The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

W.S. Merwin (Translator), Juan Goytisolo (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: December 31, 2004

Spain has produced two books that changed world literature: Don Quixote and Lazarillo de Tormes, the first picaresque novel ever written and the inspired precursor to works as various as Vanity Fair and Huckleberry Finn. Banned by the Spanish Inquisition after publication in 1554, Lazarillo was soon translated throughout Europe, where it was widely copied. The book is a favorite to this day for its vigorous colloquial style and the earthy realism with which it exposes human hypocrisy.

The bastard son of a prostitute, Lazarillo goes to work for a blind beggar, who beats and starves him, while teaching him some very useful dirty tricks. The boy then drifts in and out of the service of a succession of masters, each vividly sketched and together revealing the corrupt world of imperial Spain. Its miseries are made all the more apparent by the candor and surprising good cheer with which young Lazarillo recounts his ever more curious fate.

This version of Lazarillo, by the prizewinning poet and translator W.S. Merwin, brings out the wonderful vitality and humor of this universal masterwork.

The author of Lazarillo de Tormes is unknown.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics; Tra edition (December 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590171322
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171325
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Spanish

More About the Author

W.S. Merwin is the 17th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the United States. He is the author of over fifty books of poetry, prose, and translations. He has earned every major literary prize, most recently the National Book Award for 'Migration: New and Selected Poems' and the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 'The Shadow of Sirius.' He lives in Hawaii where he raises endangered palm trees.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking at the positive in face of adversity, February 12, 2010

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Hoydytoydy (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

I read this book years ago and really enjoyed it. The stories are full of humor and the ending has a good outlook on life - be happy with what you have because things can always be worse. Life isn't perfect and Lazarillo experiences and explains selfishness and greed in humanity in a voice that knows of what he speaks. This is a very easy and quick read that is hard to put down once you start it.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A precursor to Huckleberry Finn, April 1, 2008

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BOOKIES (Carrboro, NC, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

I read this short comic masterpiece as part of a survey course in Spanish and Latin American literature along with more monumental and recognized works of the genre (Cervantes' Don Quijote, Unamuno's Fog, and Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, to name a few.)

To my surprise, this little tome was the liveliest, most engaging, and by far, the most digestible of the lot (although the other three are indispensable reading and highly recommended as well).

Lazarillo de Tormes ranks as one of the true cornerstones of world literature yet (INHO) it is still riproaringly funny and insightful without being heavy-handed or tedious. Even though I read Lazarillo in Spanish and cannot commment on this translation, I imagine the story would translate without much ado into English. As a first-year Spanish student, I devoured it in a single afternoon.

In many ways, it seems to me to be the precursor to Hucklebery Finn. I came away from reading this short tome with the same sense of empathy for the character of Lazarillo as I had had for Huck Finn. Like HF, the tale of Lazarillo de Tormes is episodic in nature with a series of adventures featuring quirky antagonists who are each (the reader later realizes) satiric portraits of the various social classes of the day (the priest, the gentleman, the beggar thief, etc.) Both books inspired laughter, pathos, sympathy, empathy -- and ultimately, an overarching sense of the flawed yet ultimately endearing human qualities that imbue us all-- and transcend the centuries. Even though Lazarillo de Tormes predates Twain's masterpiece by three full centuries, I found it equally accessible, being a delightful and extremely quick read. In short, it is one of the earliest examples of the proto-novel, and to my mind-- still one of the best.

Highly recommended for all readers of all ages.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring English translation, August 20, 2006

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R. F. Lukner (Plano, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

One of the finest renditions into the English language of the Spanish novel "The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes", the fountainhead of the Picaresque in modern European narration.