Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

This brief book is something of an historical curiosity by virtue of being (supposedly) "the first picaresque novel ever written." But from the standpoint of contemporary literary interest or reward, it is not particularly noteworthy. Because it satirized the nobility and the Roman Catholic Church -- two powerful institutions of the day (it was published in 1554) -- its author chose to remain anonymous and to this day there is no consensus as to his identity. The chapter on the seller of indulgences, who in league with a constable operates an elaborate charade to con the initially skeptical masses into purchasing indulgences by the fistful, is rather scathing and moderately entertaining. But among modern novels there are countless more cutting and uproarious works that I, with the sensibilities of a literate middle-aged American, would rather read. So, my recommendation is to give this a pass unless you are interested in the history of the novel or the social milieu of Sixteenth-Century Spain and its Inquisition.