Manuel Puig Criticism
Manuel Puig stands out in Latin American literature for his innovative narrative style and thematic depth, blending popular culture with serious literary inquiry. Emerging as a significant figure with his debut novel, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1968), Puig skillfully intertwines character dialogues, interior monologues, and cultural artifacts such as newspapers, soap operas, and Hollywood films to explore themes of escapism and fantasy. Ronald De Feo highlights the novel's emotional richness and technical complexity, underscoring Puig's unique literary voice.
Born in rural Argentina, Puig's early fascination with cinema profoundly influenced his storytelling techniques. His experiences across Buenos Aires, Rome, Paris, and Brazil further shaped his distinctive narrative voice. In Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976), Puig uses cinematic techniques to portray the evolving relationship between two convicts through shared movie narratives, a central structural element emphasized by Karetnikova and Barber. Clara Claiborne Park also notes how film plot retellings in this novel serve as a unifying force, demonstrating the power of popular art to foster connection.
Puig's works frequently address issues of identity, repression, and the interplay between reality and fantasy. His cinematic background, as explored in "Manuel Puig Dreams in Technicolor," informs both his narrative approach and thematic investigations. In Pubis Angelical (1979), he intertwines dreams and fantasies to depict women's struggles against cultural and sexual oppression, with Leonard Cheever discussing the interpretive richness these dreams contribute to the text.
In his later works, such as Tropical Night Falling (1988), Puig continues to explore themes of alienation and exile. John Butt celebrates these novels for their wit and narrative innovation, while Douglas C. Thompson affirms that Puig's use of popular forms never detracts from the serious content of his narratives. A hallmark of Puig's style, as noted by Bella Jozee, is allowing characters to tell their own stories, which enriches the narrative's authenticity and depth.
Puig's early novels like Betrayed by Rita Hayworth and Heartbreak Tango explore the fantasies of Argentina's poor captivated by celebrity glamour. In The Buenos Aires Affair, he delves deeper into the theme of characters emulating media portrayals yet failing to find true fulfillment. This exploration of subjective truths continues in Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages, where the dialogue-driven form creates a complex narrative atmosphere. Critics such as Allen Josephs and Gilbert Sorrentino commend the novel's experimental style and thematic profundity, despite its anticlimactic resolution.
Puig's engagement with complex themes like politics, sexuality, and violence has sparked controversy, with some works banned in Argentina. However, as discussed by Michael Wood and Ronald Christ, his narratives remain influential, challenging both characters and readers to confront the illusions within their realities. This enduring relevance is a testament to Puig's skill in navigating the personal and societal intersections through his literature.
Contents
- Principal Works
- Puig, Manuel (Vol. 3)
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Puig, Manuel (Vol. 133)
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Life as a B-Movie
(summary)
In the following review, De Feo lauds Puig's Betrayed by Rita Hayworth as “a funny, poignant, perceptive piece of fiction which is not overwhelmed by its adventurous techniques.”
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Laying Out the Evidence
(summary)
In the following review, De Feo offers a tempered assessment of Puig's The Buenos Aires Affair.
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The Buenos Aires Affair
(summary)
In the following review, Christ praises Puig's accomplishment in The Buenos Aires Affair, but complains that the English translation “frequently goes flat.”
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Brief Encounter: An Interview with Manuel Puig
(summary)
In the following interview, Puig and Corbatta explore Puig's literary influences, his focus on reader engagement, the challenges of translating his works, and his incorporation of cinematic techniques, ultimately revealing Puig's complex relationship with both his audience and his creative inspirations.
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Manuel Puig's Boquitas pintadas: ‘True Romance’ for Our Time
(summary)
In the following essay, Thompson discusses Puig's use of popular forms in Boquitas pintadas and how the substance of the texts subverts those forms.
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Manuel Puig at the Movies
(summary)
In the following essay, Wyers analyzes the relationship between Puig's El Beso de la mujer araña and the movies.
