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language: Spanish
country: Spain
year: 1996
form: novel
genre(s): historical
dates read: 17.3.23-24.3.23
I recently discovered my library has access to a bunch of Spanish audiobooks, and I decided to start by experimenting with Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Carlota Pérez-Reverte (his daughter)’s El capitán Alatriste.
it was boring? which is saying a lot, considering that it’s about a swordsman in 17th-century Spain who’s hired to assassinate the Prince of Wales! he decides not to assassinate the Prince of Wales, and then for the rest of the book he essentially does nothing, just kind of stands around stoically while angry people dramatically ask him questions. this is supposed to demonstrate his simple swordsman’s sense of honor, or something. the politicking could have been interesting, except that it’s all viewed through Alatriste, who doesn’t care and who we’re in turn viewing at a distance through the perspective of his fawning assistant, the son of a friend who recently died. there are both political and personal stakes, but Alatriste doesn’t seem to care about them (other than a vague desire not to die), which makes it difficult for me to do so.
whatever personality you’re imagining when I say “Diego Alatriste is an honorable veteran soldier and swordsman-for-hire in 17th-century Spain” is exactly the personality, or lack thereof, that he has. there’s some casual misogyny scattered throughout, written in that gnomic way where it kind of sounds like it’s coming directly from the author rather than the character.
it’s clear that the real point of the book is to be a paean to Spain, especially the culture and history of the Siglo de Oro, and to Madrid specifically. the “plot” (such as it is) is constantly interrupted by rambling descriptions of Madrid (these were fun at first but eventually got tedious) and by grand pronouncements about how great Spain is, how noble its people are, how wise and just and powerful its monarch is, how great its colonial empire is, how amazing its literature is…
this makes sense, because Arturo Pérez-Reverte is the kind of raging European nationalist who believes that US culture is decadent and corrupting Europe as the “moral heart of the West”, along with the other usual racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic stuff you expect from raging European nationalists. unsurprising, I guess, then, that his new spy series set during the Spanish Civil War is about a fascist spy.
anyway. now I’ve read (or, rather, listened to) one of his books and I don’t have to do it again.
moods: reflective