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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
“No hay rasgo exterior que distinga a un malvado; puesto que la atrocidad, la cometida en las muchachas o cualquier otra, se encuentra a mano del primero que pase. No se trata de que este mundo esté lleno de inocentes, sino de lo contrario: está poblado por individuos capaces, todos ellos, de lo peor“.
Créanlo o no, pero El Asedio de Arturo Pérez-Reverte, o te gusta o lo manda al carajo, y no con esto planteamos o afirmamos que es malo el escrito, para nada, es un libro excelente en descripciones y una buena narrativa de ambientación del Cádiz de 1811, una ciudad cautivadora que resiste el asedio inicial por los soldados franceses de Napoleón durante la guerra de independencia, una ciudad protegida por su arrecife, sus murallas, su reciente inversión de alianza con los ingleses y su comunicación con el mar con el resto del mundo hasta el punto que viven mejor los sitiados que los sitiadores, pero hay que establecer, que es un texto muy denso, tienes que ir acostumbrándote a lo que narra el autor, pues hay momentos donde se torna algo aburrido, que lo que más uno anhela es ver la última página.
“Las lágrimas se guardan para los entierros, y la vida hay que buscarla allí donde lo dejan a uno. En una casa buena de Cádiz, o en el infierno. Donde sea. Donde se pueda“.
El libro se desarrolla en la Cádiz de 1811, donde en el mismo convergen varias historias, que van, por ejemplo, desde las aventuras del corsario Pepe Lobo y la hacendosa y decidida empresaria Lolita Palma; a la detectivesca historia del comisario Tizón, policía brusco y poco correcto, que persigue a un asesino en serie que va matando a jovencitas inocentes al ritmo de las bombas que caen desde el Trocadero y la Cabezuela en Cádiz; o por ejemplo, eligiendo entre todas ellas la historia del capitán artillero Desfosseux obsesionado con sus cálculos y parábolas de tiro para alcanzar más allá de las 2000 toesas y llegar al centro de Cádiz mismo. Este es un pequeño ejemplo de las historias que encierra el marco de la historia del asedio de Cádiz. Por eso, explicar el argumento, o ejemplificar la novela mediante un sucinto resumen es bastante complejo en una novela de carácter coral.
El autor se metió a fondo con un buen arsenal de documentación histórica, donde la matemática, física, química, taxidermia, costumbre, modas, artillería, novelas le dan vida al texto. Batallas, aventuras, romanticismo, intriga policial, costumbrismo, la búsqueda del tiro perfecto… son una pequeña muestra de lo que el lector va a encontrar en esta novela que le hará pasar al lector de amor al odio.
Créanlo o no, pero El Asedio de Arturo Pérez-Reverte, o te gusta o lo manda al carajo, y no con esto planteamos o afirmamos que es malo el escrito, para nada, es un libro excelente en descripciones y una buena narrativa de ambientación del Cádiz de 1811, una ciudad cautivadora que resiste el asedio inicial por los soldados franceses de Napoleón durante la guerra de independencia, una ciudad protegida por su arrecife, sus murallas, su reciente inversión de alianza con los ingleses y su comunicación con el mar con el resto del mundo hasta el punto que viven mejor los sitiados que los sitiadores, pero hay que establecer, que es un texto muy denso, tienes que ir acostumbrándote a lo que narra el autor, pues hay momentos donde se torna algo aburrido, que lo que más uno anhela es ver la última página.
“Las lágrimas se guardan para los entierros, y la vida hay que buscarla allí donde lo dejan a uno. En una casa buena de Cádiz, o en el infierno. Donde sea. Donde se pueda“.
El libro se desarrolla en la Cádiz de 1811, donde en el mismo convergen varias historias, que van, por ejemplo, desde las aventuras del corsario Pepe Lobo y la hacendosa y decidida empresaria Lolita Palma; a la detectivesca historia del comisario Tizón, policía brusco y poco correcto, que persigue a un asesino en serie que va matando a jovencitas inocentes al ritmo de las bombas que caen desde el Trocadero y la Cabezuela en Cádiz; o por ejemplo, eligiendo entre todas ellas la historia del capitán artillero Desfosseux obsesionado con sus cálculos y parábolas de tiro para alcanzar más allá de las 2000 toesas y llegar al centro de Cádiz mismo. Este es un pequeño ejemplo de las historias que encierra el marco de la historia del asedio de Cádiz. Por eso, explicar el argumento, o ejemplificar la novela mediante un sucinto resumen es bastante complejo en una novela de carácter coral.
