Muchísimas gracias to Stu of Winstonsdad's Blog, our genial co-host for Spanish Lit Month 2016 and of course the founder of the event way back in 2012, as well as to everybody else who read and wrote along with us this summer. Judging by the ungodly amount of time it took to collate all the July and August links below (note: a few links falling outside of the official event calendar but included here anyway are marked with a pedantic and telltale *), SLM 2016 was an absolutely smashing success in terms of all the Spanish & Basque & Catalan & Galician language literature enjoyed. Please read on to the end of the post for a chance to see what SLM 2016 participants Amateur Reader (Tom) and Rise have to say about some of their Spanish-language favorites--and until it's time for the next Spanish Lit Month to rock/roll around, hope you enjoy all these freakin' links!
Amanda, Simpler Pastimes
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
Amateur Reader (Tom), Wuthering Expectations
Sweet taste of being alive - some clearer Antonio Machado
the stupidity of people agreeing to get bored together for a day - general impressions of La Regenta
(on La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas)
as if to make amends, and to deceive himself - La Regenta is a religious novel
seemly abbreviations and a gongoresque style - some bits of La Regenta
'I require gossip worthy of me' - some last La Regenta notes, symbolic in some mysterious way, voluptuous even
the stupidity of people agreeing to get bored together for a day - general impressions of La Regenta
(on La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas)
as if to make amends, and to deceive himself - La Regenta is a religious novel
seemly abbreviations and a gongoresque style - some bits of La Regenta
'I require gossip worthy of me' - some last La Regenta notes, symbolic in some mysterious way, voluptuous even
Annabel Gaskell, Annabookbel
Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño
Bellezza, Dolce Bellezza
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
David Hebblethwaite, David's Book World
The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño
The Transmigration of Bodies: i-names by Yuri Herrera
The Transmigration of Bodies: ii- networks and conversations by Yuri Herrera
Traces of Sandalwood by Asha Miró & Anna Soler-Pont
Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas
Emma, Book Around the Corner
Exemplary Crimes by Max Aub
Tango for a Torturer by Daniel Chavarría
Traces of Sandalwood by Asha Miró & Anna Soler-Pont
Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas
Emma, Book Around the Corner
Exemplary Crimes by Max Aub
Tango for a Torturer by Daniel Chavarría
Grant, 1streading's Blog
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán
Quesadillas by Juan Pablo Villalobos
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún
The She-Devil in the Mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Buenos Aires Affair by Manuel Puig
Mildew by Paulette Jonguitud
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún
The She-Devil in the Mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya
Umami by Laia Jufresa
The Buenos Aires Affair by Manuel Puig
Mildew by Paulette Jonguitud
JacquiWine, JacquiWine's Journal
The Man of Feeling by Javier Marías
Pazo de Villarei Albariño, 2015 - a wine for #SpanishLitMonth
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún
Pazo de Villarei Albariño, 2015 - a wine for #SpanishLitMonth
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán
Joe, roughghosts
Poets, artists and other lost souls: Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
Homecoming - Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador by Horacio Castellanos Moya
In the Shadow of Civil War: Review of Black Bread by Emili Teixidor
Black Bread: Novel Excerpt - Emili Teixidor
John, The Modern Novel
La magnitud de la tragèdia (The Enormity of the Tragedy) by Quim Monzó
Miguel Gutiérrez Dies
La casa de la laguna (The House on the Lagoon) by Rosario Ferré
Campo abierto [Open Field] by Max Aub
Los afectos (Affections) by Rodrigo Hasbún
Benzina (Gasoline) by Quim Monzó
Campo de sangre [Field of Blood] by Max Aub
Julianne Pachico, Never Stop Reading
Two Story Collections
(on Juan Gabriel Vásquez's Lovers on All Saints' Day and one other title)
Rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude
Feast of the Innocents by Evelio Rosero
lizzysiddal, Lizzy's Literary Life
#spanishlitmonth - Reading Notes
Mandy, peakreads
I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos*
