Cr�ticas en otras lenguas | Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte

The Spanish Empire and ?los tercios? as seen in Arturo P�rez-Reverte?s El sol de Breda

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Wed, 19 May 2010 23:00:00 +0100

P�rez-Reverte‟s Alatriste novels seek to educate young Spaniards about their Golden Age. In El sol de Breda, set in 1624-1625, Spanish armies fight to suppress the Dutch Protestant revolt. Narrator ��igo is a teenage page to the experienced soldier, Alatriste. Traditional commentators like Elliott already see imperial decline, whereas Kamen emphasises that the Spanish Crown could always raise loans and armies. P�rez-Reverte‟s series favours the traditional interpretation. The narrator accuses monarchy, aristocracy and clergy of major failures of leadership. American silver brought only extravagance, the conquistador‟s "get-rich-quick‟ mentality rejected honest work and aristocratic favourites as ministers failed to halt the widespread corruption and incompetence, while Spain persisted in seeing itself as crusading guardian of Catholicism. By 1624 Spain‟s crack regiments were a superb military machine. Soldiers mainly from Germany, Lombardy and Sicily fought brilliantly in Italy, France and Flanders in spite of appalling conditions - including the non-payment of wages, which triggered numerous campaign-weakening mutinies. Spanish military skill could not finally resist the humour and doggedness of the Dutch revolt: in 1648 the Provinces will gain independence from Spain. In 1634 the witness-narrator advises Vel�zquez on the huge court painting "The Surrender of Breda‟" also known as "Las lanzas".

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El pintor de batallas, en Waterstone?s y la prensa italiana

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:00:00 +0100

�Una tr�gica historia de amor, guerra y de la crueldad entre los hombres... en un estilo que recuerda a Milan Kundera, el autor se pregunta el sentido de la guerra, el uso de la violencia, y c�mo �sta oscuridad de la humanidad se relaciona con nuestra capacidad para el arte y el amor. Este irresistible pas de deux es la obra m�s conmovedora de Arturo P�rez-Reverte hasta ahora�: as� describe El pintor de batallas Mike Cooper, de la cadena de librer�as Waterstone's.

Adem�s, la prensa italiana ha acogido con buenas cr�ticas la edici�n de esta novela, seg�n puede comprobarse en las p�ginas que reproducimos.

Art�culos publicados en Il Venerdi y 24 Hore

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La cr�tica anglosajona ensalza las aventuras de Alatriste

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:00:00 +0100

�Arturo P�rez-Reverte confirma de nuevo su lugar como gran maestro del thriller hist�rico en esta magistral novela que conjuga secretos sepultados bajos las cenizas de un pasado funesto que no quiere pasar, reflexiones filos�ficas y una endiablada intriga. �Apasionante!�

La cr�tica anglosajona ha recibido con numerosos elogios las ediciones en ingl�s de las tres primeras entregas de la saga de Arturo P�rez-Reverte, El capit�n Alatriste, Limpieza de sangre y El sol de Breda. En el siguiente art�culo reproducimos fragmentos de las principales cr�ticas aparecidas.

‘Arturo P�rez-Reverte['s] Alatriste books have sold more than five million copies worldwide'. Sunday Telegraph

‘A thinking man's adventure novel, where sword fights and tales of derring-do are interwoven with wonderful passages of poetry and gems of historical and cultural information'. The Times

‘P�rez-Reverte is very good at evoking the atmosphere of a teeming, corrupt and jaded Madrid, unhappily enduring the reign of Philip the Fourth in the last decades of Spain's imperial glory. He is superb at the precisely choreographed sword fights'. Daily Telegraph

‘Equipped with a quick-witted, charismatic hero and much to provoke and goad him, Mr P�rez-Reverte has the makings of a flamboyantly entertaining series. Captain Alatriste ends with a wicked flourish, an evil laugh and a strong likelihood that the best is yet to come'. New York Times

‘From the 19th century on, readers searching for adventure have always loved tales of flashing steel, of duels to the death on moonlit parapets, of swashbucklers with ironic smiles and perfect manners . . . Arturo P�rez-Reverte now adds Captain Alatriste'. Washington Post

‘Splendidly paced and filled with a breathtaking but not overwhelming sense of the history and spirit of the age, this is popular entertainment at its best: the characters have weight and depth, the dialogue illuminates the action as it furthers the story and the film-worthy plot is believable throughout'. Publishers Weekly

‘P�rez-Reverte's moody, wounded semi-hero . . . is a whole-cloth invention out of 17th-century Madrid that has led to a 21st-century literary phenomenon . . . introduces a charismatic, complicated leading man . . . the clash and dash are thrilling; the swordplay is a bonus'. Entertainment Weekly

‘Purity of...

