Ladron de la Mente Book Report
This book was written by Elias Miguel Munoz, Cuban American writer, who wrote series of books in Spanish language for people, who learn Spanish. He was born in 1954 and is known as editor, teacher and literary critic. He was a talented student as well. Elias Miguel was a man of society, he always thinks about the future generations and makes everything in order to support talented youth. As far as we know, CSU Dominguez Hills received donations of $26 000- this amount was donated by Elias Miguel Munoz and Karen Christian to create the Miguel Gallegos Memorial Scholarship.
“Since I’ve graduated, I’ve had a dream of doing something for Dominguez Hills. I feel so proud of the education I received,” Munoz says. “And it honors me to be able to give back to the University that did so much for me. The professors in the Foreign Languages Department guided me toward a doctoral degree. My first exposure to literature was at Dominguez Hills, and that led me to writing, which is such a major part of my life now. It all started there.” (http://www.csudh.edu/InvestInUs/PrivateDonors.asp )
After he graduated from CSUDH, Elias Miguel Munoz entered University of California, Irvine (UCI) and received degrees of Master and Doctor in American and Spanish Literature. Moreover, he even began to teach literature at the University of California and everybody there were impressed by a talented student who so brilliantly spoke Mexican and English languages. (http://www.csudh.edu/InvestInUs/PrivateDonors.asp )
Elias Miguel Munoz wrote a lot of books and among them are “Crazy love” – the book which is a kind of novel where is described an immigration from Cuba to Florida, and which has a lot of information regarding the Cuban-American culture. Among his books are “Los Viajes de Orlando Cachumbambe (Coleccion Caniqui)”, “Quia Online Worksbook/Lab Manual t/a Dos Mundos: En Breve”, “Brand New Memory”, “En Estas Tierras”, “Fray Alberto de la madre de dios; Arquitecto (1575-1635), “Torres y castillos de la Cantabria medieval”, “Ladron De La Mente”, etc.
“Ladron De La Mente” is of great interest not only for teachers of Spanish language, but also for students and all who start to investigate the mystery of this melodic and amazing language. The chapters of the book are quite short but easy to understand and very interesting. The main heroes of the book behave in such a way that you cannot tear yourself away of the book and you while you are reading, you have the feeling that you are the main hero and you experience all the things that happen there from the very beginning till the end of the story.
The story takes place in Madrid (Spain), and the book has a lot of pictures and illustration of the beautiful suburbs of Madrid. It has a glossary at the end of the book, so the students can see unknown words to understand the story more clearly. The subject of the book is dedicated to a young woman and her strange, incomprehensible, mysterious boyfriend and the story is full of mystery, mystics, time travel; it is full of supernatural events, which take place and things one can hardly understand, without explaining it with the simple but strong word “magic”. Elias Miguel Munoz gives in the book some elements of Spanish history, which in his explanation is of great use for students and allow learning something about Spanish history in an easy and interesting way.
During the story takes place and continues, students find out what happens to a thief who steals a thing or something which cannot be named as property, but something else.
One of the main characters in the story is Marisol, a young woman. Marisol is a interpreter for one computer company specialized on software, and lives in Madrid with her friend Javier and sister Rocio. Here she is depicted like a beautiful young female with her thought and strong doubts. When the reader investigates the story, he almost associates himself or herself with Marisol, living her life and being the one with her from the beginning till the end of story. The reader connects himself with her from the very beginning.
The main hero has a charming character but acts very reasonable and with a bit of irony. For example, she compares herself to Dulcinea – a female character of Servantes’ novel “Don Quijot” and to another female character in one challenging computer game “Damsel in Distress”
Alfonso – the other character of this interesting story is a charming, tempting and seductive character, who shows his actual face and shows his worth from the bad side gradually. He is able to mask his real “face” for quite a long period of time and in the book he is charming and seducing Marisol like a real worshipper. Marisol was tremendously tempted by his behavior (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0072326174/reviews/026-3948048-6710013 ).
Javier and Rocio are the secondary heroes of “Ladron De La Mente” and they are quite deeply developed by Miguel.
Marisol narrates everything what is going on with her and what she is experiencing, in her diary – so the story is written partially in a diary form by her. Still, she leaves a space for other characters to show out their feelings and thoughts. The entire story is penetrated by supernormal events and computer technologies – so the story is very modern (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0072326174/reviews/026-3948048-6710013 ).
Marisol likes to go to the cinema, to the theater, museums, to experience bright and jolly celebrations – to live a joyous life. Still, she likes museums and paintings there -she says that the work of Guernica influence her very much. She likes also paintings of Dali:
“Aquellos relojes dormidos, fláccidos,vacíos de vida, me parecían el presagio de algo; eran la imagen muerta de un tiempo sin tiempo” – dice Marisol
(These weak, empty hours of life, they seemed to me an omen of something, it seemed to be an image, which died from time without time”,- tells Marisol about “The Persistence of Memory” (Dali, 1931).
This work reflects every feeling, the painter wanted to show – feelings of inhabitants of the settlement, and victims of the war. Marisol surfs the internet, she reads science fiction and makes some quite interesting associations and connections between the books of fiction and her own challenging story.
In every chapter we find themes of Spanish culture, which are very important in the history of Spain.
Works Cited
- Elías Miguel. Ladrón de la mente. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000
- http://www.csudh.edu/InvestInUs/PrivateDonors.asp
- http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0072326174/reviews/026-3948048-6710013