a plague on both your houses: The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera translated by Lisa Dillman published by And Other Stories
Melissa Beck, The Book Binder's Daughter
I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos
The Clouds by Juan José Saer
The Plimsoll Line by Juan Gracia Armendáriz
Blitz by David Trueba
Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto
Nicole, bibliographing
Fever, infatuation, and Colonel Chabert*
(on Your Face Tomorrow and The Infatuations by Javier Marías)
"People whose consciences torment them are the exception"
(on Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marías)
Obooki, Obooki's Obloquy
Time of Silence by Luis Martín-Santos
Pat, South of Paris Books
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
The Night by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón
None So Blind by J.Á. González Sainz
Une femme suspendue by Lorenzo Silva
Joe, roughghosts
Poets, artists and other lost souls: Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
Homecoming - Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador by Horacio Castellanos Moya
In the Shadow of Civil War: Review of Black Bread by Emili Teixidor
Black Bread: Novel Excerpt - Emili Teixidor
John, The Modern Novel
La magnitud de la tragèdia (The Enormity of the Tragedy) by Quim Monzó
Miguel Gutiérrez Dies
La casa de la laguna (The House on the Lagoon) by Rosario Ferré
Campo abierto [Open Field] by Max Aub
Los afectos (Affections) by Rodrigo Hasbún
Benzina (Gasoline) by Quim Monzó
Campo de sangre [Field of Blood] by Max Aub
Julianne Pachico, Never Stop Reading
Two Story Collections
(on Juan Gabriel Vásquez's Lovers on All Saints' Day and one other title)
Rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude
Feast of the Innocents by Evelio Rosero
lizzysiddal, Lizzy's Literary Life
#spanishlitmonth - Reading Notes
Mandy, peakreads
I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos*
a plague on both your houses: The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera translated by Lisa Dillman published by And Other Stories
Melissa Beck, The Book Binder's Daughter
I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos
The Clouds by Juan José Saer
The Plimsoll Line by Juan Gracia Armendáriz
Blitz by David Trueba
Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto
Nicole, bibliographing
Fever, infatuation, and Colonel Chabert*
(on Your Face Tomorrow and The Infatuations by Javier Marías)
"People whose consciences torment them are the exception"
(on Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marías)
Obooki, Obooki's Obloquy
Time of Silence by Luis Martín-Santos
Pat, South of Paris Books
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
The Night by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón
None So Blind by J.Á. González Sainz
Une femme suspendue by Lorenzo Silva
Richard, Caravana de recuerdos
La última niebla by María Luisa Bombal
Kid Ñandubay by Bernardo Kordon
Hijo de hombre by Augusto Roa Bastos
Lituma en los Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
Nombre falso by Ricardo Piglia
La oscura historia de la prima Montse by Juan Marsé
Kid Ñandubay by Bernardo Kordon
Hijo de hombre by Augusto Roa Bastos
Lituma en los Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
Nombre falso by Ricardo Piglia
La oscura historia de la prima Montse by Juan Marsé
Las genealogías by Margo Glantz
La amortajada by María Luisa Bombal
Rise, in lieu of a field guide
La memoria de Shakespeare
(on "Shakespeare's Memory" by Jorge Luis Borges)
The horrible noise of struggles: Two works of fiction by Pedro Paterno
(on The Pact of Biyak-na-Bato and Nínay by Pedro Paterno)
Unforeseen Shadows: Nínay by Pedro Paterno
Scott G.F. Bailey, six words for a hat
Divine Madness: la idiota en casa y iglesia, by Leopoldo Alas
(on La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas)
Séamus, Vapour Trails
Tres by Roberto Bolaño
The Literary Conference & An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
Simon Lavery, Tredynas Days
A cold and calculating egotism: La Regenta, by Leopoldo Alas
Seduce her for me: Ana's fate sealed in La Regenta
Rise, in lieu of a field guide
La memoria de Shakespeare
(on "Shakespeare's Memory" by Jorge Luis Borges)
The horrible noise of struggles: Two works of fiction by Pedro Paterno
(on The Pact of Biyak-na-Bato and Nínay by Pedro Paterno)
Unforeseen Shadows: Nínay by Pedro Paterno
Scott G.F. Bailey, six words for a hat
Divine Madness: la idiota en casa y iglesia, by Leopoldo Alas
