The OF Blog: A little quote for you

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

A little quote for you

From Carlos Ruiz Zafón's El Juego del Ángel (translation is mine):

Don Basilio era un hombre de aspecto feroz y bigotes frondosos que no se andaba con ñoñerías y suscribía la teoría de que un uso liberal de adverbios y la adjetivación excesiva eran cosa de pervertidos y gentes con deficiencias vitamínicas.

(Don Basilio was a man of fierce aspect and (with) thick mustaches that didn't put up with spinelessness and he subscribed to the theory that a liberal use of adverbs and excessive adjectivization were a thing of perverts and people with vitamin deficiencies.)
Thoughts on Don Basilio's theory?

6 comments:

ediFanoB said...

Is there an example for "liberal use of adverbs and excessive adjectivization" ?

A novel without adverbs and adjectives is like soup without salt.

Maybe I'm a bit crazy. The German edition of El Juego del Ángel is available but I wait for the English translation.
I also read The Shadow of the Wind in English.

Anonymous said...

It goes well together with sir Terry Pratchett's thoughts on people using multiple exclamations.

Anonymous said...

:P coming from him I'd say the character is being used to depict practical, unromantic characters, sort of muleheaded and lacking any sensibility whatsoever, is that a shcool teacher speaking? :P jaded jaded jaded.

Oscar.

Larry Nolen said...

Yes Oscar, I'm a jaded old fucker right now, especially since I am logging on just to answer this and a couple of things before I get back to grading exams and crashing. It's been a really blah week back and my knee and ankles are hurting. So yeah, Don Basilio's comments amused me in the context of what I deal with at work ;)

Anonymous said...

I won´t advance any answers to that, because I just received Zafón´s books in Brazilian Portuguese translation. Hopefully I´ll read them until February!

Larry Nolen said...

Curious to know what you'll make of Zafón's writing, Fábio!

 
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