Thursday, September 16, 2010

First Chilean Novel



I finished my first book in chilean spanish! Here's a link to it!

http://www.santillana.cl/admin/fotograndelibro/Fantasmasenlacasa450.jpg

As you can see the book is named "Fantasmas en la casa rodante." As you can also see, it's a book written for 6 year olds. I'm not sure if I understood it completely but here is my understanding from what I read:

-There's this old guy who calls himself "el General Don Amador." He lives in a big house in the forest that he inherited from his family. He soon finds out that the house is haunted. However, luckily for him, it's haunted by a nice ghost whose name is Freddy. Freddy just wants to be friends and loves when the General plays music on his old fashioned 1920's radio so that he can dance to it. They form a strong friendship. One day, two people living in a trailer home move into the forest. They are named Florencia y Toño. They are musicians and artisans. After meeting them, the General decides that he wants them out of the forest because he likes his privacy and besides, who wants transients living in the forest near their house? He asks Freddy to go and scare them off at midnight since he's a ghost. Freddy, being the kind soul that he is, doesn't want to do this but since he's so tight with the General, he leaves to do it. The next day, the general goes to ask Florencia and Toño how their night was and if they saw anything interesting..like a ghost? Florencia says "We only saw one ghost, but that's OUR ghost!" Revealing that they too have a ghost named Viola who Freddy the ghost falls in love with. They want to get married HOWEVER, both the General and Florencia are worried about losing their best friends and tell them they can't get married. After alot of heeing and hawing, the General's heart melts, and decides that they can ALL live in Casa Rodante together since it's so huge. The assumption is that they spend the rest of their lives happily ever after, eventually the General and Florencia and Toño die, become ghosts and then all 5 have ghost parties for eternity. The End.

Conclusions from this story:

1) Chileans, like most people in the world, hate Gypsies. Just read who the people in the forest (Florencia and Toño) were. They come out of nowhere and just settle in the forest in a CARAVAN? They're musicians and artisans? They own a magic ghost? ...and the General wants them out? Typical anti-gypsy behavior.

2) Chilean kids must have some pretty advanced reading skills because I figured that a book for first graders would be a walk in the park. It wasn't. This book took me two weeks to read. OK..well I was reading it during lunches only but still, it was only like 15 pages long.

3) I want a pet ghost too.

Next, I'm going to read "La Polilla del baul" It looks easier.

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