Featured New Authors
Featured Author: Manuel Puig
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Featured Author: Manuel Puig
With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times
In This FeatureReviews of Manuel Puig’s Books Articles About Manuel Puig Recent Links
Mario Vargas Llosa Reviews Suzanne Jill Levine’s ‘Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions’ (Aug. 13, 2000) First Chapter: ‘Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman’
Courtesy Carlos Puig/From ”Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman”
Manuel Puig in Los Angeles in 1985 with Raul Julia, who played the political prisoner in the movie version of ”Kiss of the Spider Woman,” and Sonia Braga, who played the title character.
‘Betrayed by Rita Hayworth‘
(1971)
“. . . a masterpiece . . . a screamingly funny book . . . His characters turn out to be contemporary proto-Bovarys and proto-Quixotes, all pouring their heart out in prose you haven’t seen since last
leafing through a pulp movie magazine or True Romances.”‘Heartbreak Tango: A Serial‘
(1973)
“What Borges has done for the detective story Puig has done for the sentimental popular novel. . . . His triumph is similar to Borges’s, for while upgrading the genre by bringing reality to bear upon
it, he nevertheless allows it to work in its own right. . . . It is compelling, moving, instructive and very funny.”‘The Buenos Aires Affair: A Detective Novel‘
(1976)
“[Puig] is one of the most consistently interesting novelists to have emerged anywhere during the past 10 years. . . . What makes Puig so fascinating, here as in his two previous books, is the extraordinary
inventiveness he exhibits in devising new ways to render familiar material.”‘Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ reviewed by Robert Coover
(1979)
“If this insistent use of unedited dialogue tends to make the book read a bit like a radio script, however, it is Mr. Puig’s fascination with old movies that largely provides its substance . . . Not
that there’s anything very innovative about the way this is accomplished. . . . other than these film synopses, there’s not much here.”‘Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages‘
(1982)
“. . . a stylistic tour de force . . . Puig spins a fascinating web of words . . . Puig’s characteristic virtuosity has not failed him in this English-language experiment, which devotees of psychological
fiction will no doubt appreciate; but the novel has a pared-down and displaced quality.”‘Blood of Requited Love‘
(1984)
“[Josemar is] rather less inventive than some of the author’s previous characters . . . Mr. Puig is adept at parodying people’s awkward attempts to find a language for their emotions. ‘Blood
of Requited Love,’ however, often seems to come dangerously close to the banality the author wants to parody.”‘Pubis Angelical‘
(1986)
“What’s amazing about ‘Pubis Angelical’ is how utterly in love it is with its own artificiality. The sordidness of an old B movie is fun, but the B movies of this book are no fun at all.”Biliingual Editing
(1982)
Puig wrote “Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages” in English, then translated the book into Spanish, and then revised the orginal English version for its American publication.American Stars Team Up on a Brazilian Movie
(1984)
“What attracted me to the novel,” Hector Babenco, the director of the film version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” told a reporter, “was the magical way it showed how men of totally different
social, political and psychological backgrounds could become friends and how their friendship could affect their lives.”For the Author of ‘Spider Woman,’ Hollywood Provided Hope
(1985)
“Most of the movies I saw growing up were viewed as totally disposable, fine for quick consumption,” Puig said in an interview about the film version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” “But
they have survived 50 years and they are still growing. If it’s great stuff, the people who consume it are nourished. It’s a positive force.”A Tightly Focused ‘Spider Woman’ for the Stage
(1988)
“Familiarity with the work’s other incarnations should not detract from the play’s dramatic cogency, as conveyed in David Chambers’s production at the Yale Repertory Theater.”Manuel Puig, Realist Author, 57; Wrote ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’
(1990)
Puig’s obituary said that his books expressed “the ordinary melodramas of everyday life in novel ways.”‘Mystery of the Rose Bouquet’: This Time All Women, No Spiders
(1998)
“. . . a satisfying production of Puig’s intriguing psychological comedy. . . . the production captures the vitality of Puig’s modest tale, and the segueing in and out of the dream sequences, always
difficult onstage, is fluid and seamles . . .”Previous Author Features From The New York Times on the Web
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