Customer Reviews

El Gaucho Martin Fierro (Spanish Edition)

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

 

 

The classic 1872 narrative poem celebrating the disappearing gaucho way of life. The book gets five stars from me; I subtracted a star because of problems with the e-book.

This Kindle edition appears to be identical to the Project Gutenberg e-book, which is free as are all books at the volunteer-supported Project Gutenberg website. The Kindle folks don't appear to have added any value for the price they are charging.

The main problem is that the verse formatting disappears after the first few pages; stanzas are run on as paragraphs. I find myself reading more slowly, looking for the rhymes and counting syllables to "hear" the lines of verse that aren't visible on the screen. There also appear to be some minor editing errors, though it's hard to be sure since the narrator is an illiterate gaucho speaking in dialect.

For one dollar less, you can have the Spanish version of not just Martin Fierro but also the equally important sequel right here: El gaucho Martín Fierro y La vuelta de Martín Fierro (Spanish Edition) Someone has actually edited the 1.99 version and made sure the line breaks are in the right place so you don't have to guess how it's supposed to be while you read. Much more recommended than this version, in which they have merely copied and pasted from Project Gutenberg.

What a treat to be able to read this book on my Kindle in the native language. Martin Fierro was a hero to my father, who immigrated to the US from Argentina. I think every boy in Argentina wanted to be a hero gaucho at one time. They were the cowboys of the Argentine Pampas.