Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

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BeaP
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby BeaP » Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:18 am

Have you thought about reading books or essays on Márquez? Not biographies, books on his works. It might be a stupid idea (I can't really reflect on my own language learning in an objective way), but I have the impression that the conversation with texts, having thoughts about them formed linguistically in the foreign language can be very beneficial. Even if its's just a discussion with yourself. These books also draw attention to parts of the novels that can be analysed in depth for a better understanding of the whole. Plus, it might be interesting to read other people's ideas, and you don't have to figure out everything on your own.
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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Dec 16, 2021 4:27 pm

BeaP wrote:Have you thought about reading books or essays on Márquez? Not biographies, books on his works. It might be a stupid idea (I can't really reflect on my own language learning in an objective way), but I have the impression that the conversation with texts, having thoughts about them formed linguistically in the foreign language can be very beneficial. Even if it's just a discussion with yourself. These books also draw attention to parts of the novels that can be analysed in depth for a better understanding of the whole. Plus, it might be interesting to read other people's ideas, and you don't have to figure out everything on your own.

That's an interesting question. Thank you for sharing your ideas.

I haven't really searched much for such books.

I read a linguistic analysis essay, but that was more technical than about Cien años de soledad per se. E.G., difficulty based on length of words/sentences, positivity/negativity of words, etc. Things that a computer program can analyze. It was interesting, but like a lot of academic studies concludes with "you already know all this already, but I put numbers to it" and "more investigation is necessary". ;)

Several months ago, I watched an extensive youtube series (about 20 hours) by Jesús G. Maestro. He analyzed each chapter using his methodology from Crítica de la razón literaria. I might should watch that series again. All those months ago, his lectures were easier to understand than the book itself, although not perfectly comprehensible. My knowledge of Cien años de soledad was more limited then too.

I'm thinking now that rewatching the series with my new background may be very interesting. Back then, I discounted (and still do), his primary thesis that the book is about Latin America longing for the good old days when Spain ruled, rather than the North Americans. Since Jesus G. Maestro has written a trilogy on this sort of analysis, I'm certain he's better at analysis than I am, but that doesn't mean I have to agree. Just as an aside, there's a certain famous doctor who never mentioned the efficacy of Vitamin D with a certain new "bug". He also discounted certain notions about its possible origin, which as a disinterested individual strike me as more plausible than the then touted "party line" that "experts" were parroting.

Didn't mean to get off track there, but I'm with you. Linguistic analysis is somewhat different than the story itself. I'm still figuring out the story for myself, and not in a particular hurry to finish that. I'm familiar with other books that I come to a minority opinion on "what it means", and I'm a believer in sayings like, "if everyone agrees with you, you're probably wrong". :lol:

I don't think you're suggesting something like "read the secrets on how to win the video game" or something like that. The meaning of a finely crafted novel can have several different facets. I like the organic, build from the small pieces, rather than a top-down approach. (That would be my main criticism of the Jesus G. Maestro analysis as I understand it. E.G, thinking it's a political novel with an axe to grind, or that José Arcadio Buendía is simple patán (ignoramous)). The characters came from real people, and everyone has their own ignorance, self-centeredness, solitude, tragedy, etc. Exploring the multi-faceted story and characters is all interesting to me. Magical Realism seems to have really taken off with this particular book and I like it as a way to tell a story.

You very clearly mentioned books, essays, and reading, and I tangentially moved to "listened to or watched".

If you're thinking about reading some sort of academic analysis of Cien años de soledad I will join you and probably have some opinions to share about the ignorance of the academics. ;)

Even without a book, discussing Jesus G. Maestro's analysis could merit a thread, perhaps in the Spanish room.
Last edited by luke on Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Christi » Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:10 pm

luke wrote:
Even without a book, discussing Jesus G. Maestro's analysis could merit a thread, perhaps in the Spanish room.


I haven't read the book yet, but I'd definitely read an analysis on it if you guys ever decide to have one here!
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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Dec 16, 2021 9:12 pm

Christi wrote:
luke wrote:Even without a book, discussing Jesus G. Maestro's analysis could merit a thread, perhaps in the Spanish room.

I haven't read the book yet, but I'd definitely read an analysis on it if you guys ever decide to have one here!

I was thinking there are a few different youtube lecture series or discussions of the book. There must be at least a handful of interesting PhD papers out there too.

It came on me that the Real Academia Española edition of Cien años de soledad has several essays. Many of them are written by Gabriel García Márquez' author friends and are very good. I haven't read them all yet, but there are about 200 pages worth of essays in the book by many different people.

One other thing came to me, with respect to literary criticism and Cien años de soledad; if it's in English and the literary critic has only read 100 Years of Solitude, then, well I'll let draw your own conclusion on validity and merit of their analysis or criticism (Salmon Rushdi notwithstanding). ;)

The first bomb I want to drop, while it's here in my head, with respect to capítulo 1 y mi comprensión de Jesus G. Maestro's acerca de:
El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarías con el dedo.

Quizás no fue por ignorancia, sino porque en tal tiempo, la lengua indígena fue de rigor. Quiero analizar esta, mi especulación. Lo incierto es que la gente en ese tiempo fueron descendientes del Aragonés y otra. Debo releer esto y recoger los detalles. No era una bisabuela indígena? También puede ser que algunas indígenas los acompañaron.

That's enough. I'm using some indicative where it might should be subjunctive.

In other words: That objects had to be specified by pointing is not in and of itself sufficient evidence of ignorance. They may have been ignorant of the Spanish word, but maybe there was some, "the natives call it xyzzy and I'm not sure what we call it in Spanish because it doesn't exist Spain and no academy has given it a name".

So, the upside of analysis is it drives me deeper into thinking about specific relations and timelines. Sometimes there has to be speculation, but sometimes all that's needed is investigation. That's where Jesus G. Maestro shines. He gives the author the ultimate say. E.G., when no speculation is necessary, it shouldn't be done.

One other thread that I want to investigate is time orientation of chapters. Some start in the future and end in the past. I haven't detected that he's done this more than twice (based on opening and closing paragraphs). Within a chapter, there's often a lot of forward and backward leaps through time, often in a single sentence.

Perhaps you can feel the passion and understand why I'm tempted to start on page 1 one more time. :lol: Maybe with this upcoming trip, I can put the essays in the RAE edition on my reading list.

Finally, Rushdi did some speculation. Interesting, but I remain unconvinced on the bomb he dropped. He's certainly less ignorant than I am, but there's a slogan for one of the 50 states, Missouri, the "Show me" state, and it's my favorite state slogan.
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: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
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BeaP
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby BeaP » Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:13 am

My impression is that real academic work is either behind a paywall (and only certain institutes are allowed to subscribe) or was published 30 years ago, and is available in second-hand bookstores once every five years. So it was nice of me to suggest you this thing. Anyway, partly to make amends and partly because I'm also interested, I searched online and found a book from a scholar I know (I studied philology at university). It's in Spanish of course. I know that it is good, because the Hungarian version was compulsory reading for us. It was crazy cheap, so I ordered it without hesitation. I'll find a way to share it with you if it arrives. I wouldn't be surprised if I got a notification that it was a mistake, and it's not in stock. Fingers crossed.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Fri Dec 17, 2021 12:21 pm

BeaP wrote:So it was nice of me to suggest you this thing. Anyway, partly to make amends and partly because I'm also interested, I searched online and found a book from a scholar I know (I studied philology at university). It's in Spanish of course. I know that it is good, because the Hungarian version was compulsory reading for us.

Of course it was nice. Amends? That's one of the tricky things about language. Misunderstanding. And my passion getting in the way. I definitely appreciate your comments. And any disrespect for academics is really limited to those that betray the public, like that graznido I referred to (imho). (una máscara casera es mejor que ninguna, si alguien la necesita; y la vitamina D es barata y hay muchos los que la necesitan, pero no no no, necesitamos confiar en las incertidumbres de los que ganen con sus "avisos").

And any harshness I demonstrate to the opinions of others - and I thought I was always respectful of yours because I do indeed value them - is a painful defect of character where I make a lot out of a detail. It's both a blessing and a curse. When it's done wrongly, clearly a curse, when it's done right, it leads to personal enlightenment.

I think essays and analysis are hard to do well. If they don't inspire further investigation, to me, that automatically means they aren't that well done. So, back to the academic challenge. If one can't produce an essay or analysis that even approximates the magnitude and profundity of the masterpiece they're analyzing, or at least inspires, then they're like a child with a roof over their head and food in their belly and safety complaining that things just aren't quite good enough.

BTW, "no breakfast, walk, cold shower, study" surprised me last night when I found I'd already finished the reading/writing exercises for FSI unit 39. I wanted to do them in advance of completing the unit, but I'd forgotten that, BOOM, I already did it :) (there are 2 of these exercises in each unit, so 38.1, 38.2, 39.1, 39.2, all in the course of about 4 days, when usually at least a week and some dread would separate them).
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: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

BeaP
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby BeaP » Fri Dec 17, 2021 12:55 pm

Good essays inspire further investigation and provoke thoughts and discussion. Real scholars dealing with literature would never say that their interpretation is factual. I've spent 5 years at the university studying literature, have had a lot of professors, and nobody ever said that there was only one interpretation possible, on the contrary. The problem is that in spite of the internet the best essays are not widely available. But I hope I'll get the book and than we'll see if I can change your opinion at least a bit. ;)
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Herodotean » Fri Dec 17, 2021 2:45 pm

BeaP wrote:My impression is that real academic work is either behind a paywall (and only certain institutes are allowed to subscribe) or was published 30 years ago, and is available in second-hand bookstores once every five years.


Many scholars post their work on https://www.academia.edu/; I'm able to find lots of articles and book chapters there that would otherwise require a university library to access. Also, the publishers who run the paywalls are usually more than happy to let anyone subscribe or pay for individual articles (at exorbitant rates). Open-access publishing -- where the authors (or their grants/institutions/etc.) pay the fees instead of the readers -- is more common in the sciences, I think, but is making inroads in the humanities.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Le Baron » Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:36 pm

There was a law here a few years ago (I don't even remember if it was followed through) to make publicly-funded university research open access to the public. Most universities worldwide favour open access models, but the university publishing system is dominated by zakkenvullers like a well-known publishing house sharing the name of a type of Spaniel.
Even the researchers themselves are gypped. Back when I was doing work on African monetary systems, a chapter in a collaborative book was basically stolen from me with legalese and when this was published elsewhere the later publisher would have been forced to pay dearly for it, so that I had to significantly alter it. Research publishing is a racket.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Dec 18, 2021 11:11 pm

Finished FSI unit 39 (of 55) this morning.

Tomorrow's the big road trip. Rather than continue with Vivir para contarla during my walk this morning, somehow I found myself en la Cienega. Quizás es que había acabado a mirar 30-40 minutos de Jesus G. Maestro's análisis del capítulo uno, y no pude soportar mi propia critica pequeñita de la del Maestro.

Solo una cosa que quiero discutir. Muchas veces el Maestro tiene ganas de criticar a los otros críticos, quienes han perdido el rumbo simbólico de la historia. No puedo resistir darles mi propria respuesta a una de las suyas.

Cien años de soledad wrote:Los hombres de la expedición se sintieron abrumados por sus recuerdos más antiguos en aquel paraíso de humedad y silencio, anterior al pecado original, donde las botas se hundían en pozos de aceites humeantes y los machetes destrozaban lirios sangrientos y salamandras doradas.

Muy bonita, la cita.

"Pecado original", que evidentemente algunos otros criticos han comparado a ideas de Jean Jacques Rouseau y el noble salvaje, o algo así. En eso, por lo menos, los indígenas se podrían clasificar como salvajes, de la comodidad de nuestro perspectivo del siglo XXI. No les voy a dar opinión acerca de tales cosas aquí y ahora. Ni de "noble", ni de "salvaje".

Lo que queiro discutir es pecado original.

Si los futuros habitantes de Macondo quisieron hablar sobre tiempos mas prehistoricos, es antes de la llegada de los que llevaron el concepto de pecado original. Quienes lo portaron la idea a los indígenas? Los españoles y los catolicos. Muy simple.

Aparentemente, otros criticos han hablado de la virginidad de esos tiempos. Por los fundadores de Macondo, no era antes del pecado de Adán y Eva con la manzana. Y, si algun crítico piensa que esa virginidad antes del pecado original es antes del nacimiento de Moisés, por ejemplo, también, no estaría de acuerdo:

Anterior al pecado original simplemente es antes de la llegada de los españoles y los católicos.

¡Quizás!

A propósito, no escribí la arriba para desfiar a ningun grupo o religion.

Probablemente, voy a cambiar mi opinión varias veces con respecto al uso del pecado original en la historia. Aún mientras he estado escribiendo esto ya he pensado de otras posibilidades.

Tal vez "el pecado original" es la muerte de Prudencio Aguilar.

No salieron los fundadores a su recorrido a traves de la selva después del muerto? Sí.

Bueno. Es probable que haya escrito algo de manera inapropiada, y si lo he hecho, discúlpenme hermanas y hermanos.

Y si quieres ayudarme en mis pecados de gramática, etc, tienes mi permiso de darme tu consejo.

And if you want to write in English, that's fine too. Of course!

No one has to be right here, least of all me. It's about the journey, the exploration, not the destination.

O tal vez el pecado original se refiere a la más corta oración del capítulo uno. Dos palabras.
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