All the books I read in April 🌼🍃

[@JohnSeney]

Regardless of endings, I just wanted "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler -" to end, period 😸😆. You read "The Wasteland" in April very appropriate 👍 You might find "The Love Song of - Prufrock" more agreeable. Eliot was a huge booster of Joyce so cross-influences were inevitable. Out of that bunch I most like Pound, but only the Pound of the later Cantos which opens whole different cans of worms. Never has "enjoying" a book seemed less appropriate than with "Bloodlands!"

[@shelf-reflections7549]

That’s hilarious re: Calvino 🤣 You know, I think I might have read “Prufrock” way back in high school but I honestly can’t remember. I’m sliiiiiiightly tempted to (re)read it

[@JohnSeney]

@@shelf-reflections7549 Must have been a good high school! Give it a re-try it's not long and has more emotion than The Wasteland 👍

[@erinh7450]

Those 'dashes' in El beso de la mujer araña are just how the Spanish language does dialog quotation marks - both in Spain and throughout Latin America. It's in every Spanish language book that way - I'm surprised you haven't noticed it from other Spanish books - check out any others you have on hand! I think the big difference in this book is it doesn't say 'X said' or 'Y said', or have any expository text; it's just back-and-forth - pretty much 100% dialog, so it's really in your face. Usually the dashes are changed to regular English quotation marks in translation, but I see on the Amazon 'look inside' that for some reason at least one English copy of Kiss of the Spiderwoman keeps the Spanish quotation style. I read El beso de la mujer araña back in the 80s or maybe 90s sometime when I guess it was more cutting edge! Now I feel old. 👵

[@shelf-reflections7549]

Oh yes, I’ve definitely noticed the dashes in some of the Spanish-language books I’ve read but then sometimes I’ve seen these (both single and double) instead 🤷🏽‍♀️ I guess it’s what the publisher prefers lol. That’s really interesting and odd though about the English edition that kept the dashes…and don’t worry, I feel ancient myself!

[@erinh7450]

@@shelf-reflections7549 Regular dialog is almost always with the dashes, but they do use the «» marks when using a quote within a paragraph even if they're using dashes for regular dialog - like when someone is reporting what someone else said rather than back and forth dialog. I think I may have seen books where they're used exclusively, but it's definitely very much the minority. The weird thing about the 'dash' method is that if there's no 'he/she said' at the end of the quote, there's no closing quotation 'mark' at all. I've gotten used to it, but it's an odd system! I've kind of intuited what the rules for their use must be over the years, but still not 100% sure what they are - they sure never taught that in Spanish class!

[@PoppyMorreale]

excellent video

[@shelf-reflections7549]

Thank you so much!! 😊 I hope you had a good reading month

[@davidnovakreadspoetry]

I saw _Kiss_ when it first came out. As part of the generation it was speaking to, I found it moving and eye-opening. However now, with the passage of time, it may - as you say with the book - have become more commonplace. (I doubt I’d see it again.) William Hurt was so big, and he won an acting award for his performance. But a friend pointed out, correctly I think, that he won it for the role. “Raul Julia was just as good, if not better,” she said, “but he didn’t win.” “I gave it four stars instead of five just because my brain is too small…” Don’t say that! I want to read _Bloodlands_ too but am afraid it will be too information-laden. I tend to retain minimally. These were great reviews!