I finally finished The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. It was quite good. What I really liked was the whole array of personalities to be found in the book: cabalists, mathematicians, knights, duchesses, pirates, and more. And besides the interesting stories, there was also a lot of interesting philisophical speculation. It's also quite a humorous book, although I hear that other translations then the one I read get that across better. One of the interesting parts is that one of the main stories is about the struggles of the Shiites to take control of the Baghdad Caliphate from the Sunnis. So in a sense, some of the tales are still taking place today.
After reading the whole thing, which is fairly long, I am even more impressed with the movie. It really is a great adaptation, which keeps the spirit, humor, and structure of the original, while throwing out about 75% of the stories, and in fact the purported explanation of why everything was happening. But the explanation wasn't the point, in fact, it really failed to explain a few things. Then again, so did the movie, so it's another evidence of how similar the two are besides the differences. The only problem with the movie is it made Busqueros a good guy, which is quite different from the book.
Posted by ahyatt at May 24, 2003 08:21 AM