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Manuel Puig Dreams in Technicolor
(summary)
In the following interview, Manuel Puig with Judy Stone discusses Puig's journey from aspiring filmmaker to acclaimed novelist, highlighting his deep love for cinema and how it influenced his narrative style, as well as his exploration of themes such as repression and identity within his works, particularly in "Kiss of the Spider Woman."
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The Imaginary Worlds of Manuel Puig
(summary)
In the following interview, Manuel Puig with Barbara Mujica discusses the themes and characters of his novel "Kiss of the Spider Woman," the challenges of its movie adaptation, his evolution from a novelist and screenwriter, and how his personal experiences and views on realism versus non-realism have shaped his literary and cinematic work.
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Cinematic Qualities in the Novel Kiss of the Spider Woman
(summary)
In the following essay, Karetnikova and Barber trace the role film has in the structure and content of Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman.
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Cancer as Metaphor: The Function of Illness in Manuel Puig's Pubis angelical
(summary)
In the following essay, Paul analyzes the use of illness as a sign in Puig's Pubis angelical.
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A Last Interview with Manuel Puig
(summary)
In the following interview, Manuel Puig with Ronald Christ explores the themes of sexuality and repression in "Kiss of the Spider Woman," discussing the novel's use of film narratives as a medium for connection between characters, the challenges of adapting the novel for the stage, and the political and personal dynamics within the story.
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Manuel Puig: The Masks and the Myths
(summary)
In the following essay, Jozee traces Puig's narrative technique and the author's presentation of myth in his work.
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Manuel Puig's Pubis Angelical: The Characters' Dreams or the Reader's Fantasy?
(summary)
In the following essay, Cheever analyzes how the reader is to interpret the place of dreams in Puig's Pubis Angelical, concluding that “we may either force Puig's text to tell us that beautiful things do not exist, or we may allow it to show us that they do.”
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No End to the Affair
(summary)
In the following review, Butt lauds Puig's Tropical Night Falling, asserting, “It has a gentle wit that recalls his finest pages, but it also displays a simplicity and lightness of touch which suggest that it could have inaugurated a rich third phase in his writing.”
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Von Sternberg, Lubitsch, and Lang in the Work of Manuel Puig
(summary)
In the following essay, Hall traces the influence of filmmakers Josef von Sternberg, Ernst Lubitsch, and Fritz Lang on Puig's work.
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Ices Everlasting and Passions Perverted: The Physical and Moral Climates of Puig's Anti-utopia
(summary)
In the following essay, Cheever asserts that “the bleak and frigid physical landscape” of Part III of Puig's Pubis Angelical “is an appropriate metaphor for the moral atmosphere of the ‘polar age’ of human sexuality.”
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The Reader and Manuel Puig: The Invention of Sangre de amor correspondido
(summary)
In the following essay, Lewis studies the readers' role in Puig's Sangre de amor correspondido, and how their interaction with the text affects the novel's message.
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Discursive Anarchy or Creative Pluralism? The Cases of Cortázar and Puig
(summary)
In the following essay, Cosgrove analyzes two Argentine novels, Puig's El beso de la mujer araña and Julio Cortázar's Rayuela, in terms of their opposition to the notion that “novels should be enabling vehicles for presenting fictional worlds of coherence and stability.”
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Between Myth and Reference: Puig and Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Issacharoff and Madrid discuss the use of myth, stereotypes, and repetition in Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman and Under a Mantle of Stars, as well as in Eugène Ionesco's La Cantatrice chauve.
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Pubis Angelical: Where Puig Meets Lacan
(summary)
In the following essay, Zimmerman traces the role of Lacanian psychoanalysis in Puig's Pubis Angelical.
