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A review by branch_c
The Nautical Chart by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
3.0
A fairly standard treasure hunt story, including a tight group of somewhat obsessed characters, except the protagonist, of course, who is pulled in against his better judgement. The characters deceive each other, but are open to forming alliances; they collaborate, but never truly trust each other; and of course there is the expected romantic tension, eventually resolved.
The writing in the English version is just okay; much of it strikes me as a bit tendentious and overly dramatic, in an attempt to be deeply philosophical. For example, "...no one would ever be able to draw the nautical chart that would allow a man to navigate a woman." (p. 401). I'm afraid it reads like a translation, which of course it is, but ideally it wouldn't be obvious. Only a couple of places seemed to be actual errors; for example, we have "...a hundred-yard line tied to a bowline..." (p. 328) instead of "with a bowline" or "in a bowline". Beyond that, much of the wording seems awkward, especially the dialog, though it's not clear whether that's entirely the fault of the translator. By chance I came across the Spanish version while halfway through this edition, so I picked it up, dusted off my college Spanish and read a couple of chapters that way, but it's clearly been too long since I read anything more complex than a menu or a street sign in Spanish, since I kept having to refer back to the English version for unfamiliar words and phrases. Anyway the elegance of the wording may indeed be a bit better in the original, but it still seemed a bit below average for me.
The nautical aspects are not bad - there are plenty of stories involving sailing in which it's all too apparent that the writer has never set foot on a boat - that's not the case here. However, there were a few too many references to "halyards" where the more generic "lines" would have been better. The historical story leading up to the sought-after shipwreck was the best part of the book for me.
All in all, not terrible, but I was less than impressed.
The writing in the English version is just okay; much of it strikes me as a bit tendentious and overly dramatic, in an attempt to be deeply philosophical. For example, "...no one would ever be able to draw the nautical chart that would allow a man to navigate a woman." (p. 401). I'm afraid it reads like a translation, which of course it is, but ideally it wouldn't be obvious. Only a couple of places seemed to be actual errors; for example, we have "...a hundred-yard line tied to a bowline..." (p. 328) instead of "with a bowline" or "in a bowline". Beyond that, much of the wording seems awkward, especially the dialog, though it's not clear whether that's entirely the fault of the translator. By chance I came across the Spanish version while halfway through this edition, so I picked it up, dusted off my college Spanish and read a couple of chapters that way, but it's clearly been too long since I read anything more complex than a menu or a street sign in Spanish, since I kept having to refer back to the English version for unfamiliar words and phrases. Anyway the elegance of the wording may indeed be a bit better in the original, but it still seemed a bit below average for me.
The nautical aspects are not bad - there are plenty of stories involving sailing in which it's all too apparent that the writer has never set foot on a boat - that's not the case here. However, there were a few too many references to "halyards" where the more generic "lines" would have been better. The historical story leading up to the sought-after shipwreck was the best part of the book for me.
All in all, not terrible, but I was less than impressed.