Snapshots: Manuel Puig

Manuel Puig may be familiar to most via his novel Kiss Of The Spider Woman, which was the first novel I read from him after seeing the film of the same name many many years ago. I loved this novel, but my appreciation for Puig as an author came from subsequent readings of his work.

One of my favorites is the brilliant Eternal Curse On The Reader Of These Pages, which is a novel about a man named Larry, a dropout from a middle-class academic world, who pushes around an elderly man named ‘Mr. Ramirez’ through the streets of Greenwich Village in his wheelchair. The beauty of this novel is that it is told entirely in dialogue, which is not an easy feat (and something I’ve been aspiring to do myself one day). Each are trying to avoid one another lies and through their conversation one learns about the other in great detail and also what is going on around them. A very ambitious work and daring, and so far my favorite from Puig.

The other novel I greatly enjoyed was Betrayed By Rita Hayworth, a novel about a boy who tries to fill in the more disturbing moments of his life with Hollywood inspired fantasy. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Puig has many works easily available (and I look forward to reading them one day). Works include, Heartbreak Tango, The Buenos Aires Affair, Tropical Night Falling, Pubis Angelical, Blood of Requited Love, and Under A Mantle of Stars.