Mexican Heat
Por mí y por todos mis compañeros.
Yes, the characters DO know ENGLISH.
No, NOBODY here knows SPANISH. In fact, this book is an INSULT to the Spanish language.
Part of my negative opinion of this book is because of the novel itself but I can't deny that the bad use of my mother language was determining for my bad rating. Oh, I translated the sentences for better understanding by non-native speakers. But first, I must talk about the story.
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It's a book everybody seems to love, but for me it was bad. First of all, I think it's not constant. The first chapter is an instalust scene and sex on a desk. And that's wow, an erotic book? But then the plot changes and it turns into a mafia-spies movie that I found slow and tedious. At half of the book it turned into a drama and a surrealistic action scene. I found a lot of ups and downs and I couldn't understand the point of it all.
It was difficult for me to follow the characters' way of thinking and in the end I was bored to listen to them. The first part of the book we are in Gabriel's head, and in the second one we are in Miguel's. With the change, I felt like the other MC was a stranger and not someone we have been with the whole story. Changing the POV was confusing to me although the two parts are very different.
If I had to choose the parts I liked most I'd say, weird it is, the first sex scene and some of the second part of the book, when Gabriel becomes blind. They were very cute in that moment, Gabriel trying to come to terms with his new situation, and Miguel trying to help him in the way he thinks better. I found that very refreshing but it didn't last long. Because then they have to defend themselves and it was so unreal. It felt like Neo fighting against the Smiths, but wait, it's not a sci-fi book.
I can't comprehend how a book made by two authors can be like this. I couldn't stop thinking this book have been written in parts by each author and then joined like in a puzzle. It didn't felt complete, if that makes sense.
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After all of this is said, I can't help myself from commenting about the Spanish language. It's the Mexican mafia against the Italian one. A lot of Spanish speakers appear and that's fine. But I must say, the Spanish is AWFUL. Sometimes there are HUGE mistakes. Sometimes it's just CHILDISH. So, you can imagine that it didn't turn me on. Not AT ALL.
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"Si, mi gatito, si""Yes, my kitty, yes."
"Apasionadamente, si?""Passionately, yes?"
Those are funny, but the word "Sí" has an accent. "Apasionadamente" alone sounds very very very weird. And we must use the "¿" at the beginning of the questions:
"¿Sí?"
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"Mi pequeño gato encantador travieso""My little lovely wicked kitty."
"Beautiful... so very beautiful. Delicious. Amante muy joven.""Beautiful... so very beautiful. Delicious. Very young lover."
Sounds weird. We don't usually use sentences with no verb. "Amante muy joven" is not quite correct, we would have to add something in an exclamation way, like
"Eres un amante muy joven" or "¡Qué amante más joven! or "¡Qué joven eres!" or even "Jovencito".
Et cetera.
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"Enorme, gatito, muy enorme.""Enormous, kitty, very enormous."
Thanks to Crt for noticing this one!!! This is totally wrong. "Grande" is an adjetive, and its superlative is "enorme", or "muy grande", but "muy enorme" is a double superlative and it's not correct.
"Enorme, gatito, enorme."
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"Mi gatito parvulo""My infant kitty"
This... Listen, I had to look it up in wordreference.com and in rae.es because it made me have doubts about my own language!!! "Párvulo" (with accent, that is) is practically only used for children who are very very young, or those who go to preschool, but I've never heard it like an adjetive like in that sentence or context.
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"Usted pavo regordete magnífico!""You magnificent chubby turkey!"
Just no.
About the form. In Spanish exclamative forms are not written like this. We should add something like nouns or verbs or even conjugation and adverbs:
"Usted es un pavo regordete y magnífico" or "¡Menudo pavo más regordete y magnífico!" or "¡Qué pavo tan regordete y magnífico!"
About the content... Sounds weird. It's an understatement. Because, please, who talks about turkeys like this? Really? Sexual innuendos are different in every language. In Spanish you can talk about snakes or little soldiers or little birds, but turkeys are not included in that list!!! When I hear "Put that beautiful, fat and huge turkey inside of me, oh yeah!" I'll now that's the definition of hotness. But in my dictionary, that's not sexy at all.
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"Nuevo Leon""Nuevo Leon"
"Jesús, Maria y José.""Jesus, Mary and Joseph."