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El semanario canadiense Voir elogia El pintor de batallas de Arturo P�rez-Reverte

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:00:00 +0100

�Arturo P�rez-Reverte confirma de nuevo su lugar como gran maestro del thriller hist�rico en esta magistral novela que conjuga secretos sepultados bajos las cenizas de un pasado funesto que no quiere pasar, reflexiones filos�ficas y una endiablada intriga. �Apasionante!�

Sinopsis de la novela: En una torre junto al Mediterr�neo, en busca de la foto que nunca pudo hacer, un antiguo fot�grafo pinta un gran fresco circular en la pared: el paisaje intemporal de una batalla. Lo acompa�an en la tarea un rostro que regresa del pasado para cobrar una deuda mortal, y la sombra de una mujer desaparecida diez a�os atr�s. En torno a esos tres personajes, Arturo P�rez-Reverte ha escrito la m�s intensa y turbadora historia de su larga carrera de novelista. Deslumbrante de principio a fin, El pintor de batallas arrastra al lector, subyugado, a trav�s de la compleja geometr�a del caos del siglo XXI: el arte, la ciencia, la guerra, el amor, la lucidez y la soledad, se combinan en el vasto mural de un mundo que agoniza.

Cr�tica del semanario Voir (PDF)

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The Battle-Scarred Hero?s (Near) Legacy in Art (El Sol de Breda)

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:00:00 +0100

In the midst of the Dutch and Spanish dignitaries in the foreground of Diego Vel�zquez's war tableau "The Surrender of Breda," there is a small open space beneath one soldier's horizontal weapon. It appears to depict the back of the soldier beside him. But it is the suggestion of Arturo P�rez-Reverte's latest installment in his grandly entertaining Captain Alatriste series that Alatriste, he of the cold gray-green eyes and dauntless courage, was once part of the picture - although his likeness has since been excised.

Was he painted by Vel�zquez? The claim that he was comes from no less an authority than ��igo Balboa, Alatriste's hero-worshiping young companion. ��igo also claims to have described to Vel�zquez the visual details of the surrender. Mr. P�rez-Reverte has shaped his third Alatriste book, "The Sun Over Breda," around this famous painting. In contrast to the more narrative-driven earlier books, "Captain Alatriste" and "Purity of Blood," this one unfolds on Flemish battlefields rather than in Spain.

So most of the series's usual, highly enjoyable villainy has been put aside. Enchanting characters like Ang�lica de Alqu�zar, she of the "blond corkscrew curls and eyes as blue as the sky over Madrid," with "a smile identical to the devil's when, through Eve's intercession, he tempted Adam to sink his teeth into the fabled apple," will have to wait until next time.

Although ��igo's narration occasionally recapitulates earlier plots (and flashes forward to the time when he is much older, remembering these glory days), the present book's action is ferociously combative. Mr. P�rez-Reverte, who was once a war correspondent, pieces together the bloody events that led to the Breda surrender in 1625.

Beginning at a drawbridge in the strategically located city of Oudkerk and moving relentlessly, at one point even tunneling beneath a graveyard, an army - including Valencians, Andalusians, Castilians, Galicians, Basques, Aragonese and Portuguese soldiers - progresses toward the climactic siege of Breda. The sun in the book's title refers to a bitterly victorious Spain.

The Spanish have grown cynical and tired. Spanish fighters "had been waging war against the entire world for a long century and were beginning to not know precisely why, whether it was to defend indulgences or to enable the Court of Madrid to continue believing, amidst its balls and soir�es, that it still ruled the world," writes Mr. P�rez-Reverte, who has deeply immersed himself in this period in Spanish history while remaining well aware of the present day.

As one character puts it concisely, "We Spanish have fewer tears than reasons to weep, for it is a vain labor to offer light to the blind, words to...

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The Pen And the Sword

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Sun, 28 May 2006 23:00:00 +0100

Spain's swashbuckling fictional hero, Captain Alatriste, is fighting his way to global glory.

In the 17th century reign of Spain's King Philip IV, a once-mighty empire was drowning in corruption, intrigue and lawlessness, while the Inquisition sowed terror throughout the land. If ever there was a man of honor and integrity who could bring justice to the wretched of this world ... it certainly wasn't Diego Alatriste y Tenorio. As an infantry captain, he had fought well against Spain's enemies. But now he was hacking out a squalid living in Madrid as a sword-for-hire.

