Octavio Paz: Nobel Prize winner, author of The Labyrinth of Solitude and Sor Juana, or, the Traps of Faith, precursor and pathfinder, a guiding light of the Mexican intelligentsia in the twentieth century. In this small, memorable meditation on Octavio Paz as a thinker and man of action, Ilan Stavans—described by the Washington Post as "one of our foremost cultural critics" and by the New York Times as "the czar of Latino culture in the United States"—ponders Paz's intellectual courage against the ideological tapestry of his epoch and shows us what lessons can be learned from him. He does so by exploring such timeless issues as the crossroads where literature and politics meet, the place of criticism in society, and Mexico’s difficult quest to come to terms with its own history. Stavans reflects on Paz's personal struggle with Marxism and surrealism, his reflections on pachucos, his analysis of love and eroticism, his study of the life and legacy of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and his influence as a magazine editor. But this extraordinary rumination is not only a thought-provoking appraisal of Paz; it is also a feast for the myriad admirers of Stavans, himself a spirited, mordant essayist who is not afraid of controversy. This explains why Richard Rodriguez has portrayed Stavans as "the rarest of North American writers—he sees the Americas whole," and then added, "Not since Octavio Paz has Mexico given us an intellectual so able to violate borders with learning and grace." Octavio Paz: A Meditation is a fitting addition to Stavans’s own oeuvre that will stimulate discerning readers.
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Editorial Reviews
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"Amherst Scholar Ilan Stavans has been called 'the czar of Latino culture in the United States,' and this elegantly slender, deftly wrought tribute to the Mexican literary titan Octavio Paz more than amply proves why he wears the title." —San Francisco Chronicle "A meditation on an intellectual by an intellectual . . . Elegant, heartfelt and enormously perceptive, Stavans' meditation may be a slim volume, an essay stretched to fill—just barely—90 pages, but it is essential reading for anyone who would attempt to comprehend the 20th century Mexican literary scene and the legacy of its greatest light." —Hyde Park Review of Books "While Stavans's 'meditation' will perhaps resonate most richly with admirers of the late Paz, the book is an illuminating text on more general issues as well, including the evolution of Mexican literature in the 1900s, the cultural role of literary journals, and the purpose of intellectualism in modern society." —Rain Taxi
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Octavio Paz: Nobel Prize winner, author of The Labyrinth of Solitude and The Traps of Faith, precursor and pathfinder, a guiding light of the Mexican intelligentsia in the twentieth century.
In this small, memorable meditation on Octavio Paz as a thinker and man of action, Ilan Stavans-described by the Washington Post as "one of our foremost cultural critics" and by the New York Times as "the czar of Latino culture in the United States"-ponders Paz's intellectual courage against the ideological tapestry of his epoch and shows us what lessons can be learned from him. He does so by exploring such timeless issues as the crossroads where literature and politics meet, the place of criticism in society, and Mexico's difficult quest to come to terms with its own history.
"Inflexibility and exasperation are poisons to the mind," Stavans has observed. "A cultural critic and intellectual role model, to endure, ought to give signs of life." One of Stavans's lifelong heroes is Edmund Wilson, the brilliant thinker whose body of work ranges from Marcel Proust and James Joyce to the American Civil War, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Iroquois Indians. Another acknowledged role model is Octavio Paz, "the quintessential surveyor, a Dante's Virgil, a Renaissance man." Stavans reflects on Paz's personal struggle with Marxism and surrealism, his reflections on pachucos, his analysis of love and eroticism, his study of the life and legacy of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and his influence as a magazine editor. But this extraordinary rumination is not only a thought-provoking appraisal of Paz; it is also a feast for the myriad admirers of Stavans, himself a spirited, mordant essayist who is not afraid of controversy.
This explains why Richard Rodriguez has portrayed Stavans as "the rarest of North American writers-he sees the Americas whole," and then added, "Not since Octavio Paz has Mexico given us an intellectual so able to violate borders with learning and grace." Octavio Paz: A Meditation is a fitting addition to Stavans's own oeuvre that will stimulate discerning readers.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
2 & a half stars,
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This review is from: Octavio Paz: A Meditation (Hardcover)
One of the saving graces of Stavans' profile-reflection of Paz is it's complete absence of a stultifying academic tone. This, unfortunately, is not enough to merit Stavans' book. In the first few pages he writes of Paz's poetic output, "I confess to having never much cared for his poetry...His poetry is too lose, too mystical for my taste." Stavans characterizes Paz's poetic oeuvre as "too close to Surrealism". These comments by Stavans displays a remarkably superficial reading of Paz's poems, to such a significant degree as to almost entirely discredit any of his observations on Paz's critical writings, which are in his words, "a better metronome for our times". Anyone who has given Paz's poems more in-depth attention than Stavans, will quickly come to the realization that in Paz's poems there is an audible critical voice, & in his prose there is often poetic passages. In fact, in some works the two converge until they are indistinguishable, as in the case of "The Monkey Grammarian", which some critics consider his most unusual prose work, but his English translator, Eliot Weinberger considered an essentially poetic work. The only books of essays given significant attention to in Stavans' work are "The Labyrinth of Solitude" & "Sor Juana, or, the Traps of Faