Sevilla, 1647. Un año de plazo y una prueba por cada mes.Esas son las dos condiciones que Nise, dama tan célebre por sus versos como por su belleza, exige a todo aquel que quiera pretender su mano. Solo Octavio, un joven decidido y obstinado, ha conseguido llegar sin tacha hasta el último mes. Ninguno de los dos imagina que su pasado, encarnado en Beatriz y Manuel, sus dos mejores amigos, irrumpirá de repente en sus vidas y los obligará a compartir secretos, deseos e incluso un turbio asesinato en medio de una noche de la que depende, si saben jugar bien sus cartas, todo su futuro. Una comedia escrita por Nando López a partir de los Desengaños amorosos de María de Zayas y con la que su autor reivindica la modernidad, el sentido crítico y la vigencia de la gran autora barroca.
"Puede que este tiempo no naciera con vuestro signo ni con el mío, pero entre tanta mentira y tanto desengaño, hemos de luchar juntos por volverlo nuestro".
Una lectura fantástica y amena. Intriga, enredos emocionales y personajes complejos son las características de las mejores obras del siglo XVII, y esta, adaptada al género teatral (y, solo en parte, a la actualidad, pues se basta por sí sola), no es una excepción. Una lectura estupenda tanto para el alumnado de Lengua Castellana y Literatura como para cualquier persona curiosa acerca de esta época y de lo mucho que podía parecerse, en deseos y reivindicaciones, a la nuestra.
I read this because it is something "set" by a book club I'm a member of. I know that the copies of the book we were given to read came from the local secondary school and I notice that there is a review of this book which comments on how interesting this book would be for students of Castilian. I agree that old texts, Shakespeare, Góngora sort of texts, are worth the while (and I know that this is a contemporary version based on the María de Zayas ) but, it seems to me, that they should come long after readers have got used to well written, contemporary works. I suspect that the success of this book is because it's been seen as a bridge between the classic and the contemporary and has become a school textbook. If I'd been force fed this sort of text when I was a lad I would probably never have thought to join a book club as an adult.
Some of the language forms were completely incomprehensible to me, as a foreigner with limited Spanish, but the simple story was easy enough to follow. I'm sure that the sniping between men and women is seen as being prototypical feminism and I was a bit surprised at the couple of gay episodes (which may or may not be simply modern inclusions) but reading it I was half waiting for the Shakespearean confusion between twins or at least men dressing up as women and vice versa. Not exactly a complicated or sophisticated plot.