Customer Reviews

Las Peliculas de Mi Vida: Una Novela (Spanish Edition)

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Vengo leyendo a Fuguet desde la epoca en que escribia como Enrique Alekan, y aunque se podria decir que el autor a veces peca de autoreferente (si, Matias Vicuna tambien aparece aqui), en este libro se aprecia una forma de escribir y de estructurar la novela mucho mas depurada. El paralelo entre la sismografia y los "terremotos personales" de cada uno, la encontre excelente. Creo que es lo mejor que ha escrito, aunque con esto no quiero menos preciar sus otros libros: Tinta Roja y Mala Onda son relatos con merito propio.

Desde mi punto de vista, creo que Fuguet logra lo que Matias Vicuna (de nuevo) describia despues de leer The Catcher in The Rye. Una identficacion tal con el personaje que a uno le gustaria sentarse a conversar con el, y saber que fue de su vida, que que paso despues del punto final...

Lo recomiendo sobre todos a aquellos que han criticado a Fuguet por la crudeza de algunos relatos, y lo decadente de alguno de sus personajes.

Excelente lectura.

This is another of Alberto Fuguet's intense and incisive works of fiction. He breaks with the myth of the "good Chilean exile" by having his protagonist closely relate to Pinochet supporters. His criticism is subtle and therefore more effective. His outsider's perspective on both Chile and the U.S. offers very unexpected insights on both countries and cultures.

As much as I can rave about the book I must complain about what amounts to the worst edition I have ever seen coming from an American publishing house - and this is Harper Collins! I was exited about the Rayo concept - books written by Hispanic authors appearing both in English and Spanish versions. Naturally, I was looking forward to reading my first of these. However, the Spanish edition is so bad it has probably a typo per page. It is a shame that Rayo was unable to hire Spanish speaking editors of quality. As if they did not exist. Makes me wonder if Latino editors get the same income as their English language counterparts.

As well as being the first book I read by Fuguet, the back flap of the cover was the first reference to McOndo that I have ever heard. Judging by the brief definition of the genre, I was expecting a work that blatantly attacks Gabriel García Marquez, Alejo Carpentier, Isabel Allende and other writers of magic realism while celebrating McDonalds and Coca-Cola. After all, McOndo declares the death of magic realism in Latin America. What I found was a work that agrees wholeheartedly with the uniqueness of Latin American and Chilean culture but is speaking from a different generation.

After guessing wrong at the tone of the book, I repeated the mistake after taking a look at the format. Flipping through the pages, the format looks like a list of movies that the protagonist has seen. I got excited thinking that maybe I would read an intellectual perspective on several classics. As it turns out, this is not the case at all. Rather, the narrator uses the films, many of them forgettable B flicks, to locate the times in his life where formative events occurred. The list has nothing to do with building a relationship with the reader and is completely introspective and therefore autobiographical. There are no obvious ovations made to the reader, the ending is neither epical nor moral.

This is an exorbing portrait of a Chilean adult looking back at his life and past passions. I get the sense that many of the events described come straight from Fuguet's own experiences, but at this point I don't know enough about the author to be sure. In a way, it is not represenative of all or even most young Chileans. The narrator spends most of his childhood in California and holds a PhD in seismology. But it has a very subtle and captivating style that keeps the reader turning the pages and enjoying what she finds.