Re: [tlug] OT: Does Jose support Fidel?

[Raedwolf Summoner <raroofu@example.com>]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" wrote:

> OK, well, as I say, I don't know any Cubanos well enough to think
> they'd trust me with hon'ne. Franqui's book ... do you think that
> would do as the first real book in Spanish I've read since Don
> Quixote? (And that was 35 years ago. :-)

Don Quixote?? Jeez, it's been ages since I've looked at that one. I remember it as a long, boring, musty tome filled with arcane puns and some good humorous images if you could wade through the sludge long enough to clean them out of it. I guess people of leisure didn't have much else to do back then. If you've got the stomach for that, you could read most anything in Spanish. I've got it on my shelf here somewhere, but am not inclined to review it. Personally, I thoroughly prefer the stuff written in Mexican Spanish such as Fuentes or Rulfo -- or even the annual rainfall reports, but for god's sake not Cervantes! For the antique stuff, Lazarillo de Tormes is way better, full of ridiculous situations and slapstick humor and not so much of the tortured puns. Franqui's book is definitely worth a read, one of the most fascinating to me that I've read. The English translation should be just fine, unless you really want to brush up on your Spanish. It isn't full of Cubanisms as one might have expected, it seems to be written with the broader Spanish-speaking world in mind, and the contents are more important in this case than the language. I wouldn't think the idiom adds much to it as it does in some books, such as Rulfo, or Lewis' Los Hijos de Sanchez, or Ibarguengoitia's Instrucciones para vivir en Mexico.

For a thorough review of why the communist ideals are impossible to actually employ(*) -- even when you have 100% voluntary cooperation -- one should read Friedrich August von Hayek's cogent The Road to Serfdom. Even though it was written over 60 years ago, it is possibly even more relevant today than when it was first published.
(*) I tend to agree with the guy who said, "great idea, but wrong species!"

> Oh, there was a *great* page up at one time, with a photo of Asahara
> floating in the air (Aum propaganda, I guess) on the right side of the
> page and the levitating GNU cartoon on the left. The caption was
> something like ??????

Sorry, the digest doesn't forward the kanji.
 
> You proto-backslider, you!

Thank you! I am rather proud of that. I enjoy blasting clay pigeons with my shotgun almost as much as I enjoy drinking beer and shooting pool while listening to raucous Mexican music.

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