Cuentos españoles

Rating:
Summary: Long term thing
Review: I don't know what aspirin the previous reviewer is taking if he thinks this is an intermediate book. A case in point is simply Cervantes' use of the verb Correr, which in THE POWER OF THE BLOOD actually means to be ashamed and yet in present day Chile means to have elongated sex. So much for modern language...
What makes this a great book is the stories and their ability, in my mind, to last not only in a literary sense but in a grammatical sense ONLY THROUGH REREADING AND APING THE ACTUAL TRANSLATOR.
Would we thoroughly shove Emile Bronte or James Fenimore Cooper down the modern throats of an "intermediate" spanish student? I should hope not (needst though consult the lavoratory) and I personally lost a lot of time in the grammatical anachronisms of this book. The casual page facing page only works for mathematicians and/or linguists.

Yet that isn't the point. The point is that the stories are great in English and can be referred to in Spanish sometime in the future. Like Angel Flores'majestic Anthology ranging from the 16th to the 20th century of hispanic literature this book grazes, yes, but never touches, the original translations. To even think that an intermediate student could casually glimpse from one page to another is comical, especially in the case of Cela, where the idioms are so predominant that grammar and purposely misplaced clauses becomes subordinate to the facing pages.

A wonderful book,( though not nearly as wonderful as Flores' anthology of poetry), this book is meant to be read in English. The Spanish is deliberately hard - it is after all literature (ie Unamuno! "We are all sick animals", Cervantes! I don't know if Dulcinea yet exists- I only think of her as she needs be)- and is meant to be put on the backburner until the student achieves the level of translation and richness of words the actual translators are striving to get at, nothing more.

This weird trend of casually looking from one page stacked with subordinate clauses and idioms and connotations to the other with the speculation that any of if will be SYNTHESIZED is a disturbing trend in self-learning and nothing more.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for the intermediate Spanish student
Review: This book includes several excellent stories by many of the finest Spanish authors starting from the 16th century to the 20th. I recommend it highly for the intermediate Spanish student.

When I started reading book I had to regularly refer to the english page for a translation. At the end of the book, I seldom need to check the translation.

I assume that the stories written in the 16th and 17th centuries were re-written to update them into current Spanish, as I would think the older Spanish would be much more difficult to understand. As a result, this made the stories easy to read at the same time I could appreciate the skill of the writers.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for the intermediate Spanish student
Review: This book includes several excellent stories by many of the finest Spanish authors starting from the 16th century to the 20th. I recommend it highly for the intermediate Spanish student.

When I started reading book I had to regularly refer to the english page for a translation. At the end of the book, I seldom need to check the translation.

I assume that the stories written in the 16th and 17th centuries were re-written to update them into current Spanish, as I would think the older Spanish would be much more difficult to understand. As a result, this made the stories easy to read at the same time I could appreciate the skill of the writers.