No accent in "León", although it's not that important, because in English names have no accents, so could be forgiven. The same with "María", it has no accents, but "Jesús" and "José" have. So, make a choice, use or not use, but don't confuse me!
Nuevo León
Jesús, María y José
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"Madre mios""Oh my God!" (There is no literal expression here, which would be "Mother mine!")
This is my favorite one! I couldn't credit this one. I could hear Groucho saying: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?".
This is not school, so I won't explain all the grammar rules. But I must say, there is something called NUMBER and something called GENDER. If you use a male word, the adjetive must be in the male form. If you use a plural word, the adjetive must be in plural, too. It's totally different than in English. Also, "mío, mía, míos, mías" have accent. So, the correct form of saying that sentence would be:
"Madre mía."
Because "Mía" here is female and singular. "Míos" is male and plural. Double mistake.
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"Madre dios.""Oh my God!"(There is not a literal expression here, either. It is trying to say something like "Mother of God".)
There is some preposition missing, "de". And "Dios" is always with a capital letter. Correct form:
"Madre de Dios."
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"Hijo de mil putas.""Son of one thousand whores."
This is correct, but I laughed a lot! I have never heard this one before. "Hijo de puta" is common, even "hijo de la gran puta", but this variation is new for me. It was funny hearing this.
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"Let me handle this. ¿Comprender?""Let my handle this, understand?"
This is Tarzan talking. Miguel is Spanish, so this Tarzan talking doesn't fit him, not at all. In Spanish verbs have conjugations, with rules depending on the ending in the infinitive form (although there are exceptions), to say it in some way. And thanks for using the initial "¿" this time. I appreciate it. The correct sentence would be:
"¿Comprendes?"
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"Señors! Let us conduct our business indoors like gentlemen.""Gentlemen! Let us conduct our business indoors like gentlemen." "Señors! Señors!""Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" or maybe "Misters! Misters!"
This one killed me. Another problem with number. And the initial "¡" is missing. The correct form in plural is:
"¡Señores!"
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"Easy, mi amigo grande del amor.""Easy, my big friend of love."
Weird as hell. Not sure what the authors really wanted to say.
"Mi gran amigo del amor."
"Mi amigo del gran amor."
"Mi amoroso gran amigo."
No fucking idea here.
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With all of this I pretended to make it clear my disbelief that this book was the work of two authors. Because they are two, the resources are doubled, aren't they? But they haven't even bothered to look it up in dictionaries or to ask some native Spanish speakers if the language is correct. It's not as if there weren't users in the net who can help you with Spanish! Yeah, I know I make mistakes while writing in English, and I respect everyone who makes an effort to talk in a foreign language. But this is a book, and I expect a minimum of quality in language.
You can say all you like. You can say immigrants or children of immigrants talk an awful Spanish in the States. Maybe. But you can't fool me into thinking they talk bad Spanish in Mexico too! Yes! They travel to Mexico and even them can't say "Señores" properly. Ha. Ha. Ha. Hilarious.
Stop a moment, shall we?
Wikipedia says (28/01/15):
Approximately 470 million people speak Spanish as a native language, making it second only to Mandarin in terms of its number of native speakers worldwide. There are an estimated 548 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language, including speakers with limited competence and 20 million students of Spanish as a foreign language.
Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and it is used as an official language by the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Union of South American Nations, among many other international organizations.
Third language in the Internet. Second language as lingua franca. Second language in number of people as their mother language (after Mandarin Chinese). Third language in number of global speakers (after Mandarin Chinese and English).
Enemies of Cervantes... beware.
Don't worry. English is and will always be the most versatile language ever. Relax.
But it's a scary thing anyway, yeah? Maybe Spanish-speaking countries are not amongst the richest right now but nothing lasts forever.
All this tantrum is because I'm tired of finding bad Spanish in English books. I'm tired of seeing all the self-indulgence and lack of humility of English-speaking authors when writing a book that includes a Latino who can't even speak his own language properly. Spanish language is becoming more powerful, not less, and showing a little respect wouldn't come amiss. I think it's time to switch gears. Just saying.
All in all, If there is a Holy Grail of the Worst Spanish in a Book, this is it.
