[Sommers was an American educator and critic whose books included After the Storm: Landmarks of the Modern Mexican Novel (1968). In this review of Cantar de ciegos, Sommers praises the "wide ranging variety" of the stories in the collection.]

One of Mexico's most accomplished young writers (born in 1928) confirms his admirable penchant for experimenting, almost always successfully, with new themes and styles, in this second volume of short stories [Cantar de ciegos].

Equidistant between earlier fictional works—the novel La región más transparente and the novelette Aura—this new volume has points of contact with both. Primarily, however, Cantar deciegos stands on its own merits: wide-ranging variety of tone and treatment; remarkable blend of universality and sophisticated cosmopolitanism; peak moments of incredibly biting satirical humor (not excluding a touch of obscenity); and the common denominator of underlying anguish implied in the title.

Echoes of Aura and the exploration of fantasy are present in the richly textured mood story, "La muñeca reina." A mature narrator's efforts to recapture youthful moments of lyric beauty with a girl of his adolescence terminate in horror verging on the grotesque.

Readers of La región más transparente will be prepared for the urbane, rapier-like repartee of Fuentes's middle class intellectual types in several other stories. Here his characters are mordant in their cynicism, ultra-modern in their familiarity with avant-garde literature, art and cinema, and destructive in their evaluation of established morality, particularly as regards sex.

Weakest of the stories are "Las dos Elenas" and "Vieja moralidad," in which modern technique and clever endings do not compensate for superficial treatment of the essential themes. The two finest creations, "Un alma pura" and "A la víbora de la mar," are clearly situated in time and place, although independent of the historical framework so vital to the author's novels. In both stories, protagonists from contemporary Mexico are placed in cosmopolitan international environments as they trace their personal quests for self-definition. It is interesting to note that, although the narrations differ in tone and mood, both end in personal tragedy and breakdown of self.

The world of characters and situations in this collection is seen from widely varying perspectives. Within its composite structure, the individual, be he from the provinces, Mexico City or Europe, faces a modern society which isolates him, and against which his prepared defenses—personal and cultural—are inadequate.

Whether their goals be happiness, artistic creativity, some form of self-expression or a mere raise in salary, the characters on Fuentes's brilliantly lit stage usually have meaningful but frustrating encounters with deceit and despair.