when he describes the "Londres de Abajo" (I'm guessing he named it the "Under London" in English or something like that?) as this mirror reality under London (not very subtle) that just happens to have anything the plot needs and works with simple and straightforward rules, the most important one being the owing of favors. The randomness of the characters and locations they visit constantly throws you off.
In favor of the novel, I did like the "clasic fairy tale" feeling of it, where our protagonists meet some perilous tests, fierce foes and unexpected allies. All of these also had a certain "greek myth" or "folk tale" nature to them, like the Beast of the Labyrinth or the Huntress and the Warrior.
The characters are very likeable, but they fall a little short in being fully developed or having truly great moments for themselves. "This thing happens, then this other thing happens and we are done", the characters don't seem to notice any of it or truly react to the events around them, they just stroll through the plot. Only in the ending I felt like they were experiencing real consequences of the events in the story.
It was a nice enough reading, but I don't know if I would recommend it, except maybe for teenagers. I remain curious for the rest of Gaiman's works, specially "American Gods", "Good Omens", and finishing "Sandman" (of which I read the first two volumes).
5.5/10.
My Other 2024 Readings.
Book Review: Three Blind Mice, Agatha Christie
My Review in a Tweet:
Agatha Christie's stories are a little cheesy, but despite that, they remain charming and puzzling, encouraging the reader to decipher for himself who's the culprit. This book in particular reunites delightful investigators: Poirot, Mrs Marple, Harley Quin and Sergeant Trotter.
My Full Review:
This book is another "first" for me, as my only contact with Agatha Christie's works was through the movie adaptations with Kenneth Branagh as the famous detective Hercule Poirot.
Imagine my delighted surprise when I realized the first story on this book was no other than the play in "See How They Run" (2022), another wonderful and funny whodunnit.
Since I'm not british, I don't know the tune for "Three Blind Mice", but the author was able to communicate the silliness of the murderer and the unnerving nature of all children lullabies, no matter where they are from.
The misteries in the book rely heavily on the dialogues and interviews from the investigator to the suspects, leaving descriptions of characters and places very short and a little dry.
The mysteries themselves are quite entertaining, only a couple of them were "predictable" (which I can tell if it is a good point for Agatha, for laying out the clues for the reader, or for me, being "smart enough" to solve the mystery before the reveal). Some of them felt a little rushed or solved out of nowhere, but those were only a few.
This is what I would call a nice summer reading: short stories, easy to pick up and to put down once you finish a mystery, engaging and entertaining.
8/10
My Other 2024 Readings.
Book Review: Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
My Review in a Tweet:
I'm not drawn to Non-Fiction, but this autobiographic tale, while a bit slow, captivated me. The fourth part is jarring because it's a random collage of stories; the rest of the narration was great, coming back and forth in her memories until the moment she leaves the continent.
My Full Review:
Trying to diversify my readings, I picked up again this book I got as a Christmas present back in 2015 but never managed to finish. I'm not entirely sure this book qualifies as Non-Fiction, since it's still very poetic in the way the author describes her years in her coffee plantation at the foot of the Ngong Hills, but I describe it as NF because it is an autobiographic narration of a period of her life.
I still had to drag myself a little through some parts of the book, but that's not on Isak Dinesen (or more accurately, on Karen Blixen, her real name), it's on me and the genres I usually read being quite different from this. The book itself is structured into five parts, each of them separated into smaller chapters.
Even then, I enjoyed this book: Dinesen/Blixen has an artistic soul and a taste for the beauty in the world that makes her descriptions and tales really outstanding and marvelous, giving the reader a careful and joyful glimpse into the Africa of the early years of the 20th Century. The love she distills for her farm and the workers that come and go in her life, while sometimes might sound "problematic" from our modern set of values, makes you ache when tragedies and setbacks occur.
I wish the expression "abanico cultural" (cultural fan, as in the accesory for the hot days) existed in English, because that's what this book opens in front of you: a range of cultural and sometimes religious ways of being human, with just a tinge of the author's bias, and even when she's more openly judgemental of the ways of the masai and the other tribes, she still sees the beauty and wonder of their lifestyles.
The final part of the book, when she describes how all the problems of the farm start to pile up and she has to sell and leave Africa, really makes you feel sorry for her, hoping that fate will smile to her and turn the downtrend of her coffee productivity. When she finally leaves, it's like waking up from a pleasant dream of a sweet memory, and you are left with that bittersweet taste of longing.
7.5/10
My other 2024 readings.
