ROFL...X2!

 

And speaking of Brad Thor…What book of his would you recommend I read first?

The Lions of Lucerne. All of his books are part of a series and it's the first. It's also one of the most engaging plots in my opinion.

 

The Lions of Lucerne. All of his books are part of a series and it's the first. It's also one of the most engaging plots in my opinion.

Thanks... I'll give it some serious consideration. In the meantime, if you like realistic sci-fi, I suggest you take a look at this one.

 

Yes, that is exactly what it means... but marcar means "to dial", and not "to press".

Also there is "marcar" as in fútbol where one, two or three players of one team are tasked to stay close of a particular player from the oponent to restrict/limitate his movements. Just for reference, Diego Maradona and now Lionel Messi use to spark that idea in the oponent's coachs from time to time. With them it seems not to work much. Yes I know, it is more jargon than language.

 

Hola César,

Some (completely) unconnected comments follow:

If you like short stories, I suggest you do a little search on the south american author Horacio Quiroga.

Born in Uruguay, he spent most of his life here in Argentina. He lived many years in our North, in the province of Misiones on the left margin of the Alto Paraná river near San Ignacio / Santa Ana. On the other marging, there is Paraguay.

Still in the Navy, as a young Lieutenant I spent one year in the area for an hydrographic survey to define the location of the dam of an hydroelectric press (that got never built).

The area's name is "Teyú cuaré". It is in Spanish but comes from the Guaraní and means the "Lizard's cove". (BTW, also from the Guaraní comes the "Che" that people uses sometimes to recognize us abroad).

Once, with our boat, exploring the access to a small creek I reached the place where he lived (and wrote most of his books). The house, built by him, located very close to the river, was surounded by real jungle and looked dark and somber. Just in case you google for it, it is NOT the one shown now in the pictures. And what you see around nowadays is just a civilized garden. They say the house got distroyed by a fire but, surprisingly, most of his belongings survived.

His life involved lot of tragedy culminating with his suicide here in Buenos Aires and his stories convey lot of horror and tragedy plus what I would call the involuntary cruelty of life. The aftertaste to me, was never good.

And if you like long, intertwined tales, Cien Años de Soledad is the book for you.

(García Márquez, is a superb writer and I could say I've got all his books. There is one that I do not like at all: Ojos de perro azul where the base theme is death.

A friend of mine from UK sent me two of his books translated to English. I could not progress much in reading them because I was always trying to figure what was the actual sentence in Spanish I was reading.

If asked what story I wish I was the author of, I would mention: "Crónica de una muerte anunciada" (please translate to English). Believe it or not it starts telling you how it will end from the vey first sentence. And you feel the tension and the crescendo even if you know it.

Digressing now:

a) Mario Vargas Llosa, peruvian, is, to me, one of the best fiction writers from this part of the world. "La guerra del fin del mundo" to mention one (with the additional merit he was writing about the Brazilian "sertao", not Perú).

His Spanish even when speaking in public is elegant and admirable.

b) There is also Julio Cortázar, dear to us here but I am afraid, translations could be loosing the intimacy that his prose conveys. He lived many years in Paris, so I understand his Spanish became more and more neutral vis a vis what we speak here.

c) Albeit I tend to feel that a book, a musical composition or a painting can be enjoyed even if ignoring everything about the author I decided to read two books: "Vivir para contarla" (please translate that to English) by García Máquez and "On wirting" by Stephen King. This last is more technical and found it very interesting. He does not like adverbs!!

d) As long as I can, I try to read authors in their original language even if that means keeping a dicitionary handy: English, Fench and Portuguese.

I suggest three, read and reread in their original language: Gates of fire by Seven Pressfield, Possession by Antonia Byatt and "Memories d'Hadrien" by Margerite Yourcenar.

e) After many years of reading, I started to pay attention of how important seem the opening and closing paragraphs in fiction books.

Examples: Casa tomada J. Cortázar, Possession A. Byatt, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, Cien años de soledad and Crónica de una muerte anunciada all by G. G. Márquez. Please do not read them unless you read the whole book.

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In 17 years at sea, doing any practical in electronicas was almost immpossible on board. So, it was all reading.