A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway

I've heard so many different opinions about Hemingway. People either love him or hate him, according to my experience. It seems as if he causes the same passionate reactions that characterized him during his life. 

I read The Old Man and The Sea when I was fourteen and I hated it. It made me suffer so much for the old man while I was reading it, I could almost feel his blisters on my hands. I remember I closed the book and said “I hate Hemingway”. I read it during a time when I was very sensitive and didn't want to feel that much (oh, those teenage years). Looking back, I think it must have been a good book if I became so involved with it. I have to add it to my list of re-reads, I don’t remember much except the impact it had on me. 

I didn't want to read Hemingway again because of that experience, but a couple of years ago someone convinced me to read his short stories and I loved them. I thought they were brilliant and I tried to analyze them and break them down to find out what was it that made me want to read them over and over again. I decided to give his books another chance and I chose A Moveable Feast to start with. 

Within my limited experience reading Hemingway, he always makes me feel a lot with so very little. His writing is unadorned and simple. It felt as if someone was speaking to me, as if he was sitting with me, drinking a glass of wine, telling me his stories about Paris in the twenties. It was so touching, so beautiful to me, specially the parts related to Hadley, his first wife. This book gave me the impression that it was a love letter for someone who had been lost. He wrote it at the end of his life so I imagine that looking back to those early years made him nostalgic for the days when he was poor but happy. I actually think this book was meant to be an apology to Hadley, that despite it all he was never happier than with her and she was the only one who knew him for real.

Ernest Hemingway, Hadley and Sylvia Beach in front of Shakespeare and Co.

The book also gave me a glimpse of what was he like as a young writer, when he was still learning about his craft and how to convey the stories within him. I've dealt many times with writer’s block and become so frustrated that I wondered if maybe I’m not made for this. But when I read that even him struggled with this sometimes, it comforted me. Again, it felt as if he was speaking directly to me: 

“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

When I sat down to write the review for this book my mind went blank. I didn't understand why I was having a hard time writing the review of a book that moved me so. And then I realized that was the problem. That’s why this isn't really a review. I’m explaining here why it was so moving to me. I’m writing what is true to me.

Needless is to say that I've changed my mind about him and I’m ready to read more of his works. I plan to read The Sun Also Rises very soon and I don’t know how I will react to it. I could love it or I could hate it. Either way, I’m pretty sure I will have strong feelings about it, that’s the one thing I can count on when it comes to Hemingway.

Happy Birthday Mikhail Baryshnikov!

Some of you may know that ballet is one of my obsessions. I danced since I was four until I was eighteen, when I injured myself and stopped dancing. I recovered but college started and I didn't come back, something that I will regret forever.

Even though I don't dance anymore, there are very few things in life (aside from literature, of course) that give me more pleasure than seeing a good ballet performance. It really moves me.

Mikhail Baryshnikov is something out of this world. Seeing him dance has always left me breathless. I grew up watching videos of him dancing all the great ballet classics and I fell platonically in love with  him. 

He came to Peru a couple of years ago. He doesn't dance classical ballet anymore, but his contemporary dance presentation was great. I actually got to meet him afterwards when I stalked waited outside the theater's dressing rooms and got an autograph. I wrote a post about it, click here to read it (it's in Spanish).

Today he turns 65 and I just wanted to say, Happy Birthday Mischa!

Libros que debí leer hace tiempo

No quiero que piensen que me he olvidado de escribir en español. Mis últimas entradas han sido en inglés porque estoy bastante emocionada por pertenecer a este grupo de amantes de los clásicos, pero prometo que voy a seguir reseñando en español. 

Revisando mis libros me encontré con que tengo una pila de ellos que compré hace bastante tiempo y que no he leído todavía. Mientras, sigo adquiriendo nuevos libros y los otros siguen quedando relegados para Dios sabe cuando. Así que decidí que por cada libro "nuevo" que lea, tengo que leer uno de mi pila de libros dejados al abandono, por decirlo de alguna manera.

