Customer Reviews

Cultural Atlas of Spain & Portugal

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book offers an interesting, non-textbook style cultural and socio-political history of Spain and Portugal, well illustrated by plenty of excellent photographs. The special sections on cultural, architectural features and the great artists of the countries, like "paella", "The Great Mosque of Cordoba" and "Dali" are excellent. Another good thing about this book is that you can start reading from anywhere because the sections are self-contained. Unfortunately, not enough is mentioned about Portugal, at least not to the proportion it deserves. It is good book for those planning to visit the countries as well as those who have been there and just want to sppreciate more the history and culture of the Iberia.

Words drop slowly, one after another, in long languid sentences. Reading WHAT THE NIGHT TELLS THE DAY is a bit like sitting at the knee of an old storyteller and listening carefully to his tale. Like all reminiscences, this one tends to drift a bit. Stories come out to startle the reader, and and then retreat, changing into something else - a philosophical discourse, perhaps. Yet, somehow, the slight unevenness in tone seems to make the book all the more authentic. Disconcerting for purists, the book's "identity" might annoy some readers. The cover declares it to be a novel, but the inside jacket tell us that the writer has turned from his usual fiction and has written a classical autobiography. The problem here may be that no one knows how to classify this beautiful tale. But the style is truly one of memoir; it is not long within the pages of this book that the reader forgets about the question of fiction vs. memoir and gets lost in the power of the writing. It no longer matters whether the words are near truth or disguised truth. One just feels the characters and, most importantly, the feeling. Bianciotti's strength is an almost pastoral sense of portraying the personal. He renders an interior life for an outside audience in a way not unlike a minister interpreting the Bible for his/her parishoners. The book shuld be read by anyone wanting to read prose of tremendous power and by readers interested in the entire emotional package of the homosexual experience, not necessarily the erotic. Bianciotti does all of this well, but not as well as Yukio Mishima who covered much the same material in his classic novel, CONFESSIONS OF A MASK. The two books have similarities, but Mishima's is far superior, and as well as allowing the reader inside of the mind of someone coming to terms with their sexuality, Mishima gives much more of a feeling of Japan than Bianciotti manages of Argentina. Still, WHAT THE NIGHT TELLS THE DAY is highly recommended.

This book is excellent. It is exactly what it says it is, a cultural atlas (map of culture). The book gives an refreshing survey of Iberian history. The book covers the Phonicians, Greeks thru the death of Franco. The book abounds with topographic and cultural maps. A must buy!!!!

It is an alright book, I needed it for a class and was a little disappointed with the contents. As a brief overview it was fine but I think there is a reason it is no longer in print.

Unfortunately the authors have no idea what the word ATLAS means (this seems to be the case with most recent so-called atlases that I have seen). Although there are a few maps, anyone who was hoping for an extensive series of interesting and detailed maps will be sorely disappointed.