Level 35??
Sin noticias de Gurb
Novel
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Blurb
Lost in pre-Olympic Barcelona, the extraterrestrial Gurb puts his strange ability to adopt any appearance he pleases at the service of his survival. He gets lost in the guise of Marta Sánchez, while his alien companion begins his search in the urban jungle. Through his personal diary we learn about the incredible adventures of an alien in Barcelona. In this parodic and satirical story, Eduardo Mendoza's invention turns everyday, absurd Barcelona into the setting for a carnival. Behind the grotes...
Specs
Page Count:
192
ISBN:
8432221252
ISBN13:
9788432221255
Reviews
(4/5)2 ratings2 reviews
Entertainment(5/5)
1 rating
Language learning(2/5)
1 rating
nopenopenopesays
June 30, 2024
So, ... the story is simple, a couple of shape-shifting aliens land in Barcelona, one goes missing and a comedy of errors and cultural misunderstandings ensue. Unfortunately, that's the only simple thing about this book.
In the author's afterword, he says something to the effect that part of the book's success is that it's so easy to read and that it's so easy to read because it's so colloquial. Ummmm, ... yeah, that's exactly why this is so hard for learners.
I'm in the Extensive Reading ca
Tricky for learners
This book I think would be very entertaining to people with a strong grasp of Spanish, and importantly, a familiarity with famous Spaniards and also a decent local knowledge of Barcelona. Compared to books I've read at around levels 30-34, this was considerably more work. There were many odd phrases and cultural references that were hard or impossible to understand even with a dictionary on hand. And while I could bumble through the story more-or-less following the happenings, I felt I was missi