Talk:The Kingdom of This World/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Lampman (talk) 18:33, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

First of all, I would urge the editor to follow the advice given by User:EyeSerene on the talk page; these are all good ideas towards the improvement of the article. Further, this seems to be a really good article well on its way to FA status. If this is the goal, then I would advice the use of Alt text for images. This is pretty much a requirement for FAs these days, though not for GAs yet.

• "¡Ecue-Yamba-O!", "Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda", "Ainsi parla l’oncle" - parenthetical translations of Spanish titles would be good help for the reader.

• I've added the translations as found on the Wikipedia pages for the respective authors. --Chris Weber (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• "Theatre has also greatly influenced Alejo Carpentier's work." - since he is dead it would probably be better to use simple past: "Theatre also greatly influenced Alejo Carpentier's work."

• No reason for the present tense. Changed. --Chris Weber (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• "autochthonous" - this should probably be linked, I guess to Indigenous peoples

• Good idea. Added. --Chris Weber (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I am curious as to why the plot summary is in bullet-point form by chapter? This is not the normal way of presenting the plot, and it gives the story a somewhat disjointed feel.

• As you can tell by the content of the bullet points, the novel itself has a disjointed feel. We have, however, fixed that and left only the separation between parts, not chapters. --Chris Weber (talk) 18:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• Plot: there was a certain stinginess with the commas here, to the point where it occasionally affected comprehension. I tried to add a few more, but this was a bit of a problem throughout the article. Again, this might be an issue at a potential future FA review.

• I think that in dealing with the bullet-point form, we have improved the punctuation. --Chris Weber (talk) 18:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• There are also a few non sequiturs in the plot outline - sentences that left questions unanswered:

• Pauline enjoys sexually tempting... (who is she, and why is she there?)
• Henri Christophe is using slaves... (who is he, how did he get to the position he's in?)
• Solimán finds himself in Europe... (how did he get there?)

• These things do get explained further down, but for the moment readers are left perplexed

• I have added a few specifications as to why those characters find themselves in such positions. --Chris Weber (talk) 18:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• Just a question: does the novel indicate whether the statue of Pauline is the Canova one? Is there any critical commentary on this?

• The book specifies a statue of a naked Pauline reclining on a bed and offering an apple. The Canova statue fits the exact description and matches the time and place of the plot. Is this enough to bring the picture back? --Chris Weber (talk) 21:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

• Henri Christophe and Lenormand de Mezy: the character descriptions are pretty much only a repetition of what has already been said in the plot summary. The other characters have more critical interpretations to them, which is missing here.

• I added some critical commentary on Christophe, do you suppose that is enough?. As for Lenormand de Mezy, I don't think he deserves "major character" status, as his influence in the novel is minimal. I suppose we could remove him. --Chris Weber (talk) 22:30, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

• "Carpentier grew up in Havana but later moved to France for six years and has travelled extensively" - again, is there any reason not to use simple past, seeing how the author is dead?

• Again, no reason for the present. Changed to past. --Chris Weber (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• "Genre" - this could need one or two more refs - who is it that credits Carpentier as one of the originators of magic realism?

• I added some information with citations that back up the claim. Do you reckon that will suffice? --Chris Weber (talk) 05:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• "Ti Noel's comparison of wax heads at a barber's shop to white men's heads being served at a banquet" - this is repeated twice in the article, and this is redundancy.

• True. I removed one of the moments. --Chris Weber (talk) 00:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

All together a very good article, and these issues should be possible to address. I will check back in a week to see how it goes. Lampman (talk) 18:33, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, most of my concerns have been addressed. As I see it, there is still an issue with the second paragraph of "Genre", which is unreferenced. Statements such as the one about the "overly forced and cliché efforts by European surrealists to portray magical occurrences" can seem like POV and OR if unreferenced. The same goes for the interpretation of the metamorphoses scenes. Once this is done I will pass the article.

As for the Canova sculpture, I'd definitely leave it in. It seems obvious to me that it is the sculpture described in the novel, though if this is not stated explicitly by an external reliable source, then the article cannot do so either, or that would be OR. Lampman (talk) 10:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I have added the due references, but cannot find anything regarding the Canova sculpture. While it is clear that it is the sculpture Carpentier alludes to, I figured that out through common sense. I cannot recall having read it anywhere. Seeing as it is not an essential piece of information, but rather a piece of trivia, it would not pain me too much to see it left out. Thank you very much for the review. --Chris Weber (talk) 19:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

My point was leave in the picture, just don't make the connection explicit. Anyway, I'll pass the article now, good work! I'd say it's close to FA-status, if there's any interest in taking that path. Lampman (talk) 20:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)