Far too incoherent, 14 Nov 2008
This may have been a more enjoyable, rewarding book with a more straightforward narrative structure but by the time you hit page 20 suddenly everything falls apart. Each new paragraph appears to be shifting onto something completely new and it's never terribly clear who is speaking.
Some of the prose is nice but i don't think this translation is too great.
If i were to pick a page at random of this book i have only recently read, not only would i not be able to tell what was going on, i would have absolutely no recollection of having read that page.
At heart it looks like it might have been a very compelling book but i found it to be virtually unreadable and completely unsatisfying.

A man seeks his father...Pedro Paramo...., 11 Nov 2007

This novel is one of the most highly rated of the 20th c latin-american classics,Gabriel Garcia Marquez wished he had written it and this slim novel has become possibly the first of the great novels from the 1950's

Brevity is the key here,within 122 pages this novel is full of backgrounds and what ifs, as ghosts haunt the streets of Colama,where the despot Pedro Paramo cast his evil eye many years before.

The skill in Rulfo's style is where he manages to make the novel seem longer,small paragraphs follow mini-chapters where the meat of the story is laid.The dying despot sitting as his town starves is a great image, still causing distress even as he is dying.

The clipped style hints at so much more,the lives long faded and the intrigues,murders and deaths. Rulfo manages to bring southern mexico into the northern lands with the rain,the crops,the Villastas and many other small elements in this tale.


Regrettably, Reading This Felt as If Time Had Turned Backward, 13 Oct 2007
Those who like novels where it often doesn't become unclear until the third or fourth read what's happening, who's speaking, who's listening, who's doing what, how most of the characters are related to each other, and how the series of events described are related to each other in time, would enjoy this novel. Otherwise, like me, they might not be able to appreciate it.

Mainly what I could grasp was that a man was looking for his father in a village that was a purgatory for dead sinners, where time turned backward. The father was the local landowner and a tyrant who'd committed many crimes. Eventually the searcher faded from the story. The historical background supplied by some other readers is valuable and enlightening but is immeasurably clearer in their descriptions than in the novel itself.

The novel consisted mostly of dialogue, with the features described above. There were also descriptions of the village and its surroundings. The atmosphere of the hot, bleak land and death and of the hopelessness of the characters was powerful. But for this reader, the book didn't need to continue for 120 pages. I might've been able to appreciate this surrealist masterpiece if it had been something closer in form to a short story, like some of the works in the same author's The Burning Plain, such as "Tell Them Not to Kill Me!" or "The Man."

Lost in translation, 23 May 2007
In her introduction Susan Sontag says that Garcia Marquez memorised the whole of 'Pedro Paramo'. She claims the book as a classic of world literature. And she remarks how - before he died - the author had personally told her that he wanted an "accurate and uncut English translation". If true, then Juan Rulfo will even now be out of his grave and haunting the publishers in the time-honoured 'magical realist' style. For this is a poor translation with basic grammatical errors ("She must of thought I'd forsaken her" and "I wondered if she were crazy"). The undifferentiated dialogue, strained poetic effects and complete absence of humour combine to give the effect of a confused, drab, and amateur radio play. Some might discern the shadow of an intelligent and allusive story behind the clumsy text, but this edition is of use mainly for students on a 'magical realism' course who can't read Spanish.

A Mexican masterpiece, 16 Mar 2007
You may not have heard of Juan Rulfo, but you've more than likely heard of the writers for whom his novella Pedro Páramo was a revelation - Márquez in particular, but also Fuentes, Asturias, Paz. It is a story with a deceptively simple plot: a man promises his dying mother that he will return to Comala, the town where she once lived, to meet his father, Pedro Páramo. So begins a story built on the experiences and reflections of different characters - alive and dead - narrating at different periods of time, whether in the days of Pedro Páramo's melancholy childhood, his rise as a despot, or the subsequent decline of Comala into a literal ghost town. In some sense a dictator novel, in others a family saga, a ghost tale or even a love story, Pedro Páramo is compulsive because of Rulfo's skill at conveying atmosphere, scene and believable irreality - what was later to be known as magic realism. The book is alive; terrible as it is, Comala is brilliantly painted and its inhabitants gritty, fatalistic and haunting. An indisputable classic of huge influence.

