Argentina Hotels Travel - The Underdogs
|
List Price: $11.95
Argentina Hotels Travel Price: $10.75
Your Save: $ 1.20 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: 1st World Library - Literary Society
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781595406781
ISBN: 1595406786
Label: 1st World Library - Literary Society
Manufacturer: 1st World Library - Literary Society
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 196
Publication Date: 2004-12-01
Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society
Studio: 1st World Library - Literary Society
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Mariano Azuela, the first of the "novelists of the Revolution," was born in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico, in 1873. He studied medicine in Guadalajara and returned to Lagos in 1909, where he began the practice of his profession. He began his writing career early; in 1896 he published Impressions of a Student in a weekly of Mexico City. This was followed by numerous sketches and short stories, and in 1911 by his first novel, Andres Perez, maderista. Like most of the young Liberals, he supported Francisco I. Madero's uprising, which overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, and in 1911 was made Director of Education of the State of Jalisco. After Madero's assassination, he joined the army of Pancho Villa as doctor, and his knowledge of the Revolution was acquired at firsthand. When the counterrevolutio-nary forces of Victoriano Huerta were temporarily triumphant, he emigrated to El Paso, Texas, where in 1915 he wrote The Underdogs (Los de abajo), which did not receive general recognition until 1924, when it was hailed as the novel of the Revolution.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Scenes from a revolution
Comment: This novel, although mostly a series of vignettes with only the slightet of plot and character development, never the less delivers a harrowing descripton of the Mexican Revolution.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Revolutionaries or Bandits
Comment: Mariano Azuela's novel about a group of men fighting in the decade-long Mexican Revolution is a seminal work in Latin American literature. As the concluding essay notes, Azuela's ability to accurately depict all that is most surreal in reality was the starting point for more modern magical realist authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a stand-out novel written in a sparse, at times dreamlike style.
The Underdogs, or Los de Abajo, reveals Azuela's ambivalence about the Revolutionary movement. While it is clear that the men persecuting the hero, Demetrio Macias, are not the men one wants controlling the state, Azuela also doesn't hesitate to depict the revolutionaries themselves as bandits, stealing from the peasants they are supposed to defend. The conflict over whether the Mexican Revolutionaries were soldiers or bandits is one that may be found in history books. Azuela's semi-autobiographical novel doesn't offer an answer to that question, but it does provide what some of the most famous historical literature does not: a depiction of the hellishness of war. In that alone, it is a good companion reading to any nonfiction accounts of the Revolution.
Frederick Fornoff's translation is mostly well-done, though his decision not to keep in the dialect in which most of the characters speak is, in my opinion, a poor one. There was an enormous cultural divide between the average revolutionary and the Mexicans living in cities or haciendas. I feel that Azuela's original language reflected that divide. However, this edition is still worth buying, because the concluding essay on Azuela's place in Latin American and epic literature is both poignant and revealing. The Underdogs is a grand novel, for both literature and history buffs.
Customer Rating:
Summary: good book
Comment: book is excellente. I would recommend this acclaimed book for further study anytime. I appreciate the simplicity and outright insight in the time of a heartless revolution. Please pick this book up when you have the time.
matthew ellsworth
Customer Rating:
Summary: Need to give it a chance...
Comment: The translation or something about the way it was written made it a bit confusing at first, but once you "get" the "writing style" of the book, you will be glad you kept reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Devastating and Meaningless
Comment: THE UNDERDOGS may well be about the spirit of the Mexican people, as some other reviews have suggested, but its conclusions are quite different. Don't think this is some inspiring story of the noble masses and their unconquerable spirit!
Azuela was writing in response to previous romantic depictions of the Mexican revolution -- you know, Pancho Villa the poor heroic figure of the countryside. Many had argued -- and still are, as you can see from some of these other reviews -- that the revolution was a turning point and created a new, more modern mexico.
In response, Azuela skewered the revolution. His story has almost no dates or locations -- you won't learn anything about the historical facts, as the encyclopedia would define them, of the revolution from this book. What Azuela does depict are the people and their spirit -- but he does this in shockingly unflattering terms.
Much of the book is a parade of violent scene after violent scene. Houses are ransacked, artwork destroyed, people casually killed, women casually raped. For U.S. audiences today, the book might remind us of the film NATURAL BORN KILLERS in terms of its consistent violence with little morality attached.
Moreover, these are not revolutionaries with much of an idea what they are doing. Yes, they are the underdogs of the title. But the underdogs do not want a better state -- a better nation. They mock Cervantes, the intellectual among them. No, the underdogs want to be top dog -- to exploit just as those they replace.
This devastating message is the one the book leaves us: the revolution meant nothing, achieved nothing, and was nothing but Mexico's underdogs lashing out savagely.
It is an easy and enjoyable read, but it can leave you with a Nietzchean feeling that none of this matters...
-- Julian Darius
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Argentina Posters
Argentina Art Prints
Argentina Travel 2008 Calendars
2008 Monthly Calendars
Argentina Hotels Travel Special Resources
Argentina Arts
Argentina Business
Argentina Culture
Argentina Education
Argentina Government
Argentina Health
Argentina Map
Sports & Recreation
Travel & Tourism
Tourist Attractions
Argentina Museums
Argentina Travel Important Resources
Argentina Books
Argentina Magazines
Argentina Travel Destinations
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Calafate, Argentina
Cordoba, Argentina
Iguaza Fallsar, Argentina
Jujuy, Argentina
Salta, Argentina
San Carlos Bariloche
Trelew, Argentina
Tucuman, Argentina
Ushuaia, Argentina
Argentina Travel Hotels
Bariloche Hotels
Buenos Aires Hotels
Trelew Hotels
Cordoba Hotels
|