Book Review: Selección de poemas de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
My Review in a Tweet:
I can't be impartial with Bécquer, he's a central poet in one of the canon events of my life (my first love). Luckily, I could still enjoy his Rhymes, and I read for the first time his Literary Letters and his Legends (which some read like horror stories).
My Full Review:
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer is probably the first poet I read attentively, and I have loved him ever since I read his Rhymes for the first time. I gifted my copy because I was young and innocent, so I had to buy this book again.
Fortunately, this anthology includes not only his Rhymes, which I read again with great pleasure, but also his Literary Letters to a Woman and his Legends (each marked with a spanish city or theme).
Becquer fits perfectly in this romantic idea of poets, a brilliant and tortured genius, whose poems fill an intrincated metric and respect the rhyme while doing so. His themes also reflect this pinning, this painful way of experimenting romantic feelings, of tragic love.
The Literary Letters and the Symphonic Introduction of his Rhymes are wonderful works of poetic prose, blooming with beautiful allegories and metaphors, exuding such a love for Poetry itself you find yourself tempted to pick up a pen and follow in vain the steps of this bard.
I can't say much more other than restating my love for this author and his works: Becquer remains a core author of my taste in poetry in particular and literature in general.
My other 2024 readings.
Book Review: The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (Volume IV)
My Review in a Tweet:
Probably the weakest I've read so far, this time the author decides to waddle in the themes of AI, self-replicating machines, time paradoxes and the Ever Looming Threat of the Unkown. Some spare gems but most tales are forgettable.
My Full Review:
I don't have much to add or say about Philip K Dick's short stories that I haven't said about the previous three volumes, so I'll just leave my ranking of the stories of this tome:
Captive Market: the ultime capitalist dystopia.
The Minority Report: a wholly different story from the movie they made afterwards, I like the author's approach a lot better.
The Mold of Yancy: I feel this could be the future of political discussion in a world of AI and stronger soft power of the nations.
Explorers We: this felt very Bradburyan, I really liked it.
If There Were No Benny Cemoli: fake news and manipulation in the year of the Lord 1963 (?
Autofac
The Unreconstructed M
Oh, to Be a Blobel!
Recall Mechanism
War Game
Orpheus with Clay Feet
Novelty Act
Waterspider
What the Dead Men Say: I skipped this one actually because it was very boring.
Service Call
Stand-by
What'll We Do with Ragland Park?
The Days of Perky Pat
Aside from that, I'd say this volume is a
5.5/10.
My other 2024 readings.
Book Review: Azul..., Cuentos and Poemas en prosa, Rubén Darío
My Review in a Tweet:
Such a small book, and yet filled with wonders, rich in intertextuality that I doubt exists nowadays: it shines in his works a dedication to cultivate his knowledge of the contemporary literature and all that came before that I wish I could emulate.
My Full Review:
These poems and short stories decorate this books like the things that fills the house of someone who traveled.
And yet, at the moment of the first draft of the book and according to his friend Juan Valera, Ruben Darío had never left Nicaragua, his writing has elements of a hundred other poets and styles while making them their own, from places he never visited and times he never lived in.
Despite that, the collection of intrincancies and small tokens of the world make this book a very interesting but complex reading: you soon begin to feel too ignorant to really appreciate it, but I decided to view it as pulling the curtain to peek at a world that I felt was lost, one of true dedication to the culture and art as an inmportant facet of human experience.
Even more so today than ever before, when there seems to be an active anti-intellectualism stance when contemplating art, it is important to push ourselves to go beyond what we can fuly comprehend, to dive deeper into genres and authors that we deem too old or too far removed from our daily experience.
In terms of the quality of the writing, I can't really judge it, but I did enjoy it. Some passages of the poems struck me as particularly beautiful or mordant, depending on the tone. Some short stories were inscrutable, others were so simple and brilliant.
I'll add some fragments that I really liked, all from different poems or short stories. If I tried to translate them myself, I wouldn't do them justice, so I'll leave them in Spanish, as a small treasure for those followers that speak it, or a small challenge for those who wish to translate them by themselves.
Again, I won't score poetry, not even that in prose.
My Other 2024 Readings.
Book Review: Poemas Esenciales, Rubén Darío
My Favorite Poem of the book:
"Románticos somos... ¿Quién que Es, no es romántico? Aquel que no sienta ni amor ni dolor, aquel que no sepa de beso y de cántico que se ahorque de un pino: será lo mejor"
My Full Review:
Pending review, I promise I'll revisit because I love Ruben Dario's works.
My Other 2024 Readings.