Talk:The House of the Spirits

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	Literature Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Assessment comments The following comments were left by the assessors: (edit · refresh) This article is at present little more than an extended plot summary.

Contents 1 Importance scale 2 Plot/characters 3 Please transfer to previous version 4 deleting "important novel" 5 Fair use rationale for Image:Houseofthesprirts.jpg 6 Fair use rationale for Image:Houseofspirits.jpg

[edit] Importance scale

I've changed it from Mid to High. It's the main novel by Allende, one of the most popular and most translated southamerican authors, and one of the main figures of the Magic Realism genre. Plus it was brought to the cinema in a movie starred Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, Glenn Close and Antonio Banderas.--Rataube 17:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

And I've set it back to "Mid." Admittedly, some other rather unimportant novels are featured at Category:High-importance_novel_articles. But The House of the Spirits is not a major novel, though it is a best-seling one. The fact that it has been made into a film is not really a distinguishing mark, whoever the actors may have been. (The film was terrible also, it's worth saying.) Isabel Allende is not a major author either, though again she is best-selling and as such also well-known.

Oh, and this article needs major improvement. At present it's little more than an extended plot summary. It says next to nothing about the book. If others feel it's important, I'd suggest it's up to them to explain why, beyond the fact it happens to have sold a lot of copies. What is original or interesting about it? --Jbmurray 09:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

For these same reasons I've also downgraded it to "Start" category. --Jbmurray 09:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plot/characters

Is it necessary to have analyses of the characters in this novel? Should we try to work it into a plot summary of the book instead? The summary reads like an overview of the book and its themes, and the actualy summary is hidden in the character list now. I'll work around this... Hurrah 05:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please transfer to previous version

My Browser crashed and it didn't upload the text from when I edited this page. Sorry about that. It was a mistake. can someone please asap change it and do not block me as i didn't mean for it to be happen.

--124.177.229.59 06:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] deleting "important novel"

(I added this subhead and brought the discussion to the bottom of the page. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 01:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC))

This is a very important novel! It's even taught in English classes in American high schools. Would you delete the page for Catcher in the Rye outright just because the article sucked? --71.236.187.250 00:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. Surely for important pages, it's even more essential that the article about them doesn't suck! If this page doesn't improve, it fully deserves to go. Then perhaps later someone can start again with a better effort that actually follows Wikipedia guidelines. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 01:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Jbmurray, this seems more like an impulsive delete to me. At the very least, the article should be kept as a stub, but not deleted. The book is significant in many school curricula and has been a a significant contribution to Latin American literature. In any case, I will be reworking this article to revoke the deletion status. Soggybread 21:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing impulsive about the delete suggestion. I'd be delighted if you (or anyone else) were to upgrade the article in line with Wikipedia guidelines and with what one would expect of an encyclopedia. For a model article, you could do worse than look for instance at The Well of Loneliness. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 21:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

At the very least, five seconds deleting the plot summary would have given you a perfectly good stub, much better than deleting the whole thing.--Prosfilaes 20:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The PROD stirred Soggybread to work significantly on improving the article, which seems a better result altogether. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think threatening volunteers with the deletion of their work is appropriate; they aren't here to work at your beck and call.--Prosfilaes 08:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you name the volunteers who were threatened?! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 10:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Can't you just look at the article history and see which volunteers you threatened to delete the work of?--Prosfilaes 14:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Houseofthesprirts.jpg

Image:Houseofthesprirts.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 03:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Houseofspirits.jpg

Image:Houseofspirits.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 03:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)