The TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT (20 Jan 2006) ran a review by
one Michael Saler of two new translations of swashbucklers by
Arturo Perez-Reverte: CAPTAIN ALATRISTE and THE PURITY OF
BLOOD. (There's an acute accent on the first e in "Perez" I
can't manage.)
"The first sentence of CAPTAIN ALATRISTE (2005) suggests a
hardboiled viewpoint: 'He was not the most honest or pious of
men, but he was courageous.' Melancholy, taciturn, stoical
and pragmatic, the middle-aged Diego Alatriste is more akin
to Sam Spade than d'Artagnan. There is a femme fatale,
Angelica Alquezar, described as 'the most beautiful, the most
intelligent, the mots seductive, and the most evil'; other
characters wouldn't look out of place in Hammett or Chandler:
'the poet had been standing, cape collars up and hat brims
down to the eyebrows, a look very much in style.'"
Saler ends with "In other words, all against one, and one
against all: a noir swordsman for our times."
I remember some talk years ago about an earlier Perez-Reverte
novel which was held up as hardboiled, but didn't much grab
me. Someone later left in a huff over this. Anyone read any
of this series about Alatriste? It sounds great.
Cheers,
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : www.miskatonic.org : www.frbr.org
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