I've only read El Club Dumas, but I quite enjoyed it.
There are some beloved books of yesteryear which I am quite frankly afraid to crack open again. In particular, I am wary about revisiting Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising" books, my favorite series for a span of about 4 years. A few years ago, I started reading the first few pages of the 2nd (and arguably best) book in the series, and had trouble getting into it.
Perhaps I'll just wait until I have kids and read it to them.
The author of the post appears to be either under-read or confused. It's true that some A.P.R. books follow a formula, and a bit too much of one. The Fencing Master is to swords as The Nautical Chart is to boats. The Seville Communion and the Dumas Club are both cariations on this formula, but significantly different, in that one of them involves a much more committed exposition of place and the Dumas Club is just awesome. Then you've got the Flanders Panel, which is simply bad. But add to that Queen of the South, which, like Flanders Panel, has a female narrator and totally deviates from the A.P.R. formula and is pretty clearly his best book, qua literature.
All of this is complicated dramatically by the fact that Perez-Reverte has written a hell of a lot more than those six books; it's just that those are the six that have currently been translated into English, so we lose access to his Altatriste series (being translated very soon) as well as most of his journalistic writing, Heroes Cansados, and much much more. So judging him on the basis of his translated popular fiction is really just saying that one disapproves of the taste of his literary agents, which is really just saying that one disapproves of the taste of the American market. Which is fine, as I do too.
A.P.R. is something of a modern Alexander Dumas, only without the gun-running career or the profligate ways.
Oh, but the other question. I once loved Ayn Rand. I still think large portions of the Fountainhead and smaller portions of Atlas Shrugged are transformative and brilliant, but it's just too hard to like the book once one knows too much about Rand herself.
Gail Wynand got it right. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead ("'I never meet the men whose works I love. The work means too much to me. I don't want the men to spoil it. They usually do.'")
Will,
Re: APR and translation -
That's why those of us who can read Spanish have an advantage. Even if we fail to use it.
Indeed!
I read large sections of Heroes Cansados in college, but my spanish was really only good enough to drag out the good quotes. I also tried to make my way through Altatriste, but even though the writing style is much simpler than his other stuff, it was too hard for me to keep a sustained pace. If only my spanish were not so rusty.
The Mars Trilogy:
Red Mars -- Damn good Sci-fi
Green Mars -- Expands on all the weakest points of the first book while eliminating almost all of its stronger points.
Blue Mars -- I don't know...I'm too scared to find out.
Anything by J.R.R. Tolkien.
I'll try not to get into too personal a debate with Will Baude, out of respect for our host's fondness for him. To be fair, he's got it almost right, except that I can't see how he can dismiss The Flanders Panel so out of hand, nor how he can claim that Queen of The South is "pretty clearly his best book, qua literature" (do people really still say "qua" ?). It's painfully slow at times, and forfeits credibility by having an apparently omniscient (male) narrator who could not possibly know everything he tells us about the (female) protagonist. (I speak as an ardent APR fan, but not as an uncritical one).
I suppose it all depends on your criteria, but the Dumas Club is hard to beat as a reading experience (even if Depp and company did their best to remove the intellectual heart of the story and turn it into a rather silly thriller).
As for the rest of Perez-Reverte's books, if you don't read Spanish, you can read pretty much all of them in French, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend them unless your a period-drama fanatic. They're well written enough, but they lack the spark and intrigue of those novels already translated into English. Surprisingly enough, there is a reason why those were translated first... they're better.
PS Hemingway re-reads surprisingly poorly, as does Louis de Bernières (of Captain Corelli fame). And I have to agree about Tolkien.
waterhot - "Do people really still say qua?"
Only a few. Who? Well, look who used it in this thread. Will Baude. The same man who admits he used to love Ayn Rand. That's who uses 'qua.' OBJECTIVISTS. They can't get enough of the damn word.
Yes, but is he using the term qua Objectivist?
Waterhot: Actually, I liked the Club Dumas more than the Queen of the South, but I think QotS is unquestionably better written. (Fair point that the narrator is in fact male; but he recedes sufficiently from the book that I think his omniscience shouldn't be bothersome.)
Anyway, I emulate Corso, fell in love with Irene Adler/the devil, and daydream about a life as an outlaw in search of lost books, but I consider those affections idiosyncratic enough that I don't want to defend it as better *literature*, just as something I liked more. (I prefer the Princess Bride to Casablanca, by a hair, but I think Casablanca is unquestionably the better movie.)
Anyway, I stand by my claim that the Flanders Panel is truly awful.
Will, it sounds like you love The Club Dumas because it is a Gary Stu.
I'm sorry. I don't know who or what Gary Stu is, or what kind of books he likes. I like the Club Dumas because it is about books. And sex. And evil. And swords. But also about how the hero doesn't have to be that heroic, the mysterious plotlines don't always have to converge, &c.
A Gary Stu is the male version of a Mary Sue.
All right, then no. Part of the definition is that the wish fulfillment be "inadequately transformed" which is emphatically not the case with the Dumas Club. There, the wish fulfillment is quite adequately transformed.
I forgot I'd even read the Flanders Panel until I just saw it up here and had only the vaguest flicker of recognition. A forgettable book. Wasn't there something about chess in it?
I picked up the Susan Cooper series for a re-read and it was only okay. Ditto for A Wrinkle In Time.
My favorite book was Grendel, for a time, but it lost its magic. I might be ready to try it again, but I think I've just outgrown that high school fascination with darkness.
Camille Paglia comes readily to mind--I once liked her, but find that she's been losing it. The same goes for Andrew Sullivan.
All right, I'll concede the Flanders Panel is weaker than the others you mention - but I still preferred it to the Altatriste books.
How can I thank you for the Mary Sue link ? That's my evening taken care of...
Oh, and I'm with Will on all the reasons for liking the Dumas Club.
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