(on La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas)
Séamus, Vapour Trails
Tres by Roberto Bolaño
The Literary Conference & An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
Simon Lavery, Tredynas Days
A cold and calculating egotism: La Regenta, by Leopoldo Alas
Seduce her for me: Ana's fate sealed in La Regenta
Stu, Winstonsdad's Blog
The Sky Over Lima by Juan Gómez Bárcena
One Million Cows by Manuel Rivas
The Lone Man by Bernardo Atxaga
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún
The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel
The Winterlings by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes
Wakolda by Lucía Puenzo
Tony, Tony's Reading List
Umami by Laia Jufresa
God Is Round by Juan Villoro
Vicious by Xurxo Borrazás
The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) by Laura Esquivel
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún*
Tony Messenger, Messengers Booker (and more)
The Large Glass by Mario Bellatin
Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño
Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
My Documents by Alejandro Zambra
Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories edited by Jorge F. Hernández
The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferré
Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra
Custody of the Eyes by Diamela Eltit
Underground River and Other Stories by Inés Arredondo
Natural Histories by Guadalupe Nettel
Umami by Laia Jufresa
Ten Women by Marcela Serrano
The Rest Is Silence by Carla Guelfenbein
Bonus: Meet the Readers
As sometimes happens around here, I had an OK idea last year that I failed to execute on in either Spanish Lit Month 2015 or Spanish Lit Month 2016. That being said, I'm rather sure you'll enjoy these Spanish Lit Month "introductions" to Amateur Reader (Tom) of Wuthering Expectations and Rise of in lieu of a field guide thanks to those two and no thanks at all to me. My questions/comments are in italics; their answers aren't. Thanks, of course, to Tom and Rise for humoring me even as their responses marinated for well over a year!
One Million Cows by Manuel Rivas
The Lone Man by Bernardo Atxaga
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún
The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel
The Winterlings by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira
On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes
Wakolda by Lucía Puenzo
Tony, Tony's Reading List
Umami by Laia Jufresa
God Is Round by Juan Villoro
Vicious by Xurxo Borrazás
The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) by Laura Esquivel
Affections by Rodrigo Hasbún*
Tony Messenger, Messengers Booker (and more)
The Large Glass by Mario Bellatin
Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño
Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
My Documents by Alejandro Zambra
Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories edited by Jorge F. Hernández
The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferré
Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra
Custody of the Eyes by Diamela Eltit
Underground River and Other Stories by Inés Arredondo
Natural Histories by Guadalupe Nettel
Umami by Laia Jufresa
Ten Women by Marcela Serrano
The Rest Is Silence by Carla Guelfenbein
Bonus: Meet the Readers
As sometimes happens around here, I had an OK idea last year that I failed to execute on in either Spanish Lit Month 2015 or Spanish Lit Month 2016. That being said, I'm rather sure you'll enjoy these Spanish Lit Month "introductions" to Amateur Reader (Tom) of Wuthering Expectations and Rise of in lieu of a field guide thanks to those two and no thanks at all to me. My questions/comments are in italics; their answers aren't. Thanks, of course, to Tom and Rise for humoring me even as their responses marinated for well over a year!
Amateur Reader (Tom), Wuthering Expectations
1) What's the first Spanish-language work that you remember really grabbing your attention as a a reader?
Don Quixote (1605/1615), which I read in high school as a comic adventure story and soon after in college as the first postmodern novel. Subsequent reading has shown that it is many other things as well.
2) What are three of your all-time favorite Spanish-language works?
Don Quixote; Ficciones (1945); One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). A logical chain of books.
3) What's a criminally overlooked Spanish-language author or work that you would like to recommend to other readers?