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Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Angelic Truth in Manuel Puig's Pubis Angelical
(summary)
In the following essay, Davies discusses the role of psychoanalytic theory and gender conflict in Puig's Pubis angelical. He concludes that “Though Puig trifles with the conventions and mocks the excesses of psychoanalytic and feminist discourses, he does not repudiate them. …”
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Life as a B-Movie
(summary)
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Puig, Manuel (Vol. 28)
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The Buenos Aires Affair
(summary)
In the following essay, Ronald Christ analyzes Manuel Puig's narrative techniques and thematic exploration in his novels, particularly "The Buenos Aires Affair," highlighting Puig's skillful integration of personal and societal themes, formal innovation, and the collaborative translation process, while noting the challenges in maintaining subtleties in the English version of his work.
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Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert Coover critiques Manuel Puig's "Kiss of the Spider Woman," arguing that while the novel's substance is enriched by its filmic references and exploration of themes like repression and liberation, the execution is somewhat lacking, due in part to an inadequate translation that misses Puig's colloquial style.
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Kiss of the Spider Woman
(summary)
In the following essay, Clara Claiborne Park contends that Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman is a masterful work of narrative technique, where dialogue alone conveys the evolving relationship and transformation of characters amidst themes of love, betrayal, and self-sacrifice.
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The Claims of Mischief
(summary)
In the following essay, Michael Wood discusses Manuel Puig's novels as explorations of narrative forms, illustrating how they reveal truths obscured by popular culture, and examines themes of sexual and political repression, particularly focusing on how these motifs are woven into the narratives of "The Buenos Aires Affair" and "Kiss of the Spider Woman."
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A World Where Man Is Prey
(summary)
In the following essay, Elizabeth B. Marshall critiques Manuel Puig's novel Pubis Angelical as a collage exploring themes of technological and social upheaval, but argues that despite its honest engagement with contemporary issues, it appears derivative and highlights a lamentable historical period with an anti-violence message.
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Publis angelical
(summary)
In the following essay, Raymond L. Williams argues that Manuel Puig's novel Pubis angelical effectively merges sexual and political themes through its protagonist Ana's life experiences in Argentina and Mexico, employing a formal structure that engages readers to integrate diverse narrative elements and showcasing Puig's exploration of politics and sexuality.
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Novel Voices, Nowhere Rooms
(summary)
In the following essay, Charles Champlin critiques Manuel Puig's novel "Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages" as a technically impressive but ultimately frustrating experiment in dialogue-driven narrative that, despite its cleverness, may not effectively convey the emotional depth or cultural conflicts intended.
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Alienated within and without
(summary)
In the following essay, William Herrick examines how Manuel Puig's novel "Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages" skillfully intertwines Marxist and Freudian themes through the probing dialogue between two characters, highlighting their personal and historical struggles while questioning the intersection of fiction and truth.
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Negative Symbiosis
(summary)
In the following essay, Allen Josephs explores how Manuel Puig's novel "Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages" employs dialogue to build a complex psychological narrative, depicting the symbiotic disintegration of its protagonists, while reflecting on themes of memory, fantasy, and the broader socio-political context of displacement.
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South American Fantasy, Obsession, and Soap Opera: 'Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages'
(summary)
In the following essay, Sorrentino critiques Manuel Puig's Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages as a structurally flawed novel due to its conclusive explanations that undermine its initially complex and ambiguous narrative, despite Puig's evident talent and unique thematic exploration of cultural enervation through mundane dialogue.
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The Buenos Aires Affair
(summary)
- Puig, Manuel (Vol. 5)
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Puig, Manuel (Vol. 10)
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D. P. Gallagher
(summary)
In the following essay, D. P. Gallagher commends Manuel Puig for capturing the provincial middle-class ethos in Latin America, highlighting his ability to authentically portray characters' linguistic and cultural experiences through his novels, while balancing humor and pathos, thereby making his work both complex and widely accessible.
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Robert Alter
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert Alter examines Manuel Puig's novel "The Buenos Aires Affair," highlighting Puig's innovative narrative techniques and his critique of popular culture, comparing his style to Nabokov's and emphasizing his ability to transform clichéd elements into profound literary art.
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D. P. Gallagher
(summary)