Nevertheless, Captain Alatriste is poised to become fiction's hottest international swashbuckler since the Scarlet Pimpernel. Already a cult hero in Spain, Alatriste is the star of five novels by former journalist Arturo P�rez-Reverte that have sold more than 4 million copies in 50 countries since the first volume appeared a decade ago. That book, Captain Alatriste, was finally published in English last year, and the second, Purity of Blood, came out in January. The captain has his own website, comic strip, board games and, in Madrid, guided tours of his fictional haunts. Alatriste, a feature film based largely on the first book and starring Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings), will open in Europe and the U.S. later this year. With a $28 million budget, it's the most expensive Spanish-language film ever made in Spain.

The protagonist of this franchise is perhaps the least dashing, most enigmatic hero ever to rattle a rapier. Alatriste speaks little, drinks alone, dresses badly and blunders into traps set by more cunning adversaries. But he is fearless, deadly with a blade and, beneath his armored persona, stubbornly loyal. Those qualities animate the newly translated Purity of Blood. Alatriste is hired to help an aging father free his daughter, a nun, from the clutches of a well-connected priest who is using the convent as his private seraglio. The old man and his family have a secret: as Christian descendants of a converted Jew in anti-Semitic times, they lack "purity of blood" and soon become targets of the Inquisition. Alatriste too comes under suspicion, and the blood, pure and otherwise, begins to flow.

Like the other Alatriste books, Purity of Blood bristles with adventure and swordplay, but in this one the tone is darker, more political. Real-life figures stir the plot, including the poet Francisco de Quevedo and the Conde de Olivares, the powerful Philip IV Minister painted by Vel�zquez. The Inquisition, in all its appalling horror, is brought to life, as is Spain's wrenching decline. Laments I�igo, Alatriste's young sidekick, who tells the story: "It seemed that to be lucid and Spanish would forever be coupled with great bitterness and little hope."

The new film is an ambitious attempt to capture P�rez-Reverte's mix of action, historical accuracy and literary ambition. Though the...

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Purity of blood (Limpieza de sangre)

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

"He has been known to flirt with higher literary flights, notably in The Club Dumas, but in his hardboiled, mordantly funny, unapologetically entertaining Captain Alatriste series (of which this is the second volume), P�rez-Reverte firmly buckles on his swash and swaggers into the muddy, bloody streets of 17th century Madrid."
Time 16 de enero de 2006

"Intelligent exciting historical swashbucklers...With writing rich in the minutiae of 17th-century Madrid life and interspersed with poetry, the author is clearly having a ball and the reader can join with him."
Waterstones Quarterly

"Purity of Blood is the latest in a line of utterly unputdownable novels by Arturo P�rez-Reverte in which he has finessed a storytelling tradition stretching back to his great literary predecessors...This latest book is brimming with all the panache of previous novels by the writer and with even more confidence...This is glorious stuff, the kind of book to remind us how exhilarating old-fashioned adventure writing can be."
Daily Express

"What is impressive is how much of Spain the author manages to pack into a short novel...offers glimpses of artistic feuds and vivid sketches of street life. This is fiction that can be enjoyed on several levels: as a poignant evocation of doomed imperial splendour; as a clever literary game in which historical and invented figures rub shoulders; as a parable about racism past and present; or as a simple tale of swashbuckling derring-do."
The Times

"Vivid depictions of the Inquisition and its public theatre of auto de fe...Alatriste emerges as an existentialist, fighting not just for money but because "there is no choice but to fight". In other words, all against one, and one against all: a noir swordsman for our times"
Times Literary Supplement

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The Spanish for swash

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:00:00 +0100

Ask a spaniard to name a footballer and he will say Ra�l, Beckham or maybe Ronaldo. Ask for a film director and you'll get anything from Pedro Almod�var to Steven Spielberg. Ask for the name of a famous soldier of fortune, however, and there is only one answer: Captain Alatriste, the swashbuckling hero of the adventure series written by Arturo P�rez-Reverte.

In Spain, Alatriste is a phenomenon comparable only with that of Harry Potter here. Ever since the first book about the struggles of this down-on-his-luck sword-for-hire appeared in 1996, Alatriste has become a cult figure, with more than two million copies of the books sold in Spain and another two million internationally.

Today, as well as the five Alatriste books, there are unofficial Alatriste websites, comic strips, board games, figurines and even Alatriste Walks around Madrid. Filming has just ended on a movie version starring Viggo Mortensen. And now, at last, the first book of the series has been released in English in Britain.

