Talk:Latin American Boom/Archive 1

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Borges

Why isn't he listed as one of the major representatives of the boom? Gatherton 06:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Because he isn't one. --Jbmurray 11:45, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Can you tell me why he isn't one of the major representatives? Gatherton 21:36, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Because he's not a member of the Boom. You might want to say he's a precursor, but he's not a Boom writer. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 07:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I came here to ask the very same question. I see that Borges' writing is very different from those listed here in the Boom; but if the Boom authors are defined only as writers active mid-20th century in Latin America, then he would seem to fit the description, no? Perhaps the thing to do would be to give a more restrictive definition, and to provide a published reference stating it explicitly? We might also want to devote a sentence or two to explaining why Borges doesn't fit the description, since some people are bound to wonder, even if we do provide a more specific definition. Those would be my desiderata at least, as an unabashed fan of both Borges and Laura Esquivel.  :) Hoping these suggestions are helpful, Willow (talk) 02:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Improvement

This article needs to be significantly improved. --Jbmurray 11:45, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem and the FA-Team

To assist WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem in its drive to bring this article to Featured status, a number of experienced editors from the FA-Team have volunteered their editing services to the project. To see which editors are watching this article, click here.

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We're all really enthusiastic about this project, and looking forward to working with you. All the best, The FA-Team 11:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Team work

Hello Darja, I think this article is going to be one the featured articles!!, this week I have many essays and mid terms exams so I will be a little busy but do you think we can meet us some day of the weekend or on the next week. Hope to hear from you soon so that we can achieve this. --Miriamcc (talk) 22:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)miriam--Miriamcc (talk) 22:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm working on the Dictator novel. If you guys are interested in more collaboration, perhaps we could work together in some way. Sharing sources could be a good way..let me know what you think about this!--Abarratt (talk) 06:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

of course we will appreciate your help on any source or anything you want to add to this article please feel free. thanks! miriam128.189.171.205 (talk) 08:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Miriam, just a note to ask you to please make sure you are signed in when you are editing. That makes it easier for others to see that it's you who's been working on the article. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 08:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi Miriam, I was just wondering if you got the email I sent yesterday about the Pope references? I don't have that book so I don't know what page numbers the article is on.--Rabbitfast (talk) 04:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Miriam, can you please add the ISBNs for the Pope and Donoso references, plus page numbers for Pope. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rabbitfast (talk • contribs) 05:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi Miriam. I was able to Google/look those up through the UBC Library site. I still don't know about those paragraphs.
Did you get them from Pope, or somewhere else, or some combination thereof? Can you please look them up and cite
what needs to be cited? --Rabbitfast (talk) 19:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Article development

Hi all! I hope you don't mind - I've just been through the article and "wikified" it a bit, formatting a couple of in-line citations and tweaking the layout and section headings to conform with the dreaded Manual of Style. As you continue to add sourced content, you can either copy the markup I've used or, if you don't feel confident about reference formatting, just add the sources any way you see fit (in brackets is fine). We're quite happy to drop by every now and then and do the technical stuff ;) Any problems, questions, etc, just shout! EyeSereneTALK 19:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I realize this reply is a little post festum but thanks :)--Rabbitfast (talk) 08:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Shaw reference(s)

I note that some of the inline citations (footnotes) refer to "Shaw 1994." Is this then a different text from the 1998 book referenced below? This needs to be clarified. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 08:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is indeed a different text--I added the 1994 article to the References list a couple of hours ago. --Rabbitfast (talk) 08:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Marvellous. The next thing is to make clear in the footnotes which text you're referring to each time. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 12:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Citation needed tag

If the 'citation needed' tags are cleared up, this article is probably advanced enough to be considered for a GA nomination. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 01:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur - it's quite an impressive piece of research. If you feel ready for nomination, go for it ;) I realise time is fast vanishing, so since I've been only marginally involved in this one I'd be happy to review if no-one picks up the gauntlet! EyeSerenetalk 16:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to be bold and delete the sentences with the citation tags. I'll GA nom 'Latin American Boom'. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Chronology

I don't think this chronology is needed any more. It was basically a placeholder previously, when there wasn't a proper article here. I'm moving it over, however, as there are still some things there that could be expanded in the body of the text: Rodriguez Monegal and Mundo Nuevo, for instance. So here it is...

--jbmurray (talk|contribs) 04:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Won't finish GA review tonight but ...

I'm not going to be able to finish the GA review tonight; I should be able to tomorrow night at the latest. So far it looks like a good piece of research, but there are some issues. Here are some quick observations if you have time to work on them before I can write up a detailed review:

  • There are some uncited paragraphs; a good rule is at least one citation per paragraph. I wouldn't fail GA for a short uncited paragraph with completely uncontroversial statements, but it would be worth going through and looking for cites where possible.
  • I'd suggest using English names for the novels; if they've never been translated use the Spanish names
  • One-sentence paragraphs are usually best combined with an adjacent paragraph
  • The Impact and Critique sections are too short to justify a separate section; I'd lengthen these or merge them with adjacent sections.
  • It's good to introduce critics with their role, rather than just naming them: "Indeed, critic Frederick M. Nunn writes" rather than "Indeed, Frederick M. Nunn writes".
  • There are some question-marks in the footnotes and references that should be cleaned up.

More tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk) 02:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

GA Hold

I'm placing this article on GA hold for seven days. Here's my assessment of the article per the criteria at WP:WIAGA.

1. Well-written:

a) Prose, spelling and grammar: fail. I think it's pretty close here; I'll do a copyedit pass and see how it goes. There's nothing seriously wrong here though the writing could be improved. This is now a pass.

I should say this pass is conditional on fixing the points noted below in the Historical Background section and the Copyedit Notes. Those aren't really prose issues (most of them aren't, at least) but this is the best place to note them as part of the GA issues. Mike Christie (talk) 18:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

b) MOS compliance: fail. The main problem is the very short sections "Critique" and "Impact". I think some one-sentence paragraphs have been cleaned up, but at least one remains. The tone occasionally strays into unencyclopaedic territory; I'll see if I can do something about this in the copyedit. Example: "In this novel he gathers hate, and violence, proper elements of a city." If this is a critic's opinion it should be cited; if it's the opinion of an editor of the article, it needs to be made blander: it expresses an opinion with "proper". This is now a pass.

2. Factually accurate and verifiable:

a) References: fail pass. There are some question marks in the footnotes and reference list; fix those and this is a pass.

I believe I fixed this but there is one little problem. When I Googled the Gonzales Echevarria book I noticed that there is another editor, Enrique Pupo-Walker, but I don't know how to add him in there without messing up the format.--Rabbitfast (talk) 17:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Fixed! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 17:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The references are fixed but there are still three footnotes with ??? for page numbers -- footnotes 15, 16 and 48 (in the current revision). Mike Christie (talk) 18:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I missed those. The Shaw (note 65) has now been fixed. Unfortunately, I can't fix the other two as my partner has
those books.--Rabbitfast (talk) 19:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I've cut the page number ??? and am going to mark this as pass; the GA criteria do not say page numbers are required, though it's obviously desirable. This would be needed for FA, of course.

b) Citations: fail. There are a few places where a citation is needed. The Magical Realism paragraph, for example, gives a sufficiently detailed description of the genre, include comments about its origin and aesthetic, that I think a critical source should be cited. However, the article is generally well-cited and there are not many holes.

c) No original research: pass. I am assuming that the uncited material is just that, not original research.

3. Broad coverage.

a) Addresses the major aspects of the topic: pass. I think this is a pass, though I'm not familiar with the material. If those two short sections can be expanded that would make me more comfortable with this, but I believe it's a pass.

b) Stays focused: pass.

4. Neutral: pass.

5. Stable: pass.

6. Image use: pass.

I'll work on a copyedit and post any notes in another section below. Mike Christie (talk) 01:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Historical background

I am working on a copyedit but I have a general comment to make about the Historical background section, so I'm going to put that here in a separate section. Answering these points isn't really necessary for GA, but I hope it should be quick and easy to address most of these -- I suspect the problem here is that I haven't understood the argument, and if you rephrase it most of my concerns are likely to vanish.

I think the argument in the Historical background section needs to be put together a little better. Paraphrasing what I think I understand, the argument is something like this:

    • The Cold War defined the political climate, and there were a lot of dictatorships in the 60s and 70s
    • There was a radical shift in history and literature which affected Latin American novelists.
    • A list of political and sociological events that affected those novelists
    • More attention was paid to these writers and this is the Boom
    • It started in 1959 with the Cuban Revolution
    • Euphoria ended in 1971 with Heberto Padilla's case.
Yes, these are the arguments. However, I was responsible more for the purely historical/political background (ie
the fist paragraph in this section)--Rabbitfast (talk) 08:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I added a sentence to the first paragraph to clarify this; I hope that works. There's still a citation needed tag, however.

I think the right material is in these paragraphs, but the connective tissue in the argument isn't right. For example, you don't say that the Cold War and the dictatorships caused the radical shift in the fields of history and literature; in fact you follow with a list of points that "contributed to this change". So what's the relevance of the Cold War and the dictatorships? I suspect they're relevant because they are what the novelists in the Boom had to react to; they defined the context within which their radicalism would operate. But since you don't say that, I am guessing.

I agree that that needs to be cleaned up but your guess is correct.--Rabbitfast (talk) 08:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

It's also not clear what the "radical shift" is. It's OK to be purely descriptive, if there are no critical explanations available, but I think it would be good to characterize the shift. Is it towards experimental styles of writing? A radical shift in the conception of history could mean that Latin American historians became dogmatically Marxist for a period; or it could refer to conflicts over the control of nationalist propaganda by dictators. I don't think you need very much detail here -- you probably just need to state more clearly what you meant to say in the first place.

Then the last paragraph talks about the Boom as being defined by attention being paid to these writers. How does this definition, of attention to the writers, interact with the definition of the euphoric time period lasting from 1959 to 1971? Is that the time period of the Boom?

-- Mike Christie (talk) 23:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit notes

A few points came up during the copyedit; I hope these are quick to fix. Mike Christie (talk) 14:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Needed for GA

  • A couple of things in the lead: I'd suggest cutting two things: the "(hence the movement's name)" parenthesis, and the last sentence. I don't understand the intention of the former, and the latter doesn't seem necessary at the summary level of the lead.
This is now done. Mike Christie (talk) 09:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • "The greater attention paid to Spanish American novelists and their international success in the 1960's, a phenomenon that was called the Boom, affected all writers and readers who lived through this important event." What event? The greater attention? That seems unlikely. What's the intended meaning here?
  • "A number of gifted novelists, but what ..." Something is clearly missing from this sentence.
  • I've added a citation tag to the "Magical Realism" section. The main two points I'd like to see cited are the assertion that the writings of the Chroniclers of the Indies became a cultural touchstone, and the references to the work of Alejo Carpentier. The last couple of sentences don't need a citation as much, though if you have an appropriate source to hand it would be good to have a cite here to a work that describes or defines Magical Realism.
  • Can you cite the fact that Fuentes best-known novel is The Death of Artemio Cruz? If not, I suggest changing that sentence to "His novel The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962) describes the life of ..."
I went ahead and made this change; it seemed harmless. Mike Christie (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The first paragraph of the publishing section is mostly a long quote; this really should be rephrased in your own words.
I went ahead and did this. Mike Christie (talk) 09:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • More generally I haven't quite figured out the point of this section. Do the sources say that the publishing environment and the activity of key editors at those publishing houses was a key element in the development of Boom writers? If so, you don't actually say this; if not, I'm not sure why we need to know about the publishing background.
OK -- the paragraph now asserts the importance of publishing to the Book so I see you do need this. Mike Christie (talk) 09:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk) 14:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Not needed for GA

  • "Carlos Fuentes in his influential study "La nueva novela hispanoamericana", argued that the Spanish American novel had been devoured by the jungle, the mountains, the rivers, in short by a descriptive passion for Spanish American nature." I didn't add a "citation needed" tag to this, as it almost cites itself, but if you have a copy to cite it wouldn't hard to add a citation. That would give readers a pointer to where they can find a copy of Fuentes' study.
  • I merged the precursors section with the literary influences section; there didn't seem to be a reason to keep them separate, but if there's more to say on precursors by all means split it out again. However, I'm not sure you need the paragraph describing Borges -- it seems unconnected to the surrounding text and not needed for the discussion of the precursors. I'd suggest cutting it completely.
  • Second paragraph in Literary influences section: can you just confirm that the only source cited does indeed provide all the information in the paragraph? That paragraph covers quite a bit of ground. The writers' celebrity status in 1975 would be good to cite, but is not critical; the subsequent discussion about the nature of language in the novel during this period does need to be cited, so that's my main concern here.

-- Mike Christie (talk) 14:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Another source

Looking through this article, especially the discussion of historical context, another source came to mind that I thought would be useful: Idelber Avelar's Untimely Present. PQ7082.N7 A87 1999 at Koerner. I'm thinking of the first chapter in particular. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

What's left for GA

Several of the points have been dealt with, so here's a summary of what's left to be done for GA.

  • "The greater attention paid to Spanish American novelists and their international success in the 1960's, a phenomenon that was called the Boom, affected all writers and readers who lived through this important event." What event? The greater attention? That seems unlikely. What's the intended meaning here?
I hope it's better now.--Rabbitfast (talk) 09:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • "A number of gifted novelists, but what ..." Something is clearly missing from this sentence.
I have no idea what was intended there so I just deleted that bit.--Rabbitfast (talk) 03:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I've added a citation tag to the "Magical Realism" section. The points I'd like to see cited are the assertion that the writings of the Chroniclers of the Indies became a cultural touchstone, and the references to the work of Alejo Carpentier.
I hope I fixed this. I'm assuming most of it comes from Pope but I added th epart that I was actually able to find
in Ocasio.--Rabbitfast (talk) 08:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • There's a "citation needed" note in the "Historical background" section that needs to be dealt with
Once again, I assume this is from Pope.--Rabbitfast (talk) 08:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Please clarify the relationship of the chronology given in the last paragraph of the "Historical background" section to the chronology of the boom.
I've added a sentence about the Padilla affair signalling the 'beginning of the end' of the Boom. Not sure if that's
enough.--Rabbitfast (talk) 05:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

-- That's everything needed. Mike Christie (talk) 10:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Everything now looks good, and I'm passing this for GA. Congratulations! A word about the citations from Pope: in GA, the reviewer isn't expected to go and look up the references and verify that each contains what the editors of the article say it does. I appreciate your honesty in saying that you're assuming the material is from Pope. If you wanted to take this on to FA, you'd need to verify that that material really does come from Pope. For now it's fine, though. Mike Christie (talk) 11:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I really appreciate all the help and advice.--Rabbitfast (talk) 09:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, excellent! Many thanks, Mike! And Rabbitfast, this has been a magnificent effort. Well done!  :) --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 11:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. it's been quite a ride. :^) --Rabbitfast (talk) 09:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


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