Purgatory - Dante Alighieri (3.5🌟)

I read Inferno about a year ago.  Liked it but the reading was so hard and time consuming, I decided to stop and take a gap year.

Purgatory is an interesting read but I found Inferno much more engaging. Perhaps it was because the descriptions of the circles, the sinners and their punishments. I could see some of these descriptions reflected in modern (horror) literature. I think that contributed to my enjoyment. 

Purgatory is a sort of mountain which Dante and Virgilio ascend through its terraces. Two terraces for the ante-purgatory plus seven terraces  each representing a sin. At the end of the last terrace Dante meets Beatriz and is allowed to cross into paradise. This whole journey might seem simple but it isn't.  As in Inferno, Dante here uses innumerable literary, mythological  and historical references. So I had to stop my reading to read footnotes to understand. I think I ran out of motivation half way through the sloth terrace. The slothful are condemned to run and run until they are clean from their sins. I found this amusing but then very little happens.  Two or three terraces up I got to Lust and some long descriptions of Lust and chastity which I found, obviously, old fashioned.   Not much more to say except that  will wait another year to read paradise.

My edition is in Spanish published by Alianza editorial. 

Alfred Hitchcock. The Complete Films Ed. Paul Duncan (4.5🌟)

Alfred Hitchcock. The Complete Films is a beautiful illustrated book discussing the directors work. It contains an interesting  introduction briefly explaining Hitchcock's motivations and methodology. An essay continues which is divided in three parts each discussing the director's life and work in more detail in his early, mid and late career. The longest section of the book follows containing 6 to 10 page chapters on each of the 53 films the director produced. They include some background on the stories, (original novels), synopses (with spoilers) and anecdotes. The last, short section is a list of cameos by Hitchcock. All of the sections above are fully illustrated with beautiful photographs of the director, actors and sets. 

Hitchcock and his wife Alma discussing a production. An assistant is taking notes, right. (Photo in page 47)

Now, that I read this book, I appreciate Hitchcock's work much more. He was truly a genius. The book opens our eyes to the development of his style, to his evolution. From black and white silent movies to "talkies" and technicolour. I am impressed at how versatile he was, adapting to new technology and by being creative in its use. What else can I say?  I liked how Hitchcock created a brand of his name. Even when he was adapting stories from novels he made his movies HIS. He liked to take artistic licenses from the original stories sometimes even by changing the endings. There was one time when he was not allowed to do that though. The book relates the story of how famous producer David O. Selznick insisted (and forced?) Hitchcock to be more truthful to the story of Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. As a result the movie lacks some of the director's irony and humorous touches. Nevertheless, the irony, is that it won two Oscars for best picture and best cinematography. Anyways, this is great, fun read for any Hitchcock's fun who hasn't read anything about him before. I think there are other works which discuss his work much more in depth than this one.

Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of North by Northwest.  (Photo in page 185)

This book was published by Taschen and it has 686 pages.

El Castillo de los Cárpatos - Jules Verne (3.6🌟)

Title in English is The Carpathian Castle. This is a story about superstition, loss and the devil.

In Transilvania, by the Carpathian mountains, there is an old castle, abandoned for years. Its owner, baron Rodolphe de Gortz, the only survivor of the Gortz family, left the place years ago and has never been seen since. However as one day someone sees smoke coming out from the castle, everyone in the town of Werst start to panic. They fear that smoke can only be a bad sign. Ignorant and superstitious the whole town is sure the devil is the sole occupant of the old castle. But, is there any other possibility?

Days after, a traveler stops by Werst and hears the rumors. He doesn't believe and dismisses all of them. However when someone mentions the name of the owner of the castle he changes his mind and decides to investigate in person.

Opinion: this is a short, easy to read novel. The story is interesting but I wouldn’t classify this as horror  (as I have seen online). Verne provides some historical and geographical context to understand where the action takes place, what happened to the owner of the castle and what kind of people live in Werst. His descriptions of the town people as uneducated and extremely superstitious make the reader doubt of the veracity of some of the accounts. The Strange traveller is an interesting character. Count Franz de Telek has a dark past and is grieving for a lost love.  As he finds some hope in the castle we follow him in his journey to get inside the old building. However, the best for me, was Rodolphe de Gortz, not as a character per se, because we don't know him much but as the focus of the mystery. At some points we are led to think he might be the devil or that he has something to do with it. At the end I couldn't decide who was the evil character though, as the actions of the hero are questionable in my opinion. And what did Barón de Gortz do that was so disturbing?

The negative: I didn't like those bits where the  omniscient narrator explains some background to the story or, at the end,  explains the nature of the mystery as if this was a school text book.

My edition is in Spanish published by Ediciones Gato Azul in 2005. It has 207 pages and a few illustrations.