Monday, November 30, 2009

Can You Make Pepper Spray With Chili Powder

OLD TERESA : The Memory of Water

The memory of water is the first work of fiction of the journalist Teresa Viejo, who surprises us with a tale of intrigue, love and passion set in the twenties and thirties of the century past, but located in a place that actually existed: the seaside resort of La Isabela, in the province of Guadalajara, who disappeared in the mid-twentieth century under the waters of the swamp Buendía. In this framework idílico, aunque no lo fue durante toda su historia, se desarrolla la vida de la familia Montemayor, cuya hija, Amada, se erige en protagonista de esta novela, al menos en gran parte de ella.

El Real Sitio de La Isabela fue creado en 1826 por Fernando VII, y recibió este nombre en honor a su esposa Isabel de Braganza. Muy pronto, gracias a la existencia de fuentes termales, se convirtió en un balneario de moda entre la alta burguesía de la zona, que acudía allí a curarse de multitud de dolencias. Mucho más tarde, durante la Guerra Civil, se convirtió en algo muy distinto, un hospital psiquiátrico, para pasar a dormir bajo las aguas del pantano desde marzo de 1955. Hoy en día, puesto que el nivel water has gone down, you can see the ruins of what had once been one of the fashion centers of the English bourgeoisie, whose fame allowed to develop around a network of homes and buildings associated with the activity Bathing.

was a visit that the author made this place that made this novel was born in his head. It is clear that Teresa has been well documented Viejo when writing about this unusual shelter, although the novel's characters are mostly invented. This is the Montemayor family history, a bourgeois family who bought the resort in the 20's and took him to the zenith of his fame and prestige. But the so-called Curse of the Isabela, as the neighbors knew, would bring ruin and disgrace to those used so much effort in this task (the Montemayor also an invention of the author).

The book is divided into two distinct parts. In fact can be read almost like two different books. The first presents a web of intrigue where two deaths, which break the traditional quiet resort, become the focus of the story. In this first part the presence of Beloved is rather testimonial, it is still a small child. The real protagonists are others: the sheriff investigating the case, Ginés Fuentes, medical spa, Samuel Millares, and the owner of the site, Ernesto Montemayor. A parade around a whole bunch of characters, each more picturesque, some a bit unnecessary in my view, that give life to the spa and they seem to turn its back on the tragic events in it are developed. Once the mystery is a series of misfortunes that Montemayor do decide to get rid of the spa, thus ending its period of prosperity.

The second part takes place mostly during the turbulent thirties, with the historical context the Second Republic and the Civil War. In these pages Amada going to become the undisputed star, as does a trip that was his childhood home to find completely transformed, now used as a psychiatric hospital. However, the trip will be worth it because something happens it will change your life forever.

The novel is read with interest, more in the second part in the first. The result is therefore somewhat uneven, because it seems as if both parties did not have much connection between them. Appear well-drawn characters, and Teresa Viejo pen gives many nuances. I really liked his style, care and worked with great sensitivity. Except for some details without too much believe that the author comes out with a very good start for this first foray into the world of narrative, and from here I can only wish a long and prolific career. It is a masterpiece, but entertaining and leaves a good taste. And above all well written, something that, at least this servant, greatly appreciated when you open the pages of a book. When all is said and done, it is to enjoy (or feel good) with a history and at the same time, how about telling. That is what good literature.

Friday, November 20, 2009

What Do You Like About Emu Stinger Lo

ANGELA BECERRA: She, who had everything fall

So here I am back again. There are still a few weeks before the birth of sin, and as now I have a little longer wanted to share with you some further review before it becomes impossible. You know that if I disappear the overnight without warning, is that Nuria has finally decided to get out and explore what lies beyond her mommy's tummy.

I've been reading the trilogy of Javier Marias of Your Face Tomorrow , but I still have the last volume, so it and comment later. For now I am left with the last novel I read and I've eaten in days, She had everything , a writer who I wanted to peek, Angela Becerra. I found a way to write very beautiful, poetic and sensual, which in this case is placed over the plot of the novel, more conventional maybe. The author demonstrates a sensitivity extraordinary when telling a story that, while mostly predictable, is still enchant the reader with her waste of words conveniently chosen.

The protagonist of the story is she, a woman who has lost everything in a fatal traffic accident in which he was traveling with her husband and daughter. She is the only survivor of the tragedy, and after what happened becomes a shadow of itself, a living dead, unable to pick up the threads of a normal existence. After leaving the hospital where he slowly recovers from his physical injuries, decided to move to a hotel in Florence, a city where she met her husband. They occupy time to learn to restore old books, as if this task will help partially restore life to those who still hover like ghosts. In the evenings, she goes to a bookshop where the owner, a mysterious and cold, the watches in silence while wandering among the shelves.

Before the tragedy into his life, she was a writer. Since the inspiration seems to be gone from your life together with the figures of her husband and her daughter, she decides to invent a character in which to immerse a few hours a day to escape the darkness that surrounds, La Donna di Lacrima, a enigmatic, sensual woman that men get into a luxury penthouse Via Ghibellina, showing their nakedness but always hiding his identity behind a mask. La Donna di Lacrima allow her to become a fictional character who will soon become famous in Florence.

This is the plot on which constructs his novel Angela Becerra. However, as already proposed above, is how the author writing the story itself that captivates us as readers. It's really a delight to be stroked by the words that populate these pages, absorbing the essence of them to imagine the cold winter in Florence, immersed in the rain and the mists that surround her in her Italian adventure The city becomes real in our minds in a very vivid:

"Ten years later, he returned to the city that most idolized and had given him. Firenze, a tear rolling slowly over a landscape of sadness. The eternal cypresses from the mountains with their looks stoic seeing for centuries. The scent of past perennial streets asleep, exhausted art of drunken tourists, the duel to the death of bells on Sundays. Firenze, green shutters and past screaming silence, a song of reflection wet winding waters Arno. And she, more alone than ever, never. "

surrounding characters are as enigmatic as Ella's own Lacrima di Donna. The bookseller and a mysterious hobo philosopher who every time he speaks enlightens our minds with his words are two good examples: "You want to believe that life is one thing, an entire block that begins at birth and ends at death, and is either good or bad, and there are some things to play them good and others that their part wrong, but wrong. Life is made of loose bits of all colors. Things live, things you dream a little what he says the neighbor, a little of what you imagine, a piece of pizza, two cappuccinos, a fall and a song, two raticos sun, one of pain, a plunge into a calm sea, a wave that takes you clueless another plunges you ... "

The backdrop of history are at last after all the great themes of literature of all time: the suffering and love. She will have to dive down deep inside, fight and defeat all the ghosts, before coming to the surface of the abyss in which they live and to breathe freely again. A life lesson we all should learn.

"The only way to live fully is to take what we are, regardless of what others want us to be."