{"id":160,"date":"2005-11-25T17:19:57","date_gmt":"2005-11-25T22:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=160"},"modified":"2024-03-20T18:09:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T22:09:37","slug":"the-queen-of-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/160","title":{"rendered":"The Queen of the South"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Queen of the South<\/a><\/em> (2002) Arturo Perez-Reverte<\/a> translated by Andrew Hurley<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If you’d like to know the power of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s writing, pick up this book, read a few pages, then put the book down and try to forget the story. <\/p>\n

A couple of months ago I picked up a book, thought it looked interesting, but decided to get it later, since I already had enough books that day. But the book stuck with me, and I decided that I had to read the story.<\/p>\n

So I spent two months trying to find the book that stuck in my head. I flipped through every Arturo Perez-Reverte book I could find in the mystery section to no luck. I then decided that I must have misremembered the author, and was stuck trying to figure out what book I picked up and then foolishly put down.<\/p>\n

Luckily for me, I was wandering through the fiction section and saw The Queen of the South<\/em> by Arturo Perez-Reverte (Why this one book was in the new release\/best seller fiction section, when all his other books were in the mystery section is beyond me). Picked it up and opened read the first paragraph:<\/p>\n

The telephone rang, and she knew she was going to die. She knew it with such certainty that she froze, the razor motionless, her hair stuck to her face by the steam from the hot water that condensed in big drops on the tile walls. R-r-ring–r-r-ring. She stayed very still, holding her breath as though immobility or silence night change the course of what had already happened.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was it! Finally! I grabbed the book and then wandered around trying to find Michael, afraid that if I put down the book I’d lose it again, and have to spend another two months wondering what happened to the woman in the bath.<\/p>\n

So did the book live up to it’s first line? For the most part, yes.<\/p>\n

The story moves back and forth through time. Part in the present–the research of a journalist writing a story about Teresa Mendoza–and then the Teresa’s story as she would have experienced it. The switching back and forth was frustrating at first, because the journalist’s segments seemed like an interruption, but eventually I enjoyed them, as they were another angle through which to understand the Teresa Mendoza. <\/p>\n

And although on the face of it she seems simple enough, she is not a simple character, and I was more than halfway through the book before I realized with a shock precisely what she had become.<\/p>\n

The major flaw, however, is I did not care for the translation of this book in comparison to his other books I have read. There were a lot of words that were untranslated, and although they seemed to be primarily pejorative ones, I didn’t understand why they couldn’t be translated. The translator had no problems using “fucking” and “bitch” and so forth, so why were these other words untranslated? Is there a word that’s worse<\/strong> than “fucking” that can’t be translated?<\/p>\n

I found this very frustrating, because I felt like I was missing part of the story, since I was missing a portion of the dialogue. Hopefully his other books are translated Margaret Jull Costa, who did an excellent job with The Flanders Panel<\/em> and The Fencing Master<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The story tells of Teresa Mendoza, who escapes a death sentence after her pilot boyfriend is killed by the local drug lords for double crossing them. It tells of her escape and how she rebuilds her life–though not in a way that the majority of society would necessarily approve of.<\/p>\n

The story is at times brutal–this is not a book that I am planning on loaning my grandmother–yet fascinating. There are horrible parts, where evil occurs, yet I couldn’t look away, because I had to know what happened.<\/p>\n

I also really liked the cover of this printing–the way it seems to reflect what was happening internally to the main character. Very nice.<\/p>\n

The Queen of the South<\/em> is very different from the other Arturo Perez-Reverte books I have yet, but it is no less good than his other books, and I recommend it wholeheartedly, despite the language, the drugs, the violence, and the frustrating translation.
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong> (points docked for the translation)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Queen of the South (2002) Arturo Perez-Reverte translated by Andrew Hurley If you’d like to know the power of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s writing, pick up this book, read a few pages, then put the book down and try to forget the story. A couple of months ago I picked up a book, thought it looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,14,291,38],"tags":[772,98,99],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-fiction","category-paper","category-translated","tag-andrew-hurley","tag-arturo-perez-reverte","tag-spanish"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-2A","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":183,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/183","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":0},"title":"The Nautical Chart","author":"Michelle","date":"January 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Nautical Chart (2000) Arturo Perez-Reverte Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden It took me awhile to get into The Nautical Chart. The other books I have read by Arturo Perez-Reverte have drawn me in immediately, but not so for this book. I started reading the book back in December, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fiction"","block_context":{"text":"Fiction","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fiction"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/01\/Nautical-Chart.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/116","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":1},"title":"The Club Dumas","author":"Michelle","date":"August 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Club Dumas (1993) Arturo Perez-Reverte translated by Sonia Soto (1996) I started this book, but couldn't shake the nagging feeling of familiarity. Then I realized that I'd seen a movie of this story. The Ninth Gate (starring Johnny Depp) was the movie of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/08\/Club-Dumas.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/157","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":2},"title":"The Flanders Panel","author":"Michelle","date":"November 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Flanders Panel (1990) Arturo Perez-Reverte translated by Margaret Jull Costa I enjoyed The Fencing Master so much that I picked up The Flanders Panel and two other of Arturo Perez-Reverte's books to read, in the hopes that I would like them just as well. While restoring the painting \"The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Historical"","block_context":{"text":"Historical","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/historical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/11\/Flanders-Panel.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3967,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3967","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":3},"title":"The Fencing Master","author":"Michelle","date":"August 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Fencing Master (1988) Arturo P\u00e9rez-Reverte translated by Margaret Jull Costa (1998) Don Jaime Astarloa is the fencing master of Madrid. He has a fencing school, and has private clients, including Luis de Ayala, the Marques de los Alumbres, but Don Jaime is getting old. His world is disappearing into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/07\/Fencing-Master.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/338","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":4},"title":"Purity of the Blood","author":"Michelle","date":"January 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Purity of the Blood (1997) Arturo Perez-Reverte translated by Margaret Sayers Peden Purity of the Blood is the second Captain Alatriste book. Inigo continues the story of Captain Alatriste, who remains in Madrid, still talking of returning to war, but still looking after Inigo, and still taking commissions to make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fiction"","block_context":{"text":"Fiction","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fiction"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/01\/Purity-of-the-Blood.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1535,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1535","url_meta":{"origin":160,"position":5},"title":"The Painter of Battles","author":"Michelle","date":"December 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Painter of Battles (2009) Arturo Perez-Reverte translated by Margaret Sayers Peden Andres Faluques was a renowned war photographer, but after he retired, he decided to again take up painting, which he'd given up in his youth for photography, because although he was a proficient painter, he wasn't a great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fiction"","block_context":{"text":"Fiction","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fiction"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/Painter-Battles.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}