Review #9 of 2023: El Refugio Secreto por Pedro Urvi
Great for language learning, pretty standard popcorn fantasy otherwise
Reseña Corta en Español: El Refugio Secreto es el quinto libro en la serie “El Sendero del Guardabosques” por el autor español Pedro Urvi. Para el aprendizaje del la lengua española, este es un libro magnifico. El vocabulario no cambia tanto entre capitulo y capitulo, o entre libro y libro. Este da muchos oportunidades para reconocer, y practicar con palabras nuevas. Y también, esas paginas contiene un montón de dialogo, algo que da oportunidades amplias para ver “slang”, chistes, bromas y frases únicos al español. Pero como libro, El Refugio Secreto no es tan bueno. La trama es confusa: el tiempo va y viene con irregularidades durante todas las ~500 paginas. El mundo entre estas paginas no era algo realista: lo consiste de una mezcla absurda de modernidad y la Edad Media. Finalmente, el protagonista, Lasgol, empieza convertirse en un ser bastante aburrido. En todos los libros, él nunca jamás ha tenido crecimiento interno. Él recibe poderes nuevos, como en videojuego, no por su propias acciones, pero por azar o algo similar. Por ejemplo, en el final de este libro, Lasgol fue seleccionado para dos especializaciones, a pesar de lo no ser algo especial en el entrenamiento durante el año. Voy a continuar con este serie, pero soló para el aprendizaje de idiomas.
It teaches you Spanish, but it’s no great work of literature
As most of you that follow this blog know, I’ve been learning Spanish as a second language for approximately the past three years. I follow the Refold method, which recommends the pursuit of comprehensible input. Thus, while my Spanish ability has gotten to the point that I can read pretty much whatever I’d like1, I’m always on the hunt for books that fall in that perfect 95-99% known word range for improving comprehension most rapidly. However, I’d also like the books to remain engaging. Satisfying both of these criteria at early levels is harder than it looks, and artificial attempts to construct books that teach langauge through this method, such as the Lingua Latina, or Nature Method series are usually extremely boring and contain almost no plot. When I first started immersing with Spanish in 2020, I tolerated a much lower comprehension level with books I had already read in English, such as Harry Potter, in order to avoid this problem. However, by the winter of 2021-2022, I felt my skill level appropriate to try to transition mainly to native content. There were books I could read, like Ana Maria Matute’s modern classic Olvidado Rey Gudú, but these were a struggle and didn’t fit within the appropriate comprehension range, or within my philosophy of mostly slow, easy volume. In looking for easier, native Spanish books that winter, I stumbled upon Pedro Urvi’s Sendero del Guardabosques (Path of the Ranger) series, and was almost instantly hooked. The books follow orphan Lasgol Eklund as he trains to become a ranger in the snowy kingdom of Norghana. The books are a nice mix of Ranger’s Apprentice and Harry Potter, and the ones I’ve read were entertaining, long, and at a perfect level for my Spanish. I’ve sprinkled them into my immersion diet, alongside harder books, ever since.
What makes these books so great for language learning?
Turns out a lot of the things that makes them into not-so-great literature (we’ll get to that later).
Repetition. Pedro Urvi likes to use a lot of the same vocabulary to describe character actions, insults, and the world. This gets old from a story standpoint, but really helps to reinforce vocabulary. One word that I’ve recently learned this way is the verb resoplar, which translates roughly to “to huff”
Lots of dialogue. This is helpful for a lot of the same reasons as above. As more of a beginning learner it’s also very helpful because dialogue helps to break up the text so that you can find your bearings if you’ve become lost. It also means that despite the setting of this book in the Middle Ages, I’ve got exposed to a lot of words that could still be used in everyday conversation, including a lot of insults (my favorite is cabeza de membrillo: pear head)
Progression. While there is still a lot of repetition, each book puts the characters into new situations with slightly new vocabulary. While not at the same level as Harry Potter when it comes to this2, the slight progression in maturity is enough to be helpful.
Extremely easy to read. There’s not a whole lot of plot or themes to struggle through here, making it really easy to binge these and rack up those words read!
It teaches you Spanish, but it’s no great work of literature
One of the lies our culture tells us these days is that there’s no much thing as good or bad art. This is clearly untrue. Art has a purpose just like everything else, although in this case its purpose is to help us see purpose. A beautiful painting, piece of music, or work of literature should make you feel or understand something about the world, potentially in a way that is unable to be explained through logic. Literature has four primary ways of doing this: through prose, through plot, through characters, or through world-building. Books may be great at one of these things, like Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings, which only can call itself good at world-building, or all four, like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, I don’t think El Refugio Secreto, or any of the other Guardabosques books, can be called good in any of the above four categories.
Prose: I may not be the best judge of this as Spanish is my second language, but there have been other books in Spanish which I’ve found passages extremely beautiful. None in this book, and the moments during which Urvi attempts to do so3 fall flat more often than not. This is also not helped by the repetition of vocabulary, sometimes multiple times in the same sentence.
Plot: all the Guardabosques books share the same weakness: they’re primarily composed of filler. We know where we’re supposed to end up: at the big test at the end of the year, usually accompanied by a dramatic battle. Urvi needs to have the characters earn the right to pass this test, so most of the middle two quarters of the book consists of training montages with a plot that’s all over the place and doesn’t accomplish any character development. Harry Potter managed to do this “in-school” side plotting in a much more cohesive manner. Then, right before the test the characters still think they’re going to fail, but somehow pull through because of Deus ex machina or Mary-Sue syndrome. Which brings me to my next critique.
Characters: the characters in this book are all cardboard cutouts of a single trait, or in the case of the main character Lasgol, a reader insert. Ingrid is strict and rigid. Nilsa is clumsy. Egil is smart. Gerd is big and afraid of weird things. The rival Isgord is a total asshole but actually a good ranger. We still don’t really know anything about the love interest, Astrid. Viggo is actually kind of an interesting character. However, despite some clumsy attempts at the beginning of this book after certain characters fail the specialization test, there really isn’t any character growth for absolutely anyone. The personalities of each of the six main characters are exactly the same as when they first entered Ranger school in book 1.
Worldbuilding: I was originally attracted to the novelty of the Harry Potter/Ranger’s Apprentice crossover vibes of this series. However, as the books have dragged on, more and more logical flaws have appeared in the way this world is constructed. How does icy-cold and snowy Norghana grow enough crops to support a massive Ranger school, in addition to the regular army? How is there so little discussion of gender roles, which are very important in a non-post scarcity society? How are peasants not starving as a result of the civil war that started three years ago in book 3? How does the magic system actually work, and why do all the spells have video game names? I could go on, but you get the point.
Does the literary quality of this book mean it’s not worth reading? Not necessarily: it’s been very useful for my Spanish. And this book doesn’t have any DNF-inducing flaws, unlike another famous Spanish fantasy book which I hope to review later this year. I also think there’s something potentially dangerous in self-limiting yourself to “good literature”. Choosing better books is something that will happen naturally as your literary tastes develop and doesn’t need to be forced.
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With the same limitations as English. Quantum mechanics and 19th century literature are always going to be hard.
Harry Potter has a very strong age grade, increasing a couple hundred points in lexical score between the first and last books. The books also become significantly more mature, but as an adult that’s neither here nor there for me.
One example in this book is when the new guardabosques are honored in a graduation ceremony, a beautiful ode plays that brings the main character to tears. I found this moment extremely cheesy, rather than emotional