El autor se metió a fondo con un buen arsenal de documentación histórica, donde la matemática, física, química, taxidermia, costumbre, modas, artillería, novelas le dan vida al texto. Batallas, aventuras, romanticismo, intriga policial, costumbrismo, la búsqueda del tiro perfecto… son una pequeña muestra de lo que el lector va a encontrar en esta novela que le hará pasar al lector de amor al odio.
I quite enjoyed this - there's always the feeling of ignorance that comes with reading one of Perez-Reverte's historical novels as he's relying on you having the basic grounding of any Spaniard in that country's history which, well, I have problems with my own country's history. But this was a very nice, dense interwoven story of the 1812 siege of Cadiz during the Napoleonic Wars that was marred, in my view, only by having a main thread be a serial killer plot, which fell flat for me just because they are so overdone. Still, strongly recommended.
The Siege of Cadiz during Napolean's war on Spain laster over two years. Arturo Perez-Reverte bring it alive in marvelous detail. He spins the story by focusing on several characters: a Cadiz police commissioner obsessed with solving a series of brutual murders; a French artillery captain determined to fire the perfect shots at the besieged city; a Spanish woman who runs a trading company; and the captain of a coursair which targets French shipping. Each theme has it's own element of tension.For me, this is a fine example of strong historical fiction. The details of the siege, of shipping, of business all enrich the characterizations of the main protagonists. It's an interesting look, too, at the further erosion of the Spanish empire's power and influence in the Americas. The author telegraphed who would be the last woman killed, not in an obvious way, but enough so that dozens of pages before it happened I knew...The reasons for the killer's actions seemed to me a bit farfetched, but, hey, this is fiction. And, I should add, this is translated from the Spanish with such skill that it remains the literary work the author intended. 4.5 stars really.
Welcome to Cadiz, Spain in 1811. A city embodying the last vestiges of a free Spain, not quite crushed under Napoleon’s boot. But it’s hovering over them. Cannons fire every day only the besieged city, and only it’s unfettered access to the sea keeps it alive. If regular cannon fire weren’t enough, young girls start turning up dead and flayed, and Rogelio Tizon, police commissioner, desperate to catch the killer, is caught in a game of chess with the killer, a game that he loses regularly on the board, but cannot afford to lose on the streets.
For some reason I had put this on a wish list for if I ever bought a kindle, but not having been tempted to the dark side just yet I decided to just buy it in paperback and dive in. Pérez-Reverte’s Cadiz is intricate and rich, populated by an array finely detailed characters who, after careful nurturing by the author, are best when mingling with each other on the crowded streets of the beleaguered city.
It is perhaps Tizon who can make a small claim on being the star, and we are introduced to him as he is overseeing a prisoner being tortured for information. For some reason this made me weary of him at first, I mean a divorced alcoholic married to the job is one thing, but a torturer? But I warmed to him, his obsession with the case, trusting his gut instinct when it is completely illogical, as he tries desperately to work out the pattern of the serial killer in his city’s midst. His good friend Barrull, provides justification to feel for Tizon, even if you don’t like him. There is a drive behind the Comisario, and the deaths of the young girls haunt him, reminding him of his own lost daughter.
Moving away from the window, he returns to the desk. Anxious. Prowling like an animal in a cage, he realises. And this does not pleas him. This is not his way. Within him he feels a fury, slender and exact, sharp as a dagger. Professor Barrull’s manuscript still lies on the desk, as though mocking him: ‘here and there I found traces I can identify, but there are others that perplex me’, he reads again. The phrase buries itself in Tizon’s pride like a jagged splinter. In his professional peace of mind. Three girls murdered in the same way within six months. Fortunately for him Governor Villavicencio cuttingly pointed out some weeks ago, the war and the French siege have meant that such crimes have been relegated to the background. But this does little to assuage the comisario’s unease; the curious shame that eats away at him each time he thinks about the case. Each time he sees the mute piano and realises that the murdered girls are almost the same age as the girl who once touched the keys would have been today.
