Mini - Comments

I've recently read two more books I got at the library, by Portuguese authors, of which I don't have much to talk about. Thus, to leave only a register of having read them, here's a mini-comment on both.

Palavra do Senhor by Ana Bárbara Pedrosa can be literally translated as "Word of the Lord" and it's a fascinating fictional text from the POV of God, if God were to be explaining Himself to humans. The book isn't big and is divided into two parts, the first where God tries to explain some events from the Old Testament, the second His POV after seeing Mary for the first time and how she came to be the mother of Jesus.

Thinking of this as a fictional work, it was very interesting to read and the author has an incredible style to write (my first attempt at her work, she was unknown to me), very correct grammatically and with a clever use of vocabulary but also engaging. This isn't usually that well done, if the narrator is in first person but addressing the audience because it might lead into a cluttered text. Here, between the writing style and the small page count, this didn't happen. I think some situations should have been developed more and it should be said that the God who speaks seems to be the Bible God and not a... let's say, universal God, but... 

In terms of reading, it was quite engaging, as I've said. I'll check other things by the author if I find them at the library.

Grade: 8/10

Uma Terra Prometida by several authors is a small book with a collection of nine short stories by nine different authors. The goal was to write a story with the "refugee" theme, which is so contemporary nowadays... each story is individual and features different types of situations related to refugees.

It was also the first text I've tried by all these authors and, usually, short stories tend to be good ways for us to have an idea of an author's style, which certainly happened here to a point. I liked the stories as a whole, for the purpose of their existence: all embodied somehow the refugee status and used more or less visible clues to let us be aware of the refugees who were seeking help or why were they in this situation. None of the stories were melodramatic, all seemed to want to convey the idea in a simple way, and the reader should read between the lines.

All stores were based on real life events, even if only for inspiration, but any reader would easily recognize what the story is about and what could be the reason for it. There was one in particular I liked most, about a little boy who describes his life after bombs happen in his neighborhood. This story was the one that stayed with me, not only for the compelling writing but for the images it used.

Of course, in a book with nine stories, not all touched me the same way and one or two were actually a little disappointing and didn't seem to mesh so well with the others, and that's why my grade isn't higher. As for the idea and goal in creating this small anthology, very good.

Grade: 8/10