Rosefolly

I've read an article in one of the 2 most influential literary supplements here in Brazil, written by an editor of the paper, who is also a writer and a journalist. He opens his article by saying that ( my translation, of course ) "Good literature seduces, very good literature surprises, excellent literature enchants and brilliant literature amazes... " I was neither seduced nor surprised, and certainly not enchanted or amazed by this book. It is not a bad story at all. It takes place during WWII -- which greatly interests me -- but I think she told the story in a way that pleased her, the author, most of all, but not the general reader.

At the end of the book, she mentions the many books that she has read and the fact that she listened to many tapes during her research for the book. OK, this makes her more trustworthy as an author, but she still made some basic mistakes as, for example, on page 235, when a boy speaks what apparently looks like Spanish to say that his mother is dead, only to say after a few lines that the boy was Portuguese. A Portuguese boy speaking Spanish ? Hardly. And then I look again and the sentence is NOT correct in either languages; it's an incorrect mix of the two, in fact. The word in Spanish for 'dead' is what she wrote 'muerta' , which in Portuguese would be 'morta'. In both Spanish and in Portuguese, we have 2 verbs for the verb 'be' ( ser/ estar ) , depending if what you refer to is permanent ( the first verb ) or temporary ( the second ) , and although to be dead is completely permanent , we say , in Portuguese : 'A mamãe está morta ' using the temporary verb (it's an expression) OR ' A mamãe morreu', which would be 'Mother has died' in English.

Also, the permanent verb for the 3rd person , in Portuguese, would be 'é' , and she wrote only 'e' ( without the stress mark or accent ) , which in Portuguese would mean simply 'and' ( 'y' in Spanish, so there is no way that she could confuse both languages).

This could be a minor mistake for an English native speaker, but it is a major mistake for anyone speaking either Spanish OR Portuguese as their native language ( even for someone speaking these as foreign languages ), most of all cause we do NOT like our languages to be confused; it's even cultural, and I wanted you all to know this.

In Europe, Portugal is the only country that speaks Portuguese; likewise, Brazil is the only country that speaks Portuguese in South America. We often say here that while we 'falamos', they 'hablan' (speak), and we know that exactly the same thing is said in a Spanish-speaking country, just using the opposite.

How am I supposed to trust her ?

The story is OK, but I really didn't like the way the story is told. She stalls a lot ( let's say that she is in NY and, in order to go to Boston, she goes all the way down to Florida first ), she is very melodramatic , not to mention that this hardcover copy has some typos -- how else would you explain sentences like : "Is this is a trick?" ( page 186) ?

Vee, in the story the journalist character had some kind of special papers that allowed her to travel -- if I'm remembering the story details correctly, the US hadn't declared war on Germany yet when she went to Europe, so as long as her papers were in order, she could move about. Definitely suspension of disbelief, but the author at least tried to make it work.

Yes, the author did tonnes of research. But research doesn't always make the book a great read...

I'm sure she did a lot of research, but it certainly didn't show. The suspension of disbelief required was considerable. The errors that pumpernickel describes really undermine her credibility.