April English MC - Voting starts today

[Ayrween]

So, Agatha Christie's novel has won? Excelent! Or there would be more mc if people are interested?

[DarkLady Juliet]

So, these are the results:

1st - The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie [ 6 votes]
2nd - One more day by Mitch Albom [ 5 votes]

3rd - Room by Emma Donoghue [ 2 votes]
3rd - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald [ 2 votes]

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky [ 1 ]
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens [ 1 ]
The adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain [ 1 ]
Something to tell you by Hanif Kureishi [ 1 ]

According to the rules, we need a minimum of 3 people to start a Miniclub. This is our first experiment, and as I see it, the response has been great. We all have lots to read, but we are all very interested in sharing comments in English. I would propose to read one per month, so that we can participate in other MCs in Spanish or read whatever we feel like. Of course, this is not compulsory, and we may or may not follow all MCs or the opposite. But I think it will be very nice to have as many participants as possible, to enrich the debates.

So, starting the 1st of April, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

As there are a lot of people interested in One more day, we could have another MC for May:

1st May starting date to read One more day .

We could follow the same order according to the expressed wishes or propose other dates and books for future MCs…

1st June The Great Gastby - F. Scott Fitzgerald .

1st July The Room - Emma Donoghue .

I hope this solution is easy and painless for most of us. If you do not agree… we can talk it over. Just remember this is an option to discover books, to talk about them and most important, to have a good time and communicate.

[LauraCo]

I like it

[Ayrween]

I'll try to participate in both mc. I'm sure they're going to be very interesting readings to pass a great time and with the opportunity to comunicate in English.

I think you have organized the English miniclub very well, Juliet. Thanks a lot.

[ignotus]

On that, Shakespeare is well considered, but some people, for instance myself, think that some of his characters lack strength, and are poorly depicted. He wasn't original at all, he took stories and retold them in a fashionable way, so that people could go to the theatres, laugh, cry, spend a good time, and pay for the show... Modern critics can try to squeeze his plays as much as they want, but even a lot of juice from a TV ad can be extracted if we want to. Shakespeare plays were "best sellers" of his time. As much as Stephen King's are now. (I had some trouble at University with these opinions )

To this day, I've been unable to enjoy the shakespearean genius. Of course, I'm not the least bit of an expert, "knowing" only "Coriolanus", "Hamlet" and "Love's Labour's lost"; but impressed by such a boundless praise from people like Harold Bloom ("Shakespeare and the invention of the human", nothing less), the only sense I made out of this was about the supposedly unknown to their day capacity of his characters to "overhear" themselves. I made feeble attemps to understand it: one of them based on the book "Introducción a Shakespeare" by Salvador Oliva, where now I rediscover what follows (I'm pretty sure everyone here is fluent in Spanish, so I leave it untranslated):

Ahora bien, utilizar tantos versos sólo para caracterízar no es el procedimiento de Shakespeare. Para él, una digresión así para caracterizar el ama o para introducir un fragmento cómico sería un gasto innecesario de energía. Su preocupación por la acción es primordial y todo aquello que nos pueda parecer una digresión tiene siempre una función en la acción

Amazing coincidence, isn't it ? But I remained unimpressed. There was also a book in my father's library, "Las sinfonías de Beethoven", plenty of technical details that rendered it virtually unreadable to me (I could not ask my father, because he died when I was a little child, leaving me with a lot of unanswered questions). I did not know by then that Berlioz himself was a composer --he can be considered a romantic composer, and it is known that romanticism rediscovered Shakespeare. He writes in his book:

Esto me recuerda al pobre Adolfo Nourrit. Me confesaba un día que de todas las obras de Shakespeare no admiraba más que Macbeth y que sobre todo parecíale absurdo e ininteligible Hamlet. Tres años después vino a decirme, con la emoción de un entusiasta reconcentrado: "Hamlet es la obra maestra del poeta filósofo más grande que ha existido. Hoy lo comprendo. Me ha invadido cabeza y corazón, me ha embriagado. Usted habrá conservado una opinión singular de mi sentido poético y de mi inteligencia... Devuélvame su estimación". Alas! Poor Yorick!

I think it is Isaac Asimov who also writes about somebody's complaints about that work ("Hamlet") plenty of ohs and ahs. I'm still waiting for such a revelation. Now I know that there are intellectual fashions --that incidentally can become full-blown fads. On the other hand, the artist's drive, their capability of working hard and the ability to present their work in the market is no small part of their success --nevertheless, there are indeed many exceptions. So I don't know, maybe someday I will understand.

[Carmen Neke]

So this Friday we'll be starting the first MC with The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Will there be a new thread for this book? It already has one in Spanish, but it would seem a bit strange if we start posting messages in English there, wouldn't it?

[DarkLady Juliet]

¡Ignotus! I was beginning to miss you... I'm thinking about starting a thread on Shakespeare where we can discuss his "greatness".

So this Friday we'll be starting the first MC with The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Will there be a new thread for this book? It already has one in Spanish, but it would seem a bit strange if we start posting messages in English there, wouldn't it?

Carmen, I have to ask the moderators, I was wondering about that too. I'll let you know in this same thread.

[Murke]

I would like to join you, but I'm afraid I can't, not this time, at least. I would like to join in May with Room, but we'll see when the time comes, I think I will be very busy with Thomas Mann by that time .

[lucia]

You have to open a new thread here, like they are doing with the mc in catalan. They have their room in the index of this forum.

[LauraCo]

For April MC I'll join it a week later o more like this because I have a lot of work to do, but I'm eager to start the MC

[DarkLady Juliet]

For April MC I'll join it a week later o more like this because I have a lot of work to do, but I'm eager to start the MC

No problem. Well, yes, I must be sincere, there is going to be a slight problem... when you see we start talking like crazy, you won't be able to wait.

The link is here.

Thanks Lucía.

[Dulce001]

I´m going to read it but I read very slowly.

[DarkLady Juliet]

I´m going to read it but I read very slowly.

Take your time. We are looking forward to seeing your comments.

[gaditana]

I´m going to read it but I read very slowly.

me too

[Ayrween]

Me too. I'm slower reading in English. That's why some times I'm lazy to read in this language and I prefer Spanish.