Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions

Rating:
Summary: Complete Chronology and Tantalizing Sketch
Review: As a complete chronology of the life and work of Manuel Puig, this biography by one of his premiere English translators cannot be beaten and will be the definitive text for everybody to start with. Puig traveled widely, knew everybody (it seems) and was ready to move on whenever things got too hot. His tempestuousness and his literary ambitions come through here loud and clear. All fans of Puig's fabulous (in all senses) work will want to read this book to see what his work required of the man (or la woman as he referred to himself after his fateful meeting with Greta Garbo who spoke of herself in the third person as The Woman). Despite all that, and there is no doubt that this is a major achievement, I still yearned for more analysis of how Puig became the writer he was (his mastery of technique, his conscious choice of the self-reflective and collagist commentary of his best work). And although Levine rightly emphasizes Puig's sexual voracity for "straight" men, his self-image as "the woman" and his obsession with his mother, the repetition of those same explanations for many of the actions of this clearly complex man began to seem reductive and easy and to call for a fresh look below that received wisdom, if only to say, at last, that that was all there was.

Rating:
Summary: A unique way of knowing this marvelous writer
Review: El hecho de que haya sido la propia traductora de sus novelas al idioma ingles quien escribiera la primera biografia del escritor no es un mero dato, porque Jill Levine resulta ser tambien una perfecta traductora de su vida, de su pensamiento y de su sensibilidad, asi como tambien del ambiente y de la epoca en que vivio, y mas que eso, despierta el interes por leer todas las novelas del escritor, tan vigente en nuestra epoca: un visionario.

Rating:
Summary: A unique way of knowing this marvelous writer
Review: El hecho de que haya sido la propia traductora de sus novelas al idioma ingles quien escribiera la primera biografia del escritor no es un mero dato, porque Jill Levine resulta ser tambien una perfecta traductora de su vida, de su pensamiento y de su sensibilidad, asi como tambien del ambiente y de la epoca en que vivio, y mas que eso, despierta el interes por leer todas las novelas del escritor, tan vigente en nuestra epoca: un visionario.