Comentarios del público
 Dark, Disturbing and Powerful
Pascual Duarte, a condemned prisoner, has been busy writing the story of his life. An engaging story, told politely, with frequent apologies for its occasional "bad" words, as it moves from one disastrous occurrence to another. The prisoner grows up in poverty, it's true, but he also makes a series of bad decisions, carried away by obsessive thoughts and unruly emotions. The glass is always half empty for Pascual Duarte, but then he spills what is left. As his life goes rapidly downhill, Pascual remembers only a few, fleeting days of happiness.
The story is told simply, pictorially, with vivid descriptions of places, rooms, streets, the Spanish countryside, people, animals, and one horrific event after another. I won't tell you the plot--no need to--for this is a ahort book and you already know how it ends. Read it. I recommend Pascual Duarte highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
Fecha: 2007-04-30
Prose like no one in the world...
While we were in Spain in January 2002, Camilo Jose Cela, a Spanish nobel prize winner in 1989, died at the age of 85. As a tribute, I re-read this, one of his most famous books, written during a time when Spain was reading sweet lovely "lyrical" books (in the 40s). Its honesty and brutality was called "Tremendismo" (tremendous-ism, if you will).
The Family of Pascual Duarte is about the life of a dirt poor man from Extremadura and is filled with the absolute realities of the primitive, angry, vulgar nature of the poor in Spain during Franco's reign. Much of Cela's work, in fact, was banned by the Franco government and for good reason - as it portrays a Spain that was not of the tourist brochures. This book has been called the most famous Spanish novel since Don Quixote (which was written 400 years before it!) and has been translated more than any other Spanish novel. If you can read Spanish, you must do so since Cela's prose is unlike any other.
Fecha: 2006-11-05
 Un buen libro
Yo tuve que leer este libro para una clase de literatura espanola y me gusto mucho. Uno puede ver las condiciones de la gente en Espana durante esa epoca a traves de la vida de Pascual. Ademas es un buen libro y lo recomiendo a todos que tienen interes en la literatura y la cultura.
Fecha: 2004-10-10
Muy interesante
I had initially written a review in my very inadequate español, but decided I should spare myself the shame and write it in English until I improve, anyway, onto the story.
Pascual Duarte is a man whose life has been marked by a series of unfortunate incidents which he blames on fate/God that leads him to eventually commit matricide as well as a series of other crimes.
The novel is written as the recollections of the man while he is in prison, keeping this diary in which he pours his thoughts about his life and what made him the man he was. I saw in Pascual, a man like any other whose life could have gone a different way had he made better decisions in life.
This isn't a very inspiring story so don't expect to come out of this short book with a sense of having gone through the storm and come out of it a better person - Think "Perfect Storm" -. This is definitely not one of those books you want to be reading on a rainy day.
If you can stomach pain, sorrow and disappointment, then I would recommend this story to you. It is also interesting as a study of the psychology of a killer.
PS: For those people who are trying to learn Spanish, an excellent English translation (to me at least) is by Anthony Kerrigan. ISBN: 0316134317
Fecha: 2004-09-06
Vale la pena leerlo.
Un interesante acercamiento a los eternos opuestos. Es el bien algo absoluto? y el mal?. Es Pascual Duarte el verdugo o es la víctima?
Es un libro para ser leído al menos dos veces, la primera para disfrutarlo y la segunda o subsecuentes para ser analizado. Así que, si tu intención es el disfrute, aquí tienes algo para disfrutar. Si te interesa el análisis literario, psicológico o sociológico, también lo encuentras en esta obra de Don Camilo.
Fecha: 2002-10-18
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