The entire body of medieval and early modern Spanish literature aside from Don Quixote is overlooked by English-language readers. It is so rich, and so readable. For a single work, I will pick Life Is a Dream (1635) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, which is as good as Shakespeare.
Please select one favorite post on a Spanish-language author or topic from the Wuthering Expectations archives.
On Roberto Arlt and restless writers.
One of my favorite posts from Tom: Bolaño, Aira, and the Argentinean Literature of Doom.
One of my favorite posts from Tom: Bolaño, Aira, and the Argentinean Literature of Doom.
Rise, in lieu of a field guide
1) What's the first Spanish-language work that you remember really grabbing your attention as a a reader?
1) What's the first Spanish-language work that you remember really grabbing your attention as a a reader?
The Savage Detectives freed me from a lot of things and inspired me to start writing about books.
2) What are three of your all-time favorite Spanish-language works?
The Oleza novels (Our Father San Daniel and The Leprous Bishop) by Gabriel Miró, trans. Marlon James Sales, is at surface a story of clerics in a backward village. But its secrets and undercurrents describe the complex negotiations and painful compromises in this secular world.
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (eds. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby) is a surfeit of ideas, constructed and reconstructed, in a loopy adventure of reflecting mirrors and mazes and doubles.
Dark Back of Time, among the dense, atmospheric novels by Javier Marías, is an unstructured, memory-soaked investigation into the art of metafiction.
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (eds. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby) is a surfeit of ideas, constructed and reconstructed, in a loopy adventure of reflecting mirrors and mazes and doubles.
Dark Back of Time, among the dense, atmospheric novels by Javier Marías, is an unstructured, memory-soaked investigation into the art of metafiction.
3) What's a criminally overlooked Spanish-language author or work that you would like to recommend to other readers?
El Folk-Lore Filipino (1889) by Isabelo de los Reyes is hard to classify in terms of genre. It may be a "folklore novel" and perhaps an early instance of the encyclopedia novel. It is revisionary and revolutionary in intent, a compendium of local fables, customs, and traditions set off against Spanish colonialism. More than a sociological and cultural curiosity, it is a compendium of worldview. The first of two volumes of this classic work in Spanish is translated by Salud C. Dizon and Maria Elinora Peralta-Imson and is published in 1994 by University of the Philippines Press.
Please select one favorite post on a Spanish-language author or topic from the in lieu of a field guide archives.
I think my multiple posts on the Quixote and Quixote-like novels allowed me to reflect on the nature of fictional reality and deepened my understanding of the novel. The translation by John Rutherford is superb.
One of my favorite posts from Rise: A cosmogony of Javier Marías's major fiction.
One of my favorite posts from Rise: A cosmogony of Javier Marías's major fiction.
Hi Richard! Just a reminder, I will have one more review (read and written in July/August) That will go "live" at a magazine called Numéro Cinq within the next week. It's for the Catalan novel Black Bread. I'll send you the link as soon as it's published. A great book.
ResponderBorrarHi and many thanks for the reminder, Joe. I'll look forward to reading that review once it's made public. It was great to have you join us for Spanish Lit Month this year.
BorrarMy review of Black Bread by Emili Teixidor is now live at Numéro Cinq:
Borrarhttp://numerocinqmagazine.com/2016/09/11/coming-age-post-war-catalonia-review-black-bread-emili-teixidor-joseph-schreiber/
They have also run an excerpt I selected:
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2016/09/11/black-bread-novel-excerpt-emili-teixidor/
Belated thanks for the links, Joe; they've now been added to the list. I have another book of Teixidor's, the 1999 El Llibre de les mosques, that's been waiting to be read for several years now, but I keep putting it off because my Catalan reading skills have atrophied a bit. Hopefully your review will help inspire me to get with the program again!
BorrarWhat a bumper round-up of Spanish lit links! Thanks so much to you and Stu for hosting this event, always a pleasure to participate and to see what others have been reading. I enjoyed your meet-the-readers feature too. All the best, Jacqui.
