In The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West imagined a world populated by people who seemed to be “on,” acting out rather than simply living their lives. Some of them became so immersed in their roles that they often found themselves play-acting even in quite serious and threatening real-life situations. Life had become one big B-movie. The world in which they existed (a surrealistic Hollywood) did not shake them out of their dream lives, for it was as artificial and ridiculous as their adopted personalities.

Manuel Puig's characters, who live in a small Argentine town, are not as badly off as West's, not nearly as pathetic or lost, but they too have been influenced by second-rate movies and cheap novels. They talk to themselves throughout most of Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, and in their lengthy, elliptical, stream-of-consciousness monologues, we come upon vaguely familiar phrases, patterns of thought, patches of description—familiar because they originated with some hack screen writer or novelist whose work we have had to endure.

Toto, a young boy who is a devoted moviegoer, is always drawing parallels between life as it is lived and life on the screen. He is disturbed when real situations do not resolve themselves as conveniently and romantically as fictional ones. He feels, for example, that an acquaintance, Raul García, is too handsome to become involved with the rather unattractive girl he has been seeing: the movies have taught Toto that the beautiful marry the beautiful. Raul reminds him of a bad gangster who has turned good, and therefore he deserves a beauty. Even the first-grade teacher is a more likely partner for Raul, since “she's pretty and she's one of those who are poor in the beginning and have to start off as a chorus girl. …”

Although the characters of the novel blow up certain events in their lives to movie-screen proportion, many of these are rather cheaply dramatic in themselves. Even before they were modified, they resembled incidents in second-rate films and novels. Puig is interested here in showing how very similar life can be to low-grade fiction, and he often erases the line separating comedy from tragedy, exaggeration from truth. A genuinely tragic event can quite easily be seen as an absurdly theatrical and comic one. A horrible fear can seem laughable; an overwhelming desire hilarious. Toto, for example, fears the end of the world—a realistic enough fear. But his vision of it (influenced by a nun's account), with the earth being split down the middle by a lightning bolt, seems quite silly, like a scene from a wide-screen religious spectacular. Esther, who is seriously concerned about the future of the friendly dean at her school, unconsciously cheapens that concern by trying to inflate it: Is our dean leaving? because he is sick? Is it or isn't it true? What evil lurks behind all this?”

The monologues dominate the novel, and Puig handles them superbly. Often that device gives the reader claustrophobia; the character talks on and on; outside reality is filtered through his consciousness, with the result that all events described “sound” the same; the character is so involved with himself, so closed off that he does not seem to be functioning in any recognizable world. Puig's monologues are “open.” They allow the characters to breathe. Even though a speaker focuses on himself, he discusses himself in the context of his world. He talks of his friends, relatives and acquaintances, and he reveals himself through his relations with them. In other words, the monologues are filled with action, movement, incident. Puig's sense of humor is always in evidence—not only his ability to record funny bits of business and conversation but his knack for describing, in another voice, absurd fantasies and fears. Each monologue is delivered by a different character. Although they share the same background and have had similar experiences in life, Puig captures their individual voices, their particular sensibilities. Except for occasional lapses, when the author gets a bit too ornate, his people always seem to be in character.

Puig produces a number of marvelous portraits—some outrageous, others quite serious, all rather loving. Héctor, who fancies himself a ladies' man, is terribly disturbed by an uncooperative girl he is pursuing. The impossible girl, whom he affectionately calls “Pug-nose,” haunts him. She is something of an intellectual, and he attempts to impress her by reading her favorite author, Dostoevski. But Héctor fails miserably: “… she gave me Crime and Punishment and I couldn't put up with more than ten pages of reading names and more names which always looked different and were the same, more names than a telephone directory. …” And in his portrait of the small, religious girl, Teté, Puig creates another haunted character. Her situation, however, is much more troubling than Héctor's. Her mother is in critical condition. Teté is obsessed with the notion that she must pray to prevent her mother's passing. When the light in Teté's room is turned off at night she is reminded that another day has gone by, and she wonders if she has prayed enough and confessed all her sins. “… don't turn off the light,” she pleads with her father, “not yet, wait a minute … wait! … just a minute!” The situation is made all the more terrifying by the fact that Teté is not actually talking to her father but merely shouting to him in her mind. Like so many fears, this one goes unexpressed.

The monologues develop through a kind of free association; one thought, one image, one conversation leads to another. At times, when a more complex character is introduced, the speech pattern, the thinking process, is cyclical. Mita's baby has died. She tries not to think of her loss. Her thoughts stray to Romeo and Juliet, and she asks, “Why doesn't God change his mind and make everything turn out well?” She then imagines the two lovers being carried away by a hurricane to paradise. She recalls the bird of paradise and sees herself being carried by the creature. The bird is wounded, and Mita dresses the wound. And then she says: “… there's a story in which the fairy rewards kind people and turns the bird into a prince, and a prince is what I want, a prince of men, a beautiful little prince wrapped in his soft angora layette. …” Mita, in this intricate passage, has returned unconsciously to her own tragedy. The reader, who has followed the seemingly insignificant digression, is now shaken by its relevance.

Betrayed by Rita Hayworth is a funny, poignant, perceptive piece of fiction which is not overwhelmed by its adventurous techniques. In short, a rarity in contemporary fiction, an experimental novel that is not concerned more with technique than with emotion.