RURAL TRILOGY: / [Paperback]

Federico Garcia Lorca (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055334434X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553344349
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,309,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Direct and often magical, January 4, 2009

By 

Gary Sprandel (Frankfort, Kentucky) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RURAL TRILOGY: / (Paperback)

The book contains 3 "folk tragedies" written from 1933-1936. All share a passion and directness, and all seem to have as a theme of frustration and despair, and tension between passion and duty. In Blood Wedding, the balance tips toward passion, with the new bride choosing or irresistibly drawn in a way she didn't expect. From Garcia Lorca of course there are always poetic phrases: (Wounds of wax/, Salve of sorrow/. Sleeping by morning/, watching by night"). In Yerma the frustrations of a childless woman are contrasted with the man, who wants nothing more than to love the wife ("You are what I'm after! In the moonlight, you are beautiful"). This introduces us to mysteries such as Delores the Conjurer, and the annual pilgrimage to Moclin (from the introduction "where all manner of pious ritual and impious coupling went on."). The House of Bernarda Alba, seems very different and harder to understand. There is no poetry here, only the seeming eavesdropping on a bitter old woman, Bernarda, and the comings and goings at her house. The only way to get out of this suppression is tragic ("When you least expect it, lightning strikes! When you least expect, your heart stops."). Perhaps Bernarda represents the fascists, that killed Garcia Lorca. These all deal directly with the most primal of human feelings. I regret that I cannot read the originals, and would love to see these staged.