Even though Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire (1962), often viewed as the masterpiece of emerging postmodern fiction (according to John Burt Foster Jr.), can be considered an innovative and disruptive discourse, it follows a tradition established by Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Modernity’s seminal fiction. These two novels, standing in the opposite spectrum of the Modern Era, [...]
Archivos mensuales: mayo 2008
About The Crying of Lot 49: Pynchon and Borges
10 mayo 2008 – 1:00
Thomas Pynchon’s 1966 novel “The Crying of Lot 49” can be read as a reflection of the failures of the communication process. A message muted, differed, changed or lost between its sender and its receiver, or by the inability of the receiver to decode it. Various symbols of this failure can be observed throughout the [...]
Reading Myself and Others by Philip Roth
8 mayo 2008 – 1:00
“Reading Myself and Others” compiles interviews, essays and articles written by Philip Roth over a quarter of a century. It was first published in 1975, when Roth had published his first 8 books of narrative, among them “Portnoy’s Complaint” (1969) and “My Life as a Man” (1974). “Reading Myself and Others” is a book about [...]
I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
7 mayo 2008 – 1:00
“I am Charlotte Simmons” (2004) is Tom Wolfe’s ambitious campus novel. It follows Charlotte Simmons in her first year at the fictitious Dupont University. It’s about her transformation from an average nerd freshman to a cool and beautiful sophomore. Romantic trouble, coming of age and all, included. “I am Charlotte Simmons” serves as an introduction [...]
Historia del llanto de Alan Pauls
6 mayo 2008 – 1:00
“Historia del llanto” (2007) es la última pieza narrativa de Alan Pauls (Buenos Aires, 1959). Aunque ha sido calificada como novela, “Historia del llanto” lleva el curioso subtítulo de “testimonio”, acaso porque Pauls se adentra en los recuerdos de una infancia sudamericana en plena guerra fría. La narración parece fundamentada en la relación significante entre [...]
Barth & Borges
5 mayo 2008 – 14:00
John Barth in his 1967 essay “The Literature of Exhaustion”, was arguably the first prominent U.S. American writer to acknowledge in his own creative process a resonance stemming from a South American, in this case Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1980). Although that year Latin American literary tradition received world wide attention (Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias was [...]
McBoom…
3 mayo 2008 – 1:10
Aproximación a las generaciones literarias en América Latina a fines del XX (versión corta del ensayo publicado originalmente en “La sonrisa irónica”, 2005). El manifiesto vanguardista presentado como prólogo a la antología de cuentos “Se habla español: voces latinas en USA”, publicada por Alfaguara en el 2000, motiva esta reflexión tardía acerca de la más [...]
No Ficción de Vicente Verdú
2 mayo 2008 – 9:13
“No Ficción” de Vicente Verdú (Elche, 1942) es una novela sobre algunos aspectos de la vida cotidiana de un ensayista que envejece. El título “No Ficción” y su clasificación dentro de la novela es uno más de los juegos semánticos que establece este libro intimista y reflexivo, escrito por uno de los mejores ensayistas contemporáneos. [...]
