Customer Reviews

Niebla (Cervantes & Co. Spanish Classics) (Spanish Edition)

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If you are are not a native Spanish speaker, please buy this version even if it is more expensive. You will not regret it. It really is like the editor is reading your mind...every word you want to look up is there and not just in isolation--it explains what it means within that context or phrase. Since one of the fun things Unamuno does is make up words, it can be really helpful to have that knowledgeable persona telling you which ones those are and where they came from.

If you are a native Spanish speaker but also speak English, you might find this is the version for you solely because the footnotes give just enough detail to help you see and understand the many references to other literary works, philosophers, etc. Unamuno's writing is very rich and meant for a well-educated mind--I really appreciated the references and details. These footnotes are in English and are short but are well worth it.

If you are wanting to read Niebla for a class, buy this version. If you are wanting to read it for fun, buy this version. The only thing I don't like about this version is that I had to get used to the font (the p, t, etc. are fancy)--and the cover, which is ugly. But you know what they say, don't judge a book by its cover but by its insides...and what's inside is amazing.

By the way, if you are just considering this for fun know that this edition is very easy to read, it is meant for an "educated" mind, it is hilarious, and you must not skip the introductions (they are not what they seem). Did I mention it is hilarious? This book makes me laugh every time I read it, despite the fact it also includes tragedy.

Make sure to buy this if you need to read the masterpiece in the ORIGINAL SPANISH. There's English in here, but it's not a translation, as it's just for reference in case you get confused and need help.

I used this edition in my grad seminar last fall and had a great experience. I read a few other books by Unamuno during my undergrad, but we used those black editions published back in Spain. They don't even compare to this edition. If I need to know what a whole expression means in English, or a word maybe, the old black edition provided the answer in Spanish! How does that help? I have limitations with this language as it is, so I was really disappointed that on first reading, I never got much out of this amazing book, which was at least 50 years ahead of its time.

There's so much philosophy, humor, even aspects of Don Quixote and more, but it comes across only if you can let go of the huge dictionary for a few minutes, which this Aragon edition lets you do. Like Orwell's 1984 and books like Six Characters in Search of an author by Pirandello, Mist (Niebla in Spanish) is one of those books that asks the big questions and your class discussion can go in so many directions! I recommend this edition if you've studied enough Spanish to read it, but need just a little bit of help along the way to take it all in without any problems.

It was weird because for the first time in a long, long time, I didn't need my big bilingual dictionary tethered to my table like it used to be. The other weird thing was that Aragon had a reference or definition ready to go whenever I thought I would need it. After the first two chapters, I laughed and thought the book had a bluetooth signal to my brain or something; in other words, everything I wanted to know and didn't was all there! Not just with Spanish words only, you can read the footnotes and learn all sorts of things relevant to the novel, like an encyclopedia.

I'm really having trouble letting go and re-selling it because of the introduction and glossary at the end. I NEVER READ the intro. sections to any of the Spanish literature texts we had to study. This one wasn't only helpful, but I even used it to get ideas for a paper in philosophy class. Aragon shows you how Unamuno and his masterpiece fit in the scheme of things, in history, literature and other aspects. It's becoming a weird reference material for me. I recommend it even if your professor assigned the old black book. Trust me, you won't have to touch a dictionary the whole time, or be as confused as the others, so you can just dive right into the discussion. This is a very complicated book, like you might have seen with English lit. classics by Joyce, so give yourself a chance of understanding it and enjoying it with a handy edition like this one. Whether you read it in Spanish or in English, you won't look at literature the same way again.