It’s not just Tizon though that we spend The Siege with. Lolita Palma is perhaps my favourite character after the Comisario. A woman succeeding in a man’s world by running her families shipping company, and even her dealing with the Corsair Captain, Pepe Lobo she never loses sight of what is most important in her life, and although she sees the end coming for her and her class, she is still willing to sacrifice in order to save it.
Outside the city, and across the lines we hear from the French, most notably Simon Defossuex, an artillery captain who spends the entire novel trying to get his bombs to the far side of Cadiz to finally take down this last bastion of Spanish freedom.
Into the middle of this world steps the serial killer, who has a set modus operandi that Tizon thinks he has figured out, and tries to flush out. The two are involved in their own game of chess on the streets of Cadiz, a game people barely notice due to the incessant bombing, until the body count starts to mount up and Tizon starts running out of time.
I loved The Siege. Pérez-Reverte sinks you into Cadiz, down to the details of the clothes and daily habits of not just he main characters but the population of a city that knows it is impregnable but still fearfully looks over it’s shoulder. This Cadiz is filled with locals and foreigners, refugees from the war with France which further complicates Tizon’s work. When those in charge start clamouring for the murderer, he knows he is running out of time, but his own fear of never find out drives him deeper into the game with the killer. Meanwhile the other characters flit about their business in the city. Lolita Palma and her business partner commission Pepe Lobo as a Corsair to bring in booty, allowing some beautifully crafted passages on the boat out in the open sea. But even as Tizon closes in on the killer, he senses his time is coming to an end, it all is. The British are forcing the ports open in return for their help and this will ruin the merchants of Cadiz. When close to the end game, Don Cayetano Valdes comments on Tizon and his, methods, that will no longer be tolerated in a new world.
‘Spain has changed,’ he said, before dismissing them from his office. ‘There is no way back, either for you or for me. Perhaps it is best that we all know where we stand.’
Tizon knows he himself is the embers of this time, as does Lolita Palma.
I won’t give away the ending, which I found strangely satisfying, although scant time is paid to the actual murderer and motive when the time comes, and although I’m not sure the Epilogue is required, I can’t work out if I’m glad it was in there or not.
I fell I’ve waffled my way though this review, I just can’t say how much I enjoyed The Siege, Full credit to the translator Frank Wynne, who has done an extraordinary job so that this reads beautifully and engagingly throughout.
For me The Siege has movie written all over it, I’m not sure if a sequel would work, but there is definite scope for some prequels, or even other stories involving Tizon, or even Mojarra or Lolita Palma.
So if I were you I’d transport yourself to a besieged Cadiz in 1811, you, of course, can always escape, but you won’t want to.
(blog review here)
For some reason I had put this on a wish list for if I ever bought a kindle, but not having been tempted to the dark side just yet I decided to just buy it in paperback and dive in. Pérez-Reverte’s Cadiz is intricate and rich, populated by an array finely detailed characters who, after careful nurturing by the author, are best when mingling with each other on the crowded streets of the beleaguered city.
It is perhaps Tizon who can make a small claim on being the star, and we are introduced to him as he is overseeing a prisoner being tortured for information. For some reason this made me weary of him at first, I mean a divorced alcoholic married to the job is one thing, but a torturer? But I warmed to him, his obsession with the case, trusting his gut instinct when it is completely illogical, as he tries desperately to work out the pattern of the serial killer in his city’s midst. His good friend Barrull, provides justification to feel for Tizon, even if you don’t like him. There is a drive behind the Comisario, and the deaths of the young girls haunt him, reminding him of his own lost daughter.
Moving away from the window, he returns to the desk. Anxious. Prowling like an animal in a cage, he realises. And this does not pleas him. This is not his way. Within him he feels a fury, slender and exact, sharp as a dagger. Professor Barrull’s manuscript still lies on the desk, as though mocking him: ‘here and there I found traces I can identify, but there are others that perplex me’, he reads again. The phrase buries itself in Tizon’s pride like a jagged splinter. In his professional peace of mind. Three girls murdered in the same way within six months. Fortunately for him Governor Villavicencio cuttingly pointed out some weeks ago, the war and the French siege have meant that such crimes have been relegated to the background. But this does little to assuage the comisario’s unease; the curious shame that eats away at him each time he thinks about the case. Each time he sees the mute piano and realises that the murdered girls are almost the same age as the girl who once touched the keys would have been today.