Far too incoherent, 14 Nov 2008
This may have been a more enjoyable, rewarding book with a more straightforward narrative structure but by the time you hit page 20 suddenly everything falls apart. Each new paragraph appears to be shifting onto something completely new and it's never terribly clear who is speaking.
Some of the prose is nice but i don't think this translation is too great.
If i were to pick a page at random of this book i have only recently read, not only would i not be able to tell what was going on, i would have absolutely no recollection of having read that page.
At heart it looks like it might have been a very compelling book but i found it to be virtually unreadable and completely unsatisfying.

A man seeks his father...Pedro Paramo...., 11 Nov 2007

This novel is one of the most highly rated of the 20th c latin-american classics,Gabriel Garcia Marquez wished he had written it and this slim novel has become possibly the first of the great novels from the 1950's

Brevity is the key here,within 122 pages this novel is full of backgrounds and what ifs, as ghosts haunt the streets of Colama,where the despot Pedro Paramo cast his evil eye many years before.

The skill in Rulfo's style is where he manages to make the novel seem longer,small paragraphs follow mini-chapters where the meat of the story is laid.The dying despot sitting as his town starves is a great image, still causing distress even as he is dying.

The clipped style hints at so much more,the lives long faded and the intrigues,murders and deaths. Rulfo manages to bring southern mexico into the northern lands with the rain,the crops,the Villastas and many other small elements in this tale.


Regrettably, Reading This Felt as If Time Had Turned Backward, 13 Oct 2007
Those who like novels where it often doesn't become unclear until the third or fourth read what's happening, who's speaking, who's listening, who's doing what, how most of the characters are related to each other, and how the series of events described are related to each other in time, would enjoy this novel. Otherwise, like me, they might not be able to appreciate it.

Mainly what I could grasp was that a man was looking for his father in a village that was a purgatory for dead sinners, where time turned backward. The father was the local landowner and a tyrant who'd committed many crimes. Eventually the searcher faded from the story. The historical background supplied by some other readers is valuable and enlightening but is immeasurably clearer in their descriptions than in the novel itself.

The novel consisted mostly of dialogue, with the features described above. There were also descriptions of the village and its surroundings. The atmosphere of the hot, bleak land and death and of the hopelessness of the characters was powerful. But for this reader, the book didn't need to continue for 120 pages. I might've been able to appreciate this surrealist masterpiece if it had been something closer in form to a short story, like some of the works in the same author's The Burning Plain, such as "Tell Them Not to Kill Me!" or "The Man."

Lost in translation, 23 May 2007
In her introduction Susan Sontag says that Garcia Marquez memorised the whole of 'Pedro Paramo'. She claims the book as a classic of world literature. And she remarks how - before he died - the author had personally told her that he wanted an "accurate and uncut English translation". If true, then Juan Rulfo will even now be out of his grave and haunting the publishers in the time-honoured 'magical realist' style. For this is a poor translation with basic grammatical errors ("She must of thought I'd forsaken her" and "I wondered if she were crazy"). The undifferentiated dialogue, strained poetic effects and complete absence of humour combine to give the effect of a confused, drab, and amateur radio play. Some might discern the shadow of an intelligent and allusive story behind the clumsy text, but this edition is of use mainly for students on a 'magical realism' course who can't read Spanish.

A Mexican masterpiece, 16 Mar 2007
You may not have heard of Juan Rulfo, but you've more than likely heard of the writers for whom his novella Pedro Páramo was a revelation - Márquez in particular, but also Fuentes, Asturias, Paz. It is a story with a deceptively simple plot: a man promises his dying mother that he will return to Comala, the town where she once lived, to meet his father, Pedro Páramo. So begins a story built on the experiences and reflections of different characters - alive and dead - narrating at different periods of time, whether in the days of Pedro Páramo's melancholy childhood, his rise as a despot, or the subsequent decline of Comala into a literal ghost town. In some sense a dictator novel, in others a family saga, a ghost tale or even a love story, Pedro Páramo is compulsive because of Rulfo's skill at conveying atmosphere, scene and believable irreality - what was later to be known as magic realism. The book is alive; terrible as it is, Comala is brilliantly painted and its inhabitants gritty, fatalistic and haunting. An indisputable classic of huge influence.

I can't, 23 Jan 1999
I think i would have enjoyed this book. But, unfortunately, your organization does not provide a bit of text in this window and i cannot find any translated text on the net. It's probably a very good book. Just too bad I can't find it. Enjoy!! ;)