Need recommendations for SA classic books
DiscussãoSouth American Fiction-Argentine Writers
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1TallyDi
Shame on me for not knowing about this forum. I posted my request in Reading Globally and received some great suggestions along with a suggestion to post here. So here I am and glad to be here.
I am in a classic book club, which essentially means we read books at least 50 years old. We'd like to choose something by a South American writer and are finding that virtually all of the things we are familiar with have been written since the 1960s. Unfortunately, none of us reads Spanish so we will be stuck with reading a translation.
I'd appreciate any recommendations you give me. I'll make up a list with comments on the book (fiction/non-fiction, country of origin, year first published, relevant general background or information about the author) and distribute it at our next meeting. Then the group will select what we'll read.
This will be our first experience with a South American writer and we're looking forward to it.
Many thanks.
I am in a classic book club, which essentially means we read books at least 50 years old. We'd like to choose something by a South American writer and are finding that virtually all of the things we are familiar with have been written since the 1960s. Unfortunately, none of us reads Spanish so we will be stuck with reading a translation.
I'd appreciate any recommendations you give me. I'll make up a list with comments on the book (fiction/non-fiction, country of origin, year first published, relevant general background or information about the author) and distribute it at our next meeting. Then the group will select what we'll read.
This will be our first experience with a South American writer and we're looking forward to it.
Many thanks.
2chrisharpe
Hello again TallyDi! You might check what has already been posted here, particularly the "Couple of lists" discussion (http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=15212). Perhaps someone knows of a nice website (in English) that might provide all the info you are looking for in one place? If you want to find out if something is published in English, this document http://www.ccsf.edu/Library/latambib.pdf, recommended earlier by benwaugh, should tell you. On the other hand, I suspect that if you simply selected one of the canonical novels, you would not be disappointed. Good luck!
3TallyDi
Oh, yes, I've been browsing the posts. I'm finding a whole world of reading material of which I've been in ignorance. Regardless of what my book club chooses, I'll be reading quite of few of them on my own. Thanks so much for sending me here.
4chrisharpe
Well, since no-one has suggested anything yet, I might put forward the following. Unlike some Latin American novels, they are all short - just novellas really - so they should make good tasters. All of them a great reads and representative of the region (if that is possible). I'm guessing all except the last one perhaps would make your 1960s cut-off (which I see is sliding inexorably towards the present!), and all are available in English. You can surely pick up reumes and bios off the Internet.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: García Márquez, Colombia
La tregua (The Truce): Benedetti, Uruguay
Pedro Páramo or The Burning Plain (short enough that they are usually published as one book): Rulfo, Mexico
Morel's Invention: Bioy Casares, Argentina
Enjoy!
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: García Márquez, Colombia
La tregua (The Truce): Benedetti, Uruguay
Pedro Páramo or The Burning Plain (short enough that they are usually published as one book): Rulfo, Mexico
Morel's Invention: Bioy Casares, Argentina
Enjoy!
5TallyDi
My thanks to all of you for responding. I compiled a list and took it to our last meeting. The group voted to read Broad and Alien is the World by Ciro Alegria. To put it into context, I found a book on Peruvian history and searched the web for information about Alegria's life. This will be one of those books that becomes a project. Thanks again.
6berthirsch
Tally - I hope you let us know how it goes and what the discussion/project highlights are all about.
8TallyDi
My book club met last Sunday, and here's the review I've posted.
Broad and Alien is the World was a reading selection of my classic book club. I did a bit of research on the web to try to put the book into the context of its time. Alegría intended to focus attention on the ill treatment of the Indians of Peru. But the political intent of the book was readily apparent even without knowing the context, for some of the characters seemed like caricatures.
We found the writing somewhat stilted but agreed that this may have been due to the translator. One of our group has retained enough of his high school Spanish to be able to point out sentences that in English are bland but in Spanish are flowing and alliterative. As best we can tell, this book has only been translated once, by Harriet de Onís. How would the book fare in the hands of a different translator? (On the web I found an article originally published in 1977 that includes a comment on the role of Harriet de Onís in the decision to publish this book in English. The attitude of the time seems to have been to translate “relevant” literature as opposed to “modern” literature.)
Although no one else in the group was bothered, I personally found the time line of the book confusing, with current events interspersed with flashbacks to events long past. As best I can tell, the main action of the book takes place from about 1920 to 1925, with flashbacks to at least 16 years earlier. To me, these were signs of a disorganized plot. But another member of the group saw these jumps not as flashbacks but as literary renditions of the phrase “tell us a story,” with Alegría doing with this novel the same thing the village storyteller did--interspersing stories with the main action of the book.
We all found greater immediacy in the last half of the book, when main character Rosendo Maqui is imprisoned on false charges. Since author Ciro Alegría was himself twice imprisoned for political reasons, the emotional impact of his own experience seems to be shining through in this part of the book.
All of us were taken with the depictions of Indians living close to the earth and its seasons. The view is idealized, of course, even though this idealization is tempered with scenes of the disasters that nature can inflict, such as a lightening storm over the mountain village. And, toward the end of the book, in a step away from this idealized view, Alegría shows how rational thought must overcome the villagers' superstitions in order for improvements to be made to the fields and houses.
SPOILERS
We all found the book depressing throughout. For me, there was one passage that seems to summarize the author's entire point of view. In this passage, an Indian named Honorio has been released from jail and goes home to find everyone gone and the houses burned. “He looked at the ashes of his pitiful cabin and said to himself: 'They must have left. There's no reason why they should all die.' When the heart is determined to hope it is blind.”
And none of us liked the ending: everybody we rooted for died. We would cheerfully have chopped out Part V and ended the book while the surviving Indians were rebuilding their lives. But I guess that would have softened Alegría 's hammer blows at the ranchers, politicians, military, and government who all conspired to treat the Indians as beasts of burden.
Broad and Alien is the World was a reading selection of my classic book club. I did a bit of research on the web to try to put the book into the context of its time. Alegría intended to focus attention on the ill treatment of the Indians of Peru. But the political intent of the book was readily apparent even without knowing the context, for some of the characters seemed like caricatures.
We found the writing somewhat stilted but agreed that this may have been due to the translator. One of our group has retained enough of his high school Spanish to be able to point out sentences that in English are bland but in Spanish are flowing and alliterative. As best we can tell, this book has only been translated once, by Harriet de Onís. How would the book fare in the hands of a different translator? (On the web I found an article originally published in 1977 that includes a comment on the role of Harriet de Onís in the decision to publish this book in English. The attitude of the time seems to have been to translate “relevant” literature as opposed to “modern” literature.)
Although no one else in the group was bothered, I personally found the time line of the book confusing, with current events interspersed with flashbacks to events long past. As best I can tell, the main action of the book takes place from about 1920 to 1925, with flashbacks to at least 16 years earlier. To me, these were signs of a disorganized plot. But another member of the group saw these jumps not as flashbacks but as literary renditions of the phrase “tell us a story,” with Alegría doing with this novel the same thing the village storyteller did--interspersing stories with the main action of the book.
We all found greater immediacy in the last half of the book, when main character Rosendo Maqui is imprisoned on false charges. Since author Ciro Alegría was himself twice imprisoned for political reasons, the emotional impact of his own experience seems to be shining through in this part of the book.
All of us were taken with the depictions of Indians living close to the earth and its seasons. The view is idealized, of course, even though this idealization is tempered with scenes of the disasters that nature can inflict, such as a lightening storm over the mountain village. And, toward the end of the book, in a step away from this idealized view, Alegría shows how rational thought must overcome the villagers' superstitions in order for improvements to be made to the fields and houses.
SPOILERS
We all found the book depressing throughout. For me, there was one passage that seems to summarize the author's entire point of view. In this passage, an Indian named Honorio has been released from jail and goes home to find everyone gone and the houses burned. “He looked at the ashes of his pitiful cabin and said to himself: 'They must have left. There's no reason why they should all die.' When the heart is determined to hope it is blind.”
And none of us liked the ending: everybody we rooted for died. We would cheerfully have chopped out Part V and ended the book while the surviving Indians were rebuilding their lives. But I guess that would have softened Alegría 's hammer blows at the ranchers, politicians, military, and government who all conspired to treat the Indians as beasts of burden.
