Me han dado el libro

So, reading! Last night, I went and browsed the local "Barnes and Noble's" (as my dad would doubtless say) just to see if anything would grab me, but the bargain tables left me cold. Since it is physically impossible for me to entre a bookstore without checking out the foreign reference section, I ended up perusing the Spanish-language literature and one title leapt out at me like a jumping frog: Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo. Ever since I read Pérez-Reverte's description of this title in La reina del sur (The Queen of the South), I've been intrigued by it. It was $10 (less with discount) and came with Rulfo's one other literary work, El llano en llamas (which does not, as one of my co-workers surmised, mean "Field of Llamas"), so I left with it.

It's very readable, with a sparse simple style that's really captivating. I love his Mexicanisms. One six-page story had no fewer than 8 words derived from Nahuatl (huizache, zopilote, comal, pepenar, tepemezquite, chachalaca, zacate, tatema). Some of the diction stumped not only my U of C Spanish dictionary (with its special focus on Latin American vocabulary), but even the DRAE. To find out the meaning of such fabulous items as "trespeleque", I had to turn to sources like this handy page of Mexican regionalisms.

(BTW, that page lists over one hundred slang words for "penis" including camarón, chafalote, chile, chipotle, chivo, filiberto, gallita, hot, longaniza, polla, and zanahoria. Meals at Las Mañanitas will never be the same again!)