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Faulques, a war photographer, witnessed most of the wars of the end of the 20th Century, but he was never able to capture the photo that would explain the chaos of the universe. Now, as continues to try to understand it, he starts painting a grand circular fresco on the inside wall of a tower on the Mediterranean, disturbed by the memories of a woman he can never forget, and an unexpected visit: a man who wants to kill him.… (more)
El pintor de batallas Arturo Pérez-Reverte Publicado: 2006 | 202 páginas Novela Drama
En una torre junto al Mediterráneo, en busca de la foto que nunca pudo hacer, un antiguo fotógrafo pinta un gran fresco circular en la pared: el paisaje intemporal de una batalla. Lo acompañan en la tarea un rostro que regresa del pasado para cobrar una deuda mortal, y la sombra de una mujer desaparecida diez años atrás. En torno a esos tres personajes, Arturo Pérez-Reverte ha escrito la más intensa y turbadora historia de su larga carrera de novelista. Deslumbrante de principio a fin, El pintor de batallas arrastra al lector, subyugado, a través de la compleja geometría del caos del siglo XXI: el arte, la ciencia, la guerra, el amor, la lucidez y la soledad, se combinan en el vasto mural de un mundo que agoniza.
Interesting, but depressing. Graphic detail about war violence. One thing I didn't care for was the dialogue. The things the author has his characters say doesn't sound like things that would really come out of someone's mouth. No one in normal language speaks in philosophical riddles and complexities. ( )
This is an unusual and dense read but, in the end, extremely rewarding. There is a lot of philosophy about war, the source of man's inhumanity, photography and art. I enjoy the references to real places and art. A quiet conversation between two men about their lives ruined by the atrocities they have experienced. This book should touch your soul. ( )
The Painter of Battles lives in a lighthouse, painting a mural of scenes of famous battles intermixed with personal horror from his own experiences. He is alone, until he is visited by a man from his past who comes to make him think about his life and his role in the atrocities that he experienced as a "tourist of disasters." The man has come to discuss and explore the nature of art as it relates to reality, the inexhaustible cruelty of man, and how war makes up a part of the human condition. He has also come to kill him. Very different from his other books, which are more in the vein of literary adventures or mysteries. This book feels personal to me. Mr. Reverte worked as a war correspondent/journalist in numerous, most likely hellish, locations. The fact that some of the stories related in this book may be real or at least mirror real events made them more chilling. I agree with one commentator who stated that reading this novel will change your reactions to what you see in images from datelines around the world. ( )
El protagonista es el propio autor. Habla y trata de los mismos temas con el mismo vocabulario que el autor en cualquier entrevista. En ese sentido mucho de lo que dijo, ya lo habia oido. La chica del libro, el sueño humedo del autor, guapa, intelectual e inteligente. Y lo demas, una excusa para mostrar a los dos personajes de arriba. El tercer personaje principal del libro, no entra en conflicto con el pintor, siempre estan de acuerdo en todo.
Al menos los temas que tocan son interesantes. ( )
Saint Augustine has seen that one labors in uncertainty at sea andin battles and in all the rest, but he has not seen the rules of the game. --Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 234
Dedication
First words
He swam one hundred and fifty strokes out to sea and the same number back, as he did each morning, until he felt the round pebbles of the shore beneath his feet.
Quotations
A photograph is no longer a witness, it has become a part of the scene around us. Anyone can comfortably choose the parcel of horror he wishes to be moved by. (10)
From so much abuse, so much manipulation, it's been a long time since a picture was worth a thousand words. But that isn't your fault. It isn't the way you see things that's been devalued, it's the tools you use. There are just too many photos, don't you agree? The world is saturated with photographs. (63)
There are no barbarians now, Falques. They are all inside us. And there aren't even ruins like those of the past... In a different time, she'd said--moving with care among chunks of cement and twisted iron, camera to her eye, searching for the right framing--ruins were indestructible. Isn't that true? They stayed there for centuries and centuries, though people used the stones for their houses and the marble for their palaces. And then a Hubert Robert or a Magnasco came along with his easel and painted them. It isn't like that now. Just look at this. Our world creates rubble instead of ruins, and as soon as possible a bulldozer comes and everything disappears, ready to be forgotten. (107)
Last words
He wondered what he would find beyond the three hundred strokes.
Faulques, a war photographer, witnessed most of the wars of the end of the 20th Century, but he was never able to capture the photo that would explain the chaos of the universe. Now, as continues to try to understand it, he starts painting a grand circular fresco on the inside wall of a tower on the Mediterranean, disturbed by the memories of a woman he can never forget, and an unexpected visit: a man who wants to kill him.
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Wikipedia in English
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Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Publicado: 2006 | 202 páginas
Novela Drama
En una torre junto al Mediterráneo, en busca de la foto que nunca pudo hacer, un antiguo fotógrafo pinta un gran fresco circular en la pared: el paisaje intemporal de una batalla. Lo acompañan en la tarea un rostro que regresa del pasado para cobrar una deuda mortal, y la sombra de una mujer desaparecida diez años atrás. En torno a esos tres personajes, Arturo Pérez-Reverte ha escrito la más intensa y turbadora historia de su larga carrera de novelista. Deslumbrante de principio a fin, El pintor de batallas arrastra al lector, subyugado, a través de la compleja geometría del caos del siglo XXI: el arte, la ciencia, la guerra, el amor, la lucidez y la soledad, se combinan en el vasto mural de un mundo que agoniza.