Click for the English review, below: here …
Me fui dificil leer este libro por lado del idioma y por lado emocional. Primeramente, la mescla de idiomas me dificultô la lectura, y también no me dî cuenta de que Cortés y Maliche era la misma persona, ya que creî que era la Malintzin la Malinche, y también los cambios entre el tuteo y voceo me confundî. La segunada dificultad para mi era las luchas y las angustias como lectora, sabiendo lo que iba a pasar, y aun peor, aprendiendo que tan bella era la cultura Méxica que no solamente quedô destruida, sino también pervertido por mentira. Ni hablar de los violaciones, que el autor ha logrado hacerse sentir pero con un poco de retiro que lo hace sentir si fuera ahî misma, pero alejandose emocionalmente, como pasa a las victimas. El autor hace muy buen trabajo de mostrarnos como se siente, también, una persona cuando està pasando por un periodo un poco como es estres post-traumatico, despues de haber perdido un cercano, desde el interior de la mente de esta persona quien ha quedado atrapado dentro de su propio mente sin poder responder a nada. Muy bien hecho, aunque da miedo, por muchos lados.
English:
This book was difficult to read both linguistically and emotionally. First, the mixture of modern Mexican Spanish, in which the first person narrator speaks, intertwined with alot of words in Nahuatl, which were interesting but very difficult to read, and for me, interrupted the flow of the narration, although I liked the inline translation into modern Spanish, but combined with sudden switches into old Castilian, and then at the end, even Cortés (whom I didn’t realize for quite a while was actually the same person as Malinche, whom I’d thought to be the slave Malintzin) using the tu form as well as the vos, was confusing, but maybe not so much to Mexican readers.
Second, the awful struggle to face and fight the Spaniards, with the anguish of the characters knowing that their world would not only be destroyed, but erased, and for the readers, the anguish of knowing that such a beautiful culture has been not only erased, but deliberately misrepresented, was gut-wrenching. Not to even speak of all of the rapes, which the author somehow manages to describe physically, yet almost gloss over in terms of immediate emotional content: yes, we see the effects later, but during the events, we get an expertly distanced view, almost as if the reader is experiencing the horror of the violation, and self-distancing, as often happens to victims. The author does a very good job, also, of portraying the protagonist as experiencing a sort of PTSD at the death of a close loved one, and showing what it is like from the inside of the mind of one who is trapped inside her mind, unable to respond. Very well done, and appropriately disturbing on many levels.
14.72%”interesting corrective to the Spanish historical record about the death of Montezuma”
31.85% “Qué bonita qué dice :
“El olor de cada flor es su canto … es más generoso que un beso porque no nos exige nada a cambio””
“…la pena de muerte no sólo para quien lo pide sino también para la parte era la curandera que lo provoca.”
horrible new laws particularly for women after the conquest”
#PublicDomainInfrastructure as Poverty Abolition is Phase I of Project Do Better
We can definitely Do Better…
ShiraDest
original version of this post initially published on March 23rd, 12018 HE (human or holocene era…)
Shira
Action Items:
1.) Share your thoughts, please.
2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.
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Click here to read, if you like:
B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews
Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,
Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter. This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world. Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world. And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.
Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS
ShiraDest
Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.