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Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful feel for a place and time that no longer exists
Review: I have the feeling that any translation of this book is bound to be disppointing. I have read it in the original and it speaks to me of a place and time I once knew but that no longer exists. My family suffered during the spanish civil war and they never wanted to talk about it. I feel the same pain here when the author just touches on what happened here and there. I'm well familiar with the streets Rodoreda describes. I have walked them many times and they feel right to me. I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to be transported to another time and place. By the way, the translation of "coloms" into doves is a bit poetic. The real translation is "pigeons". Barcelona is infested with them.... Happy reading.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful feel for a place and time that no longer exists
Review: I have the feeling that any translation of this book is bound to be disppointing. I have read it in the original and it speaks to me of a place and time I once knew but that no longer exists. My family suffered during the spanish civil war and they never wanted to talk about it. I feel the same pain here when the author just touches on what happened here and there. I'm well familiar with the streets Rodoreda describes. I have walked them many times and they feel right to me. I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to be transported to another time and place. By the way, the translation of "coloms" into doves is a bit poetic. The real translation is "pigeons". Barcelona is infested with them.... Happy reading.
Rating:
Summary: Respect for the original language of a work of literature
Review: I would like to point out that the original title of this novel by Mercè Rodoreda, beautifully translated by David H. Rosenthal, is "La Plaça del Diamant", not "La Plaza del Diamante" as you mention in your listing, as it was written in Catalan and not in Spanish.
Rating:
Summary: Respect for the original language of a work of literature
Review: I would like to point out that the original title of this novel by Mercè Rodoreda, beautifully translated by David H. Rosenthal, is "La Plaça del Diamant", not "La Plaza del Diamante" as you mention in your listing, as it was written in Catalan and not in Spanish.
Rating: 
Summary: La Plaça del Diamant
Review: In my opinion, this is one of the most tender and at the same time hard book written in the 20th century in Catalonia. It mixes love, passion, deep feelings among one of the most difficults times that we Catalans have lived and we still live: the represion in all senses of the Spanish Kingdom.I would like to suggest to Amanzon, a shop that sells culture, to respect the Catalan culture and not to translate the Catalan book titles into Spanish. The title of this book is "La Plaça del Diamant" (Catalan) and not "La Plaza del Diamante" (Spanish) I am absolutly sure that Merce Rodoreda, a woman who lived the repression on the Spanish for writing, thinking and expressing herself as a Catalan, would appreciate a lot that you keep her titles as they are in bweten brackets: in Catalan.
Rating:
Summary: Respect for the original language of a work of literature
Review: The imagery in this book astounded me: it was fresh and new, very different from anything else I have found in books. My love of Willa Cather eventually led me to this book of Rodoreda's. Like Cather, Rodoreda's language is simple and wonderfully written, her characters are unique and the plot is so subtle. I enjoyed how the passage of time is explored in the main character's life; from early womanhood through the ordeal of marriage and family to a quiet ecstasy of full maturity. While place plays a very important part in this novel, the setting transcends Barcelona. I sensed the history surronding the characters in the novel yet realized that this story could be set anywhere. I recommend this book for Cather-lovers and those who enjoy a book of the passage of time.
Rating:
Summary: A simple life, wrought beautifully...
Review: The imagery in this book astounded me: it was fresh and new, very different from anything else I have found in books. My love of Willa Cather eventually led me to this book of Rodoreda's. Like Cather, Rodoreda's language is simple and wonderfully written, her characters are unique and the plot is so subtle. I enjoyed how the passage of time is explored in the main character's life; from early womanhood through the ordeal of marriage and family to a quiet ecstasy of full maturity. While place plays a very important part in this novel, the setting transcends Barcelona. I sensed the history surronding the characters in the novel yet realized that this story could be set anywhere. I recommend this book for Cather-lovers and those who enjoy a book of the passage of time.
Rating:
Summary: an epic novel in two hundred pages
Review: This book is a true masterpiece--an epic covering 30 some years in 200 pages. This means that not one word is wasted. The description is beautifully precise, allowing the reader to picture clearly every street, every room, every face, every piece of furniture or clothing; yet it never gets in the way of the action. Set in Barcelona from the late 1920s through revolution and the Spanish Civil War, followed by the Second World War, the style reminds me of Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's Anya. The author never intrudes on the story; everything is seen through the eyes of Natalia, the main character, looking both inward and outward. The title is that of the American translator; the original was La Placa del Diamant, the name of the open square where Natalia meets Quimet, her husband. The current title is much more appropriate. Natalia and Quimet spend much of the book raising and breeding doves; the irony enters in if one thinks of the dove as a symbol of peace. The doves bring just the opposite to the family, and throughout the book there is no peace, neither in Spain nor for Natalia--but I won't give anything away. If you like this book, Rodoreda's other two works in translation, Camellia Street and My Christina, are also well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and simple
Review: Why it is not called Placa del Diamant in the English translation, I don't know. But the Time of the Doves is a beautifully written tale of hope in a hopeless time; of survival and the power of love (pardon the cliche). It is simplistic because it can be while still communicating these themes effectively, through the mind of the heroine, Natalia. I first read this book and Rodoreda's other full-length novel, Camellia Street (now out of print in English), when I visited Barcelona three years ago, to give me a sense of place. Now that I live only four blocks from Placa del Diamant, I have re-read them both with the same pleasure. The statute there of Natalia fleeing the doves and the hold of her husband, serves to bring me back to this rich story. I challenge a history book to provide a reader with a stronger sense of what Spain was actually like during the civil war and the desperation of the Catalan people.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and simple
Review: Why it is not called Placa del Diamant in the English translation, I don't know. But the Time of the Doves is a beautifully written tale of hope in a hopeless time; of survival and the power of love (pardon the cliche). It is simplistic because it can be while still communicating these themes effectively, through the mind of the heroine, Natalia. I first read this book and Rodoreda's other full-length novel, Camellia Street (now out of print in English), when I visited Barcelona three years ago, to give me a sense of place. Now that I live only four blocks from Placa del Diamant, I have re-read them both with the same pleasure. The statute there of Natalia fleeing the doves and the hold of her husband, serves to bring me back to this rich story. I challenge a history book to provide a reader with a stronger sense of what Spain was actually like during the civil war and the desperation of the Catalan people.
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