Jessica
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Read 8k pages in 2026
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Leí esto porque necesitaba practicar/usar mi castellano antes de viajar a América del Sur, y este libro es corto y lo encontré junto con su traducción en inglés. De hecho nunca necesité abrir la traducción; el libro está escrito en un castellano bastante simple que podía entender sin problemas...
La historia es triste y no sé lo que debo decir de ella. Es de una pareja pobre, un hombre (“el coronel”) que participó en una guerra civil hace 15 años, pero nunca ha recibido su pensión, y su esposa. Su hijo está muerto pero tienen un gallo que (me parece) tratan de vender durante la mejor parte del libro. Básicamente, me parece como una exploración de su hambre, su pobreza, y las dificultades de su matrimonio... está bien pero no me fascina.
Por favor perdóneme si hice errores :)
Leí esto porque necesitaba practicar/usar mi castellano antes de viajar a América del Sur, y este libro es corto y lo encontré junto con su traducción en inglés. De hecho nunca necesité abrir la traducción; el libro está escrito en un castellano bastante simple que podía entender sin problemas...
La historia es triste y no sé lo que debo decir de ella. Es de una pareja pobre, un hombre (“el coronel”) que participó en una guerra civil hace 15 años, pero nunca ha recibido su pensión, y su esposa. Su hijo está muerto pero tienen un gallo que (me parece) tratan de vender durante la mejor parte del libro. Básicamente, me parece como una exploración de su hambre, su pobreza, y las dificultades de su matrimonio... está bien pero no me fascina.
Por favor perdóneme si hice errores :)
For the first three-quarters of this book, the impression that I couldn't get away from was that it was basically a less painful version of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. Both books essentially detail the fortunes of a particular family over the generations - but at least in the case of “House of the Spirits”, it's over a few less generations, and Allende also knows a greater variety of names.
At any rate, the first three-quarters of the book are very slow, and they're okay but honestly not very memorable. Every time I put the book down for a few days, I'd struggle to remember who all the characters were or what had happened to them when I picked it up again. By the time I finally got three quarters of the way through the book, my memory for it had improved a little... which was good, as the last quarter of the book is where it picks up a lot.
Basically, as this book is partly a portrait of Chile over the twentieth century as well as one of this family, the last quarter of the book is where Salvador Allende's government comes to power, and then there is the coup, and then the dictatorship. The impact this has on the family made me feel like those 300 pages of establishing all these characters in laborious and painstaking detail were almost worthwhile.
Overall, I did enjoy this book - I really did - but the first three quarters were just so slow and it got a bit tiresome. It's the kind of book that is probably much better the faster you read it, so you don't forget who the characters are between reading sessions - and maybe it'd seem less slow if I'd done that, too.
For the first three-quarters of this book, the impression that I couldn't get away from was that it was basically a less painful version of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. Both books essentially detail the fortunes of a particular family over the generations - but at least in the case of “House of the Spirits”, it's over a few less generations, and Allende also knows a greater variety of names.
At any rate, the first three-quarters of the book are very slow, and they're okay but honestly not very memorable. Every time I put the book down for a few days, I'd struggle to remember who all the characters were or what had happened to them when I picked it up again. By the time I finally got three quarters of the way through the book, my memory for it had improved a little... which was good, as the last quarter of the book is where it picks up a lot.
Basically, as this book is partly a portrait of Chile over the twentieth century as well as one of this family, the last quarter of the book is where Salvador Allende's government comes to power, and then there is the coup, and then the dictatorship. The impact this has on the family made me feel like those 300 pages of establishing all these characters in laborious and painstaking detail were almost worthwhile.
Overall, I did enjoy this book - I really did - but the first three quarters were just so slow and it got a bit tiresome. It's the kind of book that is probably much better the faster you read it, so you don't forget who the characters are between reading sessions - and maybe it'd seem less slow if I'd done that, too.
By the time I got to the last section of this book, I was crying, which is my usual way of distinguishing a 5-star book from a 4-star one.
Either way, I loved this book. The characters are warm and seem real, the narration is quirky, and the setting of Nazi Germany is painted very matter-of-factly, which I appreciated. I am on a boat with an Internet connection that didn't even exist up to here, so I might leave this here, but regardless – excellent book.
By the time I got to the last section of this book, I was crying, which is my usual way of distinguishing a 5-star book from a 4-star one.
Either way, I loved this book. The characters are warm and seem real, the narration is quirky, and the setting of Nazi Germany is painted very matter-of-factly, which I appreciated. I am on a boat with an Internet connection that didn't even exist up to here, so I might leave this here, but regardless – excellent book.
Overall I really liked this book, but not everything about it. For instance, corporate espionage does not really intrigue me as a theme, so the saga around Wennerstrom was a little tedious. Similarly, pretty much everything about the finances or internal operations of the magazine, Millennium, was not interesting. Luckily, there was more to the novel than that...
Mostly I really liked Lisbeth Salander, and her attitude to revenge. Actually, now I think of it, Salander was by far the main thing I liked about this book. I also liked Mikael, although he clearly spent too much time fussing about Millennium. (Actually, I just realised that's the name of the trilogy? Damn...)
Most of the characters in this book are quite wealthy, either capitalists or really well-off journalists, and I've gotta say that this is not my favourite segment of society to read novels about, which is probably why Salander appealed to me so much. Not only was she not a member of the upper classes, she also had an excellent contempt for cops and state authorities in general, which I appreciated. As for those rich, at least a lot of the members of the Vanger dynasty were portrayed as self-obsessed, nasty pieces of work, or even Nazis... I don't know if that's a positive though because there were SO MANY OF THEM and they got hard to tell apart.
Like I said, overall I really liked this – it's a page-turner, salacious enough to not get boring, etc.. Except for the corporate intrigue, that was boring. But aside from that!
Overall I really liked this book, but not everything about it. For instance, corporate espionage does not really intrigue me as a theme, so the saga around Wennerstrom was a little tedious. Similarly, pretty much everything about the finances or internal operations of the magazine, Millennium, was not interesting. Luckily, there was more to the novel than that...
Mostly I really liked Lisbeth Salander, and her attitude to revenge. Actually, now I think of it, Salander was by far the main thing I liked about this book. I also liked Mikael, although he clearly spent too much time fussing about Millennium. (Actually, I just realised that's the name of the trilogy? Damn...)
Most of the characters in this book are quite wealthy, either capitalists or really well-off journalists, and I've gotta say that this is not my favourite segment of society to read novels about, which is probably why Salander appealed to me so much. Not only was she not a member of the upper classes, she also had an excellent contempt for cops and state authorities in general, which I appreciated. As for those rich, at least a lot of the members of the Vanger dynasty were portrayed as self-obsessed, nasty pieces of work, or even Nazis... I don't know if that's a positive though because there were SO MANY OF THEM and they got hard to tell apart.
Like I said, overall I really liked this – it's a page-turner, salacious enough to not get boring, etc.. Except for the corporate intrigue, that was boring. But aside from that!