Permanent good weather

The real world has seasons.

My husband and I at the city walls of Ávila, Spain. Photo by a friendly fellow tourist.

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In Amadis of Gaul, it never rains and the weather is always warm. It's always perfect for adventures and jousts.

Real life is different. Here in the central plateau of Spain where I live, the winters are damp and frigid, and the summers are dry and baking hot. In the summer, Madrid takes a break and lets tourists take over.

I'll be taking a break, too, after next week's post on July 20. It will be Chapter 35, which begins with heart-stopping suspense and ends with one of the most beautiful and joyous passages of the novel.

Amadis of Gaul will resume on September 7.

If you're new to this blog, I'd like recommend a few exceptional posts that you may enjoy during the break. If you want to catch up on the story from the beginning, remember that it begins with Chapter 0.

Chapter 9
Amadis, known then as Childe of the Sea, fights the King of Ireland to defend the Kingdom of Gaul. This is the archetypical medieval hero in action.
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/03/chapter-9.html

I also read a section of that chapter as part of the Broad Universe July Broadpod podcast, starting at minute 22.
http://broadpod.posterous.com/
http://broadpod.podbean.com/

Chapter 17, 18, and 19
These chapters tell how Amadis sets out to find his brother, Galaor, and instead has a series of adventures central to the novel.
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/07/chapter-17-first-half.html
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/07/chapter-17-final-half.html
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/07/chapter-18-first-half_21.html
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/07/chapter-18-final-half.html
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/09/chapter-19.html

Chapter 25
Galaor engages in medieval comic violence and sex. Six hundred years ago, this would have had the audience laughing out loud. Sensibilities were different then.
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2010/01/chapter-25.html

Yesterday was five centuries ago, by José Miguel Pallarés
My friend, a Spanish novelist, tells how he discovered Amadis of Gaul. As a boy, he found a dusty copy in his family home in a medieval mountain town in Spain, and it changed his life.
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/06/yesterday-was-five-centuries-ago-by.html

California, according to Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo
How the imaginary land of warrior women became the real land of Tinseltown.
http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com/2009/07/california-according-to-garci-rodriguez.html

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Remember that this blog is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0, so feel free to use your summer vacation to copy, distribute, display, share, or perform all or any part of it, or to create derivative works — for non-commercial use. Just say where you got it. If you want to do something commercial, I can be very reasonable.
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