{"product_id":"2940011872136","title":"The Cabin","description":"This ebook edition has been proofed and corrected for errors and compiled to be read with without errors!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn excerpt (modestly edited) from the INTRODUCTION:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis author of \"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse\" is not a regional novelist.\u003cbr\u003eHe is not a literary disciple of the late Don Juan Valera.\u003cbr\u003eHe is not a literary anarchist, nor a follower of the Catalan Ferrer.\u003cbr\u003eHe has not reformed Spain.\u003cbr\u003eHe is not associated with a group of novelists or other writers who have done so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHad this desirable end been attained, and attained through the efforts of a novelist, that novelist may have been Don \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBenito Perez Galdos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe author of The Cabin cannot in modesty accept of foreigners the laurels of all the writers of Spain. The Spanish is \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ean ancient, complex, strongly characteristic civilization, of which he happily is a product. It is his hope that \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmericans may become some day better acquainted with the spirit and rich heritage of a great national literature \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethrough his pages. As his works have long been translated into Russian and have been familiar for many years in \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrench, perhaps it is not too early to anticipate the attention of the enterprising American public.\u003cbr\u003eUnfortunately standards of translation do not exist in this country. Many believe that there is no such thing as \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003etranslation, that the essence of a book cannot be conveyed. The professor seizes his dictionary, the lady tourist her \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003epen; the ingenious publisher knows that none is so low that he will not translate—the less the experience, the more \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe translator, a maxim in the application of which Blasco Ibáñez has suffered appalling casualties. When Sangre y \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003earena (\" Blood and Sand \") comes from the press as The Blood of the Arena, the judicious pause—this is to thunder on \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe title page, not in the index—but when we meet die eunuch of Sonnica transformed into an \"old crone,\" error passes \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe bounds of decency and deserves punishment which is callipygian. Nor are these translations worse than their \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efellows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlunders of this sort ought no longer to be possible. If American scholarship is not a sham, this reform, which is \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eimperative, must be immediate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlasco Ibáñez was born in Valencia, that most typical of the cities of the eastern littoral along the Mediterranean, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eknown as the Spanish Levant. The Valencian dialect is directly affiliated with the neighboring Catalan, and through it \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewith the Provencal rather than with the Castilian of the interior plateau. In the character of the people there is a \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efacility which suggests the French, while an oriental element is distinctly evident, persisting not only from the days \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof the Moorish kingdoms, but eloquent of the shipping of the East and the lingua franca of the inland sea. Blasco \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIbáñez is a Levantine touched with a suggestion of Cyprus, of Alexandria, with an adaptability and mobility of \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003etemperament which have endowed him with a faculty of literary improvisation which is extraordinary. He has been a \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003enovelist, a controversialist, a politician, a member of the Cortes, a republican, an orator, a traveller, an \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eexpatriate, a ranchman, a duellist, a journalist. \"He writes,\" says the Argentine Manuel Ugarte, \"as freely as other \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emen talk. This is the secret of the freshness and charm of the unforgettable pages of The Cabin, of the sense of \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efraternity and camaraderie which springs up immediately, uniting the author and his readers. He seems to be telling us \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ea story between cigarettes at the cafe table. In these times when mankind is shaking itself free from stupid snobbery \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto return to nature and to simple sincerity, this gift of free and lucid expression is the highest of merits.\"","brand":"Leila's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47120923459824,"sku":"2940011872136","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940011872136_p0.jpg?v=1763550959","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940011872136","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}