El blog de Maria

Jacqui said:
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 @ 7:48 AM

Hola Maria,

Can you give me a brief outline of what it is about, and what level of spanish is required to be able to enjoy it? I can read and understand a lot more than I can write and don't mind referring to the dictionary to enjoy a book, if it's not too difficult to read.

Jacqui

Maria said:
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 @ 2:03 PM

Jacqui:

A comment by someone in Amazon. It is very well described.


By R. Peterson "International citizen":

Written in the 1950s by a Spanish-born, US University professor, this is a very funny story about a young, rather innocent college-aged gal named Nancy who has taken a year to study in Spain. She finds herself in Seville and quickly enmeshed in a group of, for lack of a better word, gypsies.

The book is centered around Nancy's desire to study this particular sub-culture and the funniest occasions arise when Nancy tries to understand all of the slang to which she is constantly introduced. I have only ever seen the book in Spanish and it works wonderfully well in Spanish since the string of chronic misunderstandings between Nancy and her boyfriend and the other Spaniards she encounters are based on her assumption of what words and phrases actually mean.

To someone for whom (Spain, or "Castilian" ) Spanish is a first language, this is a weepily funny book as the reader follows Nancy from each party to each visit to each trip and finds her constantly assuming the most innocent definitions and intentions from the least innocent of speakers and situations.