P�rez-Reverte is a celebrity in Spain and is the country's best-selling author. A former TV war correspondent, he describes himself as "a sailor and a reader who became a writer by chance". His 14 novels, including The Flanders Panel, The Dumas Club and The Fencing Master, have been translated into 28 languages and there have been movie versions of several, including Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate, and Uncovered (The Flanders Panel). Despite these successes, P�rez-Reverte will always be remembered as the man who gave us Captain Diego Alatriste y Tenorio.

Captain Alatriste, the first of the series, is an adventure novel set in early 17th-century Spain - a time when the mighty Empire was beginning to crumble as a result of disastrous wars and the rule of the inept and decadent Felipe IV. After being wounded in Flanders, Captain Alatriste returns to Madrid to make his living as a swordsman for hire. Alatriste is at once brave, forthright and learned - but also something of a womaniser, a heavy drinker and an assassin.

Which is, of course, all part of his charm. Our hero accepts a commission to give a pair of travellers a scare. It soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary job and Alatriste becomes involved in a political conspiracy that reaches right to the courts of Europe.

Told by his faithful young page, I�igo de Balboa, Alatriste includes a colourful cast, from the hard-drinking, hard-fighting poet Francisco de Quevedo to the dangerously beautiful Ang�lica de Alqu�zar and the feared Inquisitor Emilio Bocanegra.

Although we are fed a hearty diet of swash and buckle, P�rez-Reverte never intended it to be "just an adventure. I wanted to pay homage to the great...

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Ignominie de la gloire

Web oficial de Arturo P�rez Reverte — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0100

Loin du panache d'Arcole ou d'Austerlitz, le jeune sous-lieutenant Fr�d�ric Gl�ntz d�couvre en Espagne l'horreur de la guerre. Dans son premier roman, aujourd'hui traduit en fran�ais, Arturo P�rez-Reverte s'attache � �radiquer le germe romantique de l'h�ro�sme.

Quand il arrive, des rives du lac de C�me, pour participer � la geste napol�onienne, dont le retour de l'�le d'Elbe ouvre l'ultime chapitre, Fabrice del Dongo a plus d'enthousiasme que de discernement. Du combat qui se d�roule sous ses yeux, dans la plaine de Waterloo, il ne saisit pas grand-chose. D'autres gloires attendent ailleurs le h�ros de La Chartreuse de Parme... Ce n'est pas le cas pour le jeune sous-lieutenant au 4e hussards Fr�d�ric Gl�ntz, qui a quitt� Strasbourg et la gracieuse Claire Zimmermann dont le souvenir l'accompagne dans une Espagne aride, pour le service de l'empereur, quelques ann�es plus t�t.

1808. Maladroit par m�connaissance d'un peuple qu'il pense aussi souple que ses souverains sont inconsistants, Napol�on doit s'assurer par la force des armes un royaume qui refuse en bloc toutes les innovations, dynastiques ou philosophiques. A la bravoure et au panache qui font r�sonner Arcole ou Austerlitz comme creusets d'un h�ro�sme nouveau, succ�de le temps de la gu�rilla, embuscades et guets-apens appelant les repr�sailles, en une inhumaine escalade. "Blanc-bec" dont l'assurance cr�ne s�duit les v�t�rans, Fr�d�ric se demande encore ce qui se joue dans l'assaut, interroge son compagnon Michel de Bourmont qui a, lui, d�j� tu�. "C'est un peu comme si le monde cessait d'exister autour de toi... L'esprit et le coeur travaillent � toute vitesse, unissant leurs efforts pour porter le coup qu'il faut � l'endroit qu'il faut... C'est ton instinct qui guide tes coups. " Quand l'adversaire n'est plus qu' " un autre sabre qui s'agite en l'air en cherchant ta t�te, et tu dois l'�viter en �tant plus habile, plus rapide et plus pr�cis que lui".

Fr�res d'armes unis par une m�me aspiration, Gl�ntz et Bourmont se soutiennent et se f�licitent de leur m�rite mutuel. Fr�d�ric "se sentait soud� � son ami par quelque chose de plus puissant que les liens de camaraderie qui peuvent s'instaurer entre deux jeunes sous-lieutenants d'un m�me escadron. Tous deux avaient en commun un serment irr�vocable : la soif de gloire".

A l'heure du combat - un bapt�me du feu pour le jeune officier - rien ne l'en distrait. "La gloire. Le mot lui revenait tout le temps � l'esprit, il affleurait...

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