It’s not just Tizon though that we spend The Siege with. Lolita Palma is perhaps my favourite character after the Comisario. A woman succeeding in a man’s world by running her families shipping company, and even her dealing with the Corsair Captain, Pepe Lobo she never loses sight of what is most important in her life, and although she sees the end coming for her and her class, she is still willing to sacrifice in order to save it.
Outside the city, and across the lines we hear from the French, most notably Simon Defossuex, an artillery captain who spends the entire novel trying to get his bombs to the far side of Cadiz to finally take down this last bastion of Spanish freedom.
Into the middle of this world steps the serial killer, who has a set modus operandi that Tizon thinks he has figured out, and tries to flush out. The two are involved in their own game of chess on the streets of Cadiz, a game people barely notice due to the incessant bombing, until the body count starts to mount up and Tizon starts running out of time.
I loved The Siege. Pérez-Reverte sinks you into Cadiz, down to the details of the clothes and daily habits of not just he main characters but the population of a city that knows it is impregnable but still fearfully looks over it’s shoulder. This Cadiz is filled with locals and foreigners, refugees from the war with France which further complicates Tizon’s work. When those in charge start clamouring for the murderer, he knows he is running out of time, but his own fear of never find out drives him deeper into the game with the killer. Meanwhile the other characters flit about their business in the city. Lolita Palma and her business partner commission Pepe Lobo as a Corsair to bring in booty, allowing some beautifully crafted passages on the boat out in the open sea. But even as Tizon closes in on the killer, he senses his time is coming to an end, it all is. The British are forcing the ports open in return for their help and this will ruin the merchants of Cadiz. When close to the end game, Don Cayetano Valdes comments on Tizon and his, methods, that will no longer be tolerated in a new world.
‘Spain has changed,’ he said, before dismissing them from his office. ‘There is no way back, either for you or for me. Perhaps it is best that we all know where we stand.’
Tizon knows he himself is the embers of this time, as does Lolita Palma.
I won’t give away the ending, which I found strangely satisfying, although scant time is paid to the actual murderer and motive when the time comes, and although I’m not sure the Epilogue is required, I can’t work out if I’m glad it was in there or not.
I fell I’ve waffled my way though this review, I just can’t say how much I enjoyed The Siege, Full credit to the translator Frank Wynne, who has done an extraordinary job so that this reads beautifully and engagingly throughout.
For me The Siege has movie written all over it, I’m not sure if a sequel would work, but there is definite scope for some prequels, or even other stories involving Tizon, or even Mojarra or Lolita Palma.
So if I were you I’d transport yourself to a besieged Cadiz in 1811, you, of course, can always escape, but you won’t want to.
(blog review here)
C'è una famosa partita di scacchi, giocata nel 1852 tra Adolf Anderssen e Jean Dufresne e chiamata la Sempreverde, nella quale il bianco perde inesorabilmente pezzi sotto l'impietoso attacco del nero, ma, quando la scacchiera sembra desolatamente vuota, e tutto perduto, vince dando scacco matto al re nero. Sarà per questo che il commissario Tizon, che combatte le sue partite a scacchi durante l'assedio di Cadice (che guarda caso avviene tra il 1810 e il 1812) gioca coi bianchi le sue partite con l'amico professor Barrul? Perde inesorabilmente tutte le sue partite, quelle con l'avversario palese, e quelle con un raffinatissimo e omicida avversario occulto, ma anche se, come nella Sempreverde, perderà una ad una tutte le pedine, alla fine il matto sarà suo.
Lo sfondo di questa intrigante partita è nelle mani di un grande scrittore, che ti fa credere di cedere, anche se in un solo momento, a un facile romanticismo, ma, anche questa, è una mossa degli scacchi, e alla fine del libro, anche il lettore finisce sotto scacco.
Lo sfondo di questa intrigante partita è nelle mani di un grande scrittore, che ti fa credere di cedere, anche se in un solo momento, a un facile romanticismo, ma, anche questa, è una mossa degli scacchi, e alla fine del libro, anche il lettore finisce sotto scacco.
