Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire [Paperback]

Xavier Villaurrutia (Author), Eliot Weinberger (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1992

poetry & essay, Mexico, tr Weinberger & Allen

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Death always takes the shape / of our bedroom," the openly homosexual Mexican writer Villaurrutia, who died in 1950, begins one of his more impressive poems. But the equation of sex and death is nothing new. The poems in this bilingual volume move from night, to death, to the final joyous realization that "it may just be possible / to live after having died." Unimpressed by the poems, the reader may turn to Nobel laureate Paz's 1977 essay to better understand their importance. But the essay is "intended as a critical description of Mexican culture at a given moment," and Paz focuses primarily on the cultural milieu and on Villaurrutia's criticism, theatre pieces and fiction. When actually discussing the poetry, Paz is lukewarm at best. His praise is often for the verbal puns and the formal structure (all lost in Weinberger's nevertheless readable translation). "For the majority of readers, Villaurrutia is the author of some fifteen or twenty poems . . . that count among the best poems in our language and of his time . . . " But it is still a "solitary" poetry in which even the eroticism lauded as the translators' impetus is kept hidden from a potential audience.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Although Mexican author Villaurrutia (1903-50) wrote relatively little poetry (not all of which is here), his complete works include accomplished drama and criticism. From his homosexuality, he gleaned the subtle insights of his master poem, "L.A. Nocturne," where angels named Dick or John or Marvin "come down to earth/ on visible ladders" and "fall into beds, sink into pillows/ that make them think they're still in the clouds." But it is the timeless metaphor of night as death that fascinates this poet, and the death that he craves is perceived as a distant and forgotten country, "secretly deformed/ by exile in this land." These poems, free of local color and ideological harangue, are accompanied by Paz's scholarly essay, written in 1977, which tantalizes as much as it enlightens because it discusses works unavailable in English. Perhaps this book will arouse interest in an author underappreciated in both our hemispheres. For academic collections.
- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press (July 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556590539
• ISBN-13: 978-1556590535
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,305,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars dark and inky, February 16, 2011

By 

Gary Sprandel (Frankfort, Kentucky) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire (Paperback)

The poetry is dark and inky, probably best read with a candle on a black night. It starts with "Everything in the night sketches /with its shadowy hand: the please it reveals, the vices it undresses". Villaurrutia writes of "the cave of dreams", and there is a blend of night, dreaming, and death. "And I, only I know that death/ is the choked words, the strange groans/ and the obscure involuntary movements you make/ when you wrestle the angel of sleep in your sleep". And nothing escapes this view "is it God? - who dreams in this bitter world" and even birds "gouge invisible corridors of air".

Octavio Pass knew Villaurrutia, and presents some personal reminiscences ("brief outburst and prolonged lethargies" --) and discussion of Interior exile. . A lot of this essay however is lost on me, as I was not familiar with the many persons mentioned or Contemporareous . Where the essay shines is discussing Villaurrutia internals (acedia) and "poetry inhabited by a double opposition: sleep and waking, consciousness and delirium". .. "our true homeland is death and that is why we feel a nostalgia for it".

5.0 out of 5 stars Todo! Circula en Cada Rama del Arbol de Mis Venas, May 16, 2001

By 

JAMIE MEINERS (Quincy, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire (Paperback)

I was introduced to this book by a friend in high school. He had stolen the only copy out of my schools library.. since then it is has been an impossible task to find the book. I don't know yet if this is the right one! Villaurrutia is an amazingly dark poet who writes exactly what the mind is thinking! Great translation, but nothing close to what the spanish is really saying! -Jamie

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is this it?, June 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire (Paperback)

An excellent collection of poems for the Modern Goth or anyone who isn't afraid of admitting that they've ever felt absolutely alone. Too bad it's so hard to find and the only published poems in translation from this poet. Dark in an age where it wasn't popular to be dark, accidentally rich in romance and rhythm, it brings literature back to a period when political statements took a back seat to the root of poetry -- writing about what you're feeling. Again, I wish there were more of Villaurrutia's work available.