ResponderBorrarPS Would now be a good time to confess that I have never read Don Quixote?
I'm sure I can speak for Stu in saying the pleasure was all ours, Jacqui, so thanks to you in turn for your book and wine reviews. It's a treat to have such enthusiastic and liquored-up readers! I actually know many other avid readers who, like you, have yet to read Don Quixote. Suffice it to say that you have a massive treat in store--two if you consider DQ I & II as separate reads--once you break the ice with Cervantes. I'm do for a reread of the book(s) myself.
BorrarThinking globally, almost no one has read Don Quixote, really.
ResponderBorrarWhat a pile of books. How exciting that Rise and I chose more or less the same Borges, but rearranged. I do not really remember writing any of those answers, but they sound like me.
Maybe I can take one small step in rectifying the crime Rise identifies.
I spent a semester reading DQ one school year, and we didn't even really make it to the end of Part I. What a fun semester. Sorry I missed the grad seminar on Don Quixote's library. That promised even more bookish delights.
BorrarI was tickled that you and Rise chose Borges books as faves even as I was a little surprised that Georgie didn't appear on any reading lists other than Rise's this year. Maybe he'll make a comeback during Doom. In any event, thanks again for all the juicy posts and for putting up with those meet the reader questions I put to you last year. You and Rise make a mean tag team!
Congrats to you and Stu for another successful run of the Spanish lit month, Richard. The length of the list says it all. Is it way too early to anticipate the next SLM? It is highly anticipated.
ResponderBorrarI was glad to rediscover the Q & A. As Tom noted, there's a logical chain to the reading. No matter the sequence of books or the table of contents.
Rise, thanks to you as well both for your engaging posts and for fielding those long ago questions about your Spanish-language literature experiences. I hadn't originally intended for anybody's answers to run side by side, but I really liked how yours and Tom's complemented each other's in the end. It is very satisfying, by the way, to hear a lifetime SLM participant such as you saying that you're already anticipating SLM 2017. That means a lot to me. Thank you!
BorrarThis was interesting. I will participate any time you have it again. I am currently reading One Hundred Years of Solitude.
ResponderBorrarGlad you enjoyed Spanish Lit Month, Nana. We'd love to have you read along with us in July & August next year if you're still up for it! Hope you're enjoying One Hundred Years of Solitude. I've never been able to get into that book for some reason even though I've enjoyed some of García Márquez's so called "lesser works." The irony of it all. Cheers!
BorrarMy God, what an avalanche of links! Spanish Lit Month wasn't this popular in my days!
ResponderBorrarMuito obrigado for the visit, Miguel! Nice to hear from you and I haven't forgotten about the e-mail I owe you. Yeah, people went nuts this year. I still missed a Borges post or two from you, though, so this visit from you helps make up for it.
BorrarWhat a list. I like the meet the readers questionnaires too. And two great bloggers to select. Although I have as yet failed to write anything about it I have been dipping my toes in the "body of medieval and early modern Spanish literature" that Tom recommends and have been enjoying it immensely, especially the early picaresque novel "Lazarillo De Tormes". Maybe I'll get around to writing something for SLM17.
ResponderBorrarSéamus, glad you enjoyed the list and the questionnaires. You're next in line if I ever do that again, so please get your answers ready for next year! Delighted to hear you're enjoying Lazarillo de Tormes (one of my all-time favorites). If you follow that up with Quevedo's El buscón (a/k/a The Swindler), you will be in for another classic picaresque good time. Thanks so much for participating in SLM this year: Bolaño and Aira, a hard combination to beat!
BorrarI did follow it with The Swindler which was in my Penguin twofer. I then moved on to Lope de Vega and read three plays. I'm slowly throwing a few handfuls of clay into some of my chasms of ignorance.
BorrarHa ha, way to go there, Séamus! Between all this early modern "handful of clay" reading and your Knocking Shop reunion shows, you've been quite active of late in multiple media. Hats off and all that!
Borrar