Reseña completa y más en www.escriboleeo.blogspot.com
Es un libro raro: me aburría horrores leerlo, pero quería seguir haciéndolo por curiosidad para saber quién diablos era el asesino. Sí, señores, 700 páginas de aburrimiento que engancha. ¿Lo entendéis? Yo no.
Profundiza bastante en los personajes. Demasiado. Hasta el hartazgo. Se centra en todo tipo de detalles banales que, aunque demuestran lo mucho que se ha documentado el autor, ni son significativos ni contribuyen a hacer la historia más llevadera. Todo lo contrario. Si quisiera saber más sobre obuses y morteros y pólvora y barcos, me compraría un libro específico de artillería o de barcos.
La trama principal, del comisario corrupto (que es odioso) buscando al asesino, es lo único, junto a la subtrama de Lolita Palma y Pepe lobo que se salvaría un poco de no ser porque se hacía pesadísima con innumerables descripciones y repeticiones y capítulos totalmente prescindibles.
El vocabulario, muy andaluz y muy de la época, contribuía al aburrimiento. A fe mía que no había buscado tantas palabras en el diccionario en la vida. De hecho, he tenido que buscar muchas más que en todos los libros de inglés que he leído en los últimos 5 años. Para lo que me ha servido… tanto las palabras como el significado se han perdido en mi memoria.
En definitiva: no he congeniado con el estilo del autor, ni con el libro, que debería ser mucho más corto y menos aburrido. No le he puesto el mínimo de puntuación porque, a pesar de ser un pestiño de principio a fin, me enganchó para descubrir al asesino y ver qué pasaba con los otros dos.
Es un libro raro: me aburría horrores leerlo, pero quería seguir haciéndolo por curiosidad para saber quién diablos era el asesino. Sí, señores, 700 páginas de aburrimiento que engancha. ¿Lo entendéis? Yo no.
Profundiza bastante en los personajes. Demasiado. Hasta el hartazgo. Se centra en todo tipo de detalles banales que, aunque demuestran lo mucho que se ha documentado el autor, ni son significativos ni contribuyen a hacer la historia más llevadera. Todo lo contrario. Si quisiera saber más sobre obuses y morteros y pólvora y barcos, me compraría un libro específico de artillería o de barcos.
La trama principal, del comisario corrupto (que es odioso) buscando al asesino, es lo único, junto a la subtrama de Lolita Palma y Pepe lobo que se salvaría un poco de no ser porque se hacía pesadísima con innumerables descripciones y repeticiones y capítulos totalmente prescindibles.
El vocabulario, muy andaluz y muy de la época, contribuía al aburrimiento. A fe mía que no había buscado tantas palabras en el diccionario en la vida. De hecho, he tenido que buscar muchas más que en todos los libros de inglés que he leído en los últimos 5 años. Para lo que me ha servido… tanto las palabras como el significado se han perdido en mi memoria.
En definitiva: no he congeniado con el estilo del autor, ni con el libro, que debería ser mucho más corto y menos aburrido. No le he puesto el mínimo de puntuación porque, a pesar de ser un pestiño de principio a fin, me enganchó para descubrir al asesino y ver qué pasaba con los otros dos.
This is a massive novel that will not be to everyone's liking. Rich in period detail, as well as in Spanish nouns, both proper and otherwise, it can be a bit overwhelming at times.
That said, there are multiple storylines in the book that converge to form two plotlines by the end of the book. The ending of one of these is totally satisfying and believable, the other not quite. But all in all, this is Perez-Reverte's best book at least since Queen of the South.
If you like historical fiction, particularly nautical stuff, READ IT.
That said, there are multiple storylines in the book that converge to form two plotlines by the end of the book. The ending of one of these is totally satisfying and believable, the other not quite. But all in all, this is Perez-Reverte's best book at least since Queen of the South.
If you like historical fiction, particularly nautical stuff, READ IT.
Phew, I think the last 100 pages or so is the tensest ending to a novel I've ever read! Took me a while to get to grip with the military terms and details but then I was hooked. Checkmate.
Probablemente el único libro mediocre del maestro Pérez reverte; tibio, insulso, sin sorpresas y sin historia. Decepcionante