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5 comments about Memorias de Adriano/ Adriano's Memories.

1. este libro es hermoso y erudito, lleno de palabras y acciones que edifican y que son de una literatura de alto nivel. siempre me ha sorprendido esta escritora por su cultura, por el esmero que pone al escribir la vida de un emperador romano, tan creible que nos parece sacado de un libro de historia.esun libro que puede dar un poco de trabajo para quien no esta acostumbrado a la lectura de los clasicos o a encontrarse muchas palabras que pueden parecer raras o sacadas de un diccionario de donde nunca han sido usadas. es hermoso y esforzado, toda una obra maestra. muy recomendado..

   LUIS MENDEZ




2. Memorias de Adriano Marguerite Yourcenar

   Un libro increíblemente bien escrito. Esta escritora dedico muchos años y esfuerzo trabajando en su libro de una manera casi obsesiva para traernos un producto acabado. El libro esta lleno de reflexiones sobre la vida y más que todo sobre la muerte, tema que obsesiona al emperador desde el principio de su larga epístola hasta el final en que logra una reconciliación consigo mismo y se deja llevar por la vida. De este libro se pueden decir tantas cosas pero es mejor dejarle esa parte al lector para que él sea quien juzgue la obra y el esfuerzo de la autora y su gran desenvolvimiento en lo que son las descripciones del siglo II trayéndonos un material fresco y a la vez autoritativo que puede dar lugar a que se haga más interesante el estudio de la historia de esa civilización. Es un libro culto y erudito que debería figurar en un buen programa educativo pero que como muchas otras cosas por aquí no figura en nada, pena para nuestra educación...... Luis Méndez.




3. Una narración en primera persona donde el viejo emperador romano Adriano escribe una autobiografía reflexiva a su heredero al trono Marco Aurelio, una obra que sin caer en la pedantería cronológica de muchos escritores nos cuenta su vida, sus orígenes, batallas, sueños, amores y frustraciones además de darnos imagenes del mundo romano de aquel entonces.



4. Me apena decir esto despues de los buenos comentarios que se han dejado en esta pagina, pero la verdad que es un libro denso, sin trama, sin dialogos. El emperador Adriano habla en una especie de despedida, disertando sobre su vida y las cosas que ha aprendido. No niego que el libro esta bien escrito y que la autora debe de haberle puesto mucho empeño, pero por mas que lo intente, no logre engancharme. Lo recomiendo para aquellas personas mas bien intelectuales y que gustan de filosofar sobre diversos temas, pues si que es un libro profundo y con ideas muy lindas.



5. El libro es fascinante. La autora pretende y lo logra, a traves del relato de la vida de Adriano, transmitirnos la idiosincracia, los principios, la concepcion de vida de la aristrocracia romana cuando ya la fe politeista se estaba agotando y el cristianismo estaba aún en estado embrionario. Y lo hace con gran calidad literaria. Obviamente no es un libro para quien quiera interpretar la historia como un comic o miniserie de televisión. Es un libro para saborear, con tiempo y calma, como un buen vino.

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2 comments about Kaahumanu: Molder of Change.

1. Kaahumanu and her husband Kamehameha the Great are the first well-defined personalities in Hawaiian history.
   The definitions are open to more than one interpretation, however. Jane Silverman chooses to define Kaahumanu as Hawaii's first feminist. There is no evidence that Kaahumanu thought of herself in that fashion. None of the laws that she imposed upon her society were presented in terms of differences between the sexes, for example.
   It is true that Kaahumanu took on roles that probably no woman in Hawaii ever had before, and that she initiated changes that removed tremendous disabilities from Hawaiian women. But there is no reason to believe that she burned the old gods on behalf of women. She burned them, it appears, for the benefit of all, in the service of what she regarded as a new truth, and especially for the benefit of Kaahumanu.
   For she was not first a feminist, nor a stateswoman nor a politician, although she was all of these. First, she was an aristrocrat.
   "In an undefined space on the boundary of two cultures, Kaahumanu created a role for herself that she would not have been permitted within either culture," Silverman writes. This is too selective. No man, not even Kamehameha, could have done what she did without the solvent of the outside world. and even in the special conditions of her times, no woman but an aristocrat could have done what she did.
   None of that detracts from her accomplishments, for after all there were other women with even higher mana who did not seize power the way Kaahumanu did.
   Societies vary in their ability to resist intrusion from the modern world. The old Hawaiians were essentially receptive to new things, some of them good for them and some not. It was unfortunate for them that Kaahumanu replaced the violent old religion with a narrow-minded and repressive new one.
   It was easier for her, however, since she refused to be repressed herself. Like aristrocrats everywhere, she did as she pleased.
   This was true to an extent even before the impact of the outside world hit Hawaii. Silverman overstates the case when she says, "Kaahumanu, the most favored women of her society, lived within rigidly prescribed boundaries."
   The rules were right enough, but enforcement was not. It never is in aristocracies.
   Overall, the outside impact that Kaahumanu sponsored must have been liberating. The common people, at least, accepted it with a minimum of protest. Looking back, the picture seems more complicated. Whatever the judgment, Kaahumanu deserves to be ranked with the great social innovators and leaders of all time.
   she was a contemporary of Napoleon and just as able. If her nation had been as important as France, she would be as famous.
   All of this is well set out in "Kaahumanu: Molder of Change." The book reads well and is accurate as to facts. But the feminist spin that Silverman puts on every interpretation is anachronistic. At its worst it leads here to such absurd statements as, "These missionary women were not narrow in their outlook." And at the least it jars because Kaahumanu was not a modern political operator. She broke traditions, but she could not break the context of her own life.



2. 
   ...but Jane Silverman moves us closer to that goal by adding to the first foundation of what we know for sure about Queen K. She mines journals and letters to provide descriptions of events that were not witnessed by anyone else, offering us the first cogent summary of Queen K's actions as regent for so many years.
   I found Silverman's suggestion that Queen K was some sort of proto-Feminist unpersuasive. She never acted on behalf of women generally. She broke rules for herself, when it suited her. Her observations about religion and the law were more compelling. Steeped in a tradition where the priests and kings set out the rules of life, she tried to use that same approach in governance. Substituting puritanical Christianity for the old kapu system seemed only natural.
   Not a great book, just a good one, but one of the only references if you really want to know more about Queen Kaahumanu and her reign.

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