Estos son los libros:

1. El sueño del celta - Mario Vargas Llosa 

2. Crimen y Castigo - F. Dostoyveski

3.Todas las familias felices - Carlos Fuentes

4. El Aleph - Jorge Luis Borges

5. Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand

6. La Caverna - Jose Saramago

7. Ensayo sobre la ceguera - Jose Saramago

8. Historia del Rey Transparente - Rosa Montero

9. La mujer justa - Sándor Marai 

El Sueño del Celta lo compré apenas salió, justo cuando MVLL ganó el Nobel y no se por qué lo fui dejando para después y después hasta que años pasaron y sigue ahí sin abrir. 

Saramago es mi eterna batalla. He comenzado a leerlo mil veces, siempre lo dejo. Pero quiero de verdad darle la oportunidad, especialmente cuando todo el mundo me lo recomienda sinceramente.

La mujer justa fue un regalo. No he leído nada de ese autor antes, y la verdad es que no había escuchado de él, pero la persona que me lo regaló me recalcó enfáticamente que me va a encantar.

Publicaré sus reseñas a medida que los vaya leyendo.

¡Buen fin de semana!

Happy Birthday Virginia Woolf!

I love her.

French February

O, from Délaissé, is hosting a French February event for The Classics Club and I’ve decided to participate. There are two options: either a group read of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos or to read one or more novels by French authors. I think I’m going to go with the first option. I could read more books but since I really want to read them in French (and I don’t read French as fast as Spanish or English), I know is going to take more time than usual and I rather commit to just one book.

I’m about to finish A Moveable Feast and I’m kind of in the mood for all things French, so this event is perfect for me. 

I’m a little bit obsessed with Paris, even though I have never been there. I went to Europe a couple of years ago but didn’t make it to Paris because I would have had to go alone and where’s the fun in that? I’m actually glad I didn’t go then so that I can make better plans for next time. 

(My bedroom wall obsessing about Paris...and London, ballet and other stuff)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses and if I have time, maybe I can start with another French novel.

Salut!

A Woman of No Importance - Oscar Wilde

I really like Oscar Wilde. I have enjoyed all the plays and stories I have read from him. Unfortunately, I didn’t like A Woman of No Importance as much as I liked his other work.

It is not that I disliked the play, it had fun dialogue and witty banter but I thought it was just not as good as I expected and the only expression that comes to mind to describe how I felt when I finished reading it, is “meeehhh”.

I know, I should not use “meeehh” to describe anything in a review, but that is exactly what I said out loud in the last page.

The plot has everything one could expect from an Oscar Wilde play. It has dark comedy; it mocks the upper class of Victorian England and has great dialogue.  

[Spoiler Alert!] Lord Illingworth discovers that his young secretary is in fact the son he abandoned. He sees his formed lover, Mrs. Arbuthnot, for the first time after twenty years and she obviously resents him. They both realize that their past is catching up to them and it is inevitable for their son, Gerald, to discover the truth. 

The play highlights the position of women at the time, specially related to pre-marital relations and having children outside the marriage. One could say it is a feminist work. It certainly shows how a woman’s life was ruined when she became pregnant before getting married, while a man could continue as if nothing had happened. I could definitely perceive what Wilde thought of these conservative conventions and prejudices and how unfair women were treated.

I think this is a  story that has been told many times before, in Wilde's plays as well. Despite of that, I can’t help feeling that something is missing. There are all these characters: Mrs. Allonby, Mrs. Lady Hunstanton, Lady Pontefract, the Archdeacon, Lady Stutfield, Mr. Kelvil, etc. They all represent different sides of the Victorian upper class society, which Wilde mocks so very much, but aside from that I can’t actually see any other purpose for them in the story. Maybe there’s something I’m not getting, my own context being so far away from England, even more from Victorian England, that I might be missing some “inside joke”.

There is a lot of talking before the climax of the play arrives and even then I found it rather dull and forced. I hated when Gerald tried to convince his mother to marry Lord Illingworth. The drama created after Gerald discovered the truth seems forced and unnatural. Honor is an important thing but how much of an idiot you have to be to try to convince your own mother to marry the man that treated her and her child like trash. Or maybe that is what Wilde was trying to portray, the absurdity of the social conventions people had to live with.

On the other hand, there are some remarkable moments that I did enjoy, for example:

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man’s last romance”.

“One has never heard his name before in the whole course of one’s life, which speaks volumes for a man, nowadays”.

That is obviously brilliant writing. A Woman of No Importance is not a bad play, according to my humble opinion, it is a good play. But after what I have already read from Oscar Wilde, good is definitely not what I expected. I might sound like my former ballet teacher, but I was not expecting good, I was expecting great.

And now here I am feeling like an idiot for criticizing the work of one of the greatest playwrights ever.

I recommend this play to those who love Wilde and have read his other work before. To those who haven’t read anything from him, I suggest starting with The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband or The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

This is my first review since I joined The Classics Club, yay! 

I think I chose a great book to start this year. I’m a big fan of detective and suspense stories (I think they were called “sensation novels” at the time this book was written) but I’m also very hard to please when it comes to them. I’m very happy to say that this is one of the best I have ever read. 

The Woman in White was written by Wilkie Collins in 1859. It tells the story of a horrible conspiracy full of mystery, secrets, danger, love and all the ingredients you could look for in a Gothic-style suspense novel.

I’m not going to spoil the story for those who haven’t read it yet. Walter Hartright is a drawing teacher who meets a mysterious woman dressed in white. He helps her to reach safety and doesn’t expect to ever see her again. He takes a job and moves away from London and as new and exciting events start to unfold, the woman in white appears in the story as the key to solve everything.

I really like that the story was written similar to an epistolary novel. The different styles, tones and points of view of the different people narrating it really made the book so much more interesting.  I loved Miss Halcombe’s part of the story; I think is the most accomplished part of the book. I became so involved in this part that I gasped and said “Nooooo!” out loud many times while reading the extracts of her diary. 

I very much enjoyed Mr. Fairlie’s character, even though he is an obnoxious man. It was really fun actually hearing him speak in my mind, with his affected manners and constantly posing as the victim of absolutely everything and everyone. He is positively ridiculous and I admit I laughed with his absurdities.

Count Fosco’s character is also very interesting. He could be extremely joyful, amiable and sensitive and also Machiavellian, cold and cynical. He is the one person of this whole story that I would be actually terrified to meet. 

I didn’t like Laura Fairlie’s character, too much of a damsel in distress for me, the exact opposite of her sister, Marian Halcombe. It seemed to me that Laura’s participation throughout the story was limited to crying, panicking and being taken care of by Marian and Walter. I also hated Madame Fosco’s robot-like manners. She remembered me of radical religious fanatics, but instead of being obsessed with religion or God, she was obsessed with her husband. 

There are some very surprising turns of events and up to the final pages of the book, the future of the main characters is uncertain. 

I must say, even though I admired how everything was explained, that every piece of information had its purpose and that at the end of the book we understand absolutely everything that happened, up to the last detail, I didn’t exactly like the way the solution was obtained. I have to be ambiguous here to avoid spoiling the story, but I was hoping that some public punishment or justice would be made and that is incomplete, in my opinion.

In conclusion, I definitely recommend the book. It is one of the best suspense novels I’ve read in a long time, very well thought of, with every little detail having a purpose. It is a real page-turner and I understand why it was called a sensation novel. It really catches the reader and doesn’t let go until the mystery is discovered. 

List of books for The Classics Club

You might be wondering why I am writing this post in English. Well, I've decided to join The Classics Club, a community of people committed to reading 50 classics or more in a period of five years. The main requirement for this club is to write a review of each classic we read. I have decided to write them in English to actually be able to share them with the members of the club; therefore, this blog is now bilingual. I will continue to publish posts in Spanish for the books that don't belong to this list, but the posts for the club will be in English. I plan to translate the reviews of Spanish classics and other reviews I consider necessary (reviews of books I have really loved, for example).

The list of books is very similar to my 2013 reading challenge list. The difference is that for the classics club I added books I have already read but haven’t reviewed yet and eliminated books I don’t consider classics. 

My goal date is January, 2018. 

So without much further ado, here’s my list of classics to read in the next five years:

Brecht, Bertolt Trommeln in der Nacht Bronte, Anne The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Bronte, Charlotte Jane Eyre* Bronte, Charlotte Villete Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Shirley Wuthering Heights* Browning, Elizabeth Aurora Leigh Camus, Albert The Plague Chordelos de Laclos, Pierre Collins, Wilkie Les Liaisons Dangereuses The Woman in White Conan Doyle, Arthur The Complete Sherlock Holmes Novels (4 books) Conan, Doyle Arthur Cortázar, Julio The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories (56 short stories) Rayuela (Hopscotch)* de Balzac, Honoré Eugenie Grandet de Maupassant, Guy Une vie de Maupassant, Guy Bel-Ami Dickens, Charles A Tale of Two Cities Dickens, Charles Great Expectations Dickens, Charles Dostoevsky, Fyodor Bleak House The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky, Fyodor Crime and Punishment Dumas, Alexandre The Count of Monte Cristo* Dumas, Alexandre The Three Musketeers Eliot, George Middlemarch Eliot, TS Murder in the Cathedral Faulkner, William As I Lay Dying Fitzgerald, F. Scott The Great Gatsby* Flaubert, Gustave Madame Bovary* Fuentes, Carlos The Death of Artemio Cruz García Márquez, Gabriel A Hundred Years of Solitude* García Márquez, Gabriel Love In The Time of Cholera* García Márquez, Gabriel Chronicle Of A Death Foretold* Gaskell, Elizabeth North and South Grass, Gunter Danziger Trilogie Hawthorne, Nathaniel The Scarlett Letter Hemingway, Ernest A Moveable Feast Hemingway, Ernest The Sun Also Rises Hemingway, Ernest Hesse, Hermann A Farewell to Arms Steppenwolf Hodgson Burnett, Frances The Secret Garden Hugo, Victor Les Miserables Hugo, Victor The Hunchback of Notre Dame James, Henry The American James, Henry Washington Square Kerouac, Jack On the Road Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird Mann, Thomas The Magic Mountain Nabokov, Vladimir Lolita Onetti, Juan Carlos La vida breve (The Brief Life) Orwell, George 1984 Poe, Edgar Allan The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vol. I, II, III and IV) Richardson, Samuel Clarissa Radcliffe, Anne Rulfo, Juan The mysteries of Udolpho Pedro Páramo Scott, Walter The Waverley Novels Shakespeare, William As you like it Shakespeare, William The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare, William The Tempest Shakespeare, William The Winter's Tale Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, William Hamlet Julius Caesar Shakespeare, William Macbeth Shakespeare, William King Lear Shelley, Mary Frankenstein Thackeray, William Vanity Fair Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit Turgenev, Ivan First Love Vargas Llosa, Mario Conversation in the Cathedral* Vargas Llosa, Mario The Time of the Hero* von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Faust Wharton, Edith Wilde, Oscar The House of Mirth A Woman Of No Importance Woolf, Virginia Mrs. Dalloway* Woolf, Virginia A Room of One's Own* Woolf, Virginia Night and Day Woolf, Virginia The Waves Woolf, Virginia To The Lighthouse Zola, Emile Nana

The asterisks indicate the books I will be rereading for the Club.

Lista de libros para el 2013

Hoy comencé el nuevo reto de lectura para el 2013 y me puse como meta leer 40 libros este año. Decidí hacer una lista de los libros que me gustaría leer y sin darme cuenta armé una lista de 70 libros. Suena bastante pero en verdad la tuve que dar por terminada antes de poder incluir varios libros más que seguirán pendientes. Dependiendo de mi ritmo de lectura y más que nada de mis antojos lectores, puede que añada alguno de esos libros a la lista durante el año. Los 30 libros que no llegue a leer este año (ojalá pueda cumplir y exceder mi meta) quedarán pendientes para el 2014. Además, a medida que transcurra el año seguro la lista irá creciendo con libros que seguro voy a descubrir en el camino.

En la lista hay varios libros que ya he comenzado a leer en algún momento pero que por algún motivo no terminé y a esos les voy a dar prioridad durante el comienzo de este año.

Como podrán darse cuenta, creo que cumplo los requisitos para considerarme una anglophile. La literatura inglesa se ha vuelto mi interés principal para mis lecturas de este año, pero también me interesa muchísimo seguir leyendo libros en francés y alemán que son absolutamente indispensables. De literatura en español hay 10 libros. Uno nunca termina de leer todo lo que hay por leer en la literatura de un idioma pero de literatura latinoamericana he leído abundantemente en los últimos años, hasta la obsesión, por lo que este año he preferido dedicarme más a mi obsesión anglófila. A pesar  de eso hay algunos libros indispensables que no he leído todavía (me merezco una cachetada por eso) y que he incluido en la lista para este año.

He aquí la lista de libros por leer en orden alfabético según el apellido y nombre del autor.

Asturias, Miguel Angel	El señor presidente
Auster, Paul	The New York Trilogy
Brecht, Bertolt	Trommeln in der Nacht
Bronte, Anne	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Browning, Elizabeth	Aurora Leigh
Camus, Albert	La Peste
Carpentier, Alejo	El reino de este mundo
Carpentier, Alejo	Los pasos perdidos
Collins, Wilkie	The Woman in White
Conan Doyle, Arthur	The Complete Sherlock Holmes
de Balzac, Honoré	Eugenie Grandet
de Maupassant, Guy	Une vie
de Maupassant, Guy	Bel-Ami
Dickens, Charles	A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens, Charles	Great Expectations
Dostoevsky, Fyodor	Los hermanos Karamazov
Dostoevsky, Fyodor	Crimen y Castigo
Dumas, Alexandre	Los tres mosqueteros
Eliot, George	Middlemarch
Eliot, TS	Murder in the Cathedral
Faulkner, William	As I Lay Dying
Fuentes, Carlos	La muerte de Artemio Cruz
Fuentes, Carlos	La región más transparente
Gaskell, Elizabeth	North and South
Grass, Gunter	Danziger Trilogie
Hawthorne, Nathaniel	The Scarlett Letter
Hemingway, Ernest	A moveable feast
Hemingway, Ernest	The Sun Also Rises
Hesse, Hermann	Steppenwolf
Hodgson Burnett, Frances	The Secret Garden
Hugo, Victor	Les miserables
Hugo, Victor	El jorobado de Notre Dame
James, Henry	The American
Joyce, James	Finnegans Wake
Kerouac, Jack	On the Road
Lee, Harper	To Kill a Mockingbird
Mann, Thomas	La montaña mágica
Mantel, Hilary	Wolf Hall
Martín Gaite, Carmen	El cuarto de atrás
McEwan, Ian	Saturday
McEwan, Ian	Solar
McEwan, Ian	Sweet Tooth
Morrison, Toni	Beloved
Morrison, Toni	The Bluest Eye
Nabokov, Vladimir	Lolita
Onetti, Juan Carlos	La vida breve
Orwell, George	1984
Poe, Edgar Allan	The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Ribeyro, Julio Ramón	La palabra del mudo
Richardson, Samuel	Clarissa
Rulfo, Juan	Pedro Páramo
Scott, Walter	The Waverley Novels
Shakespeare, William	As you like it
Shakespeare, William	The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare, William	The Tempest
Shakespeare, William	The Winter's Tale
Shakespeare, William	Julius Caesar
Shakespeare, William	Macbeth
Shakespeare, William	King Lear
Shelley, Mary	Frankenstein
Thackeray, William	Vanity Fair
Tolkien, J.R.R.	The Hobbit
Turgenev, Ivan	Primer Amor
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang	Fausto
Vonnegut, Kurt	Slaughterhouse-Five
Wilde, Oscar	A Woman Of No Importance
Woolf, Virginia	Night and Day
Woolf, Virginia	The Waves
Woolf, Virginia	To The Lighthouse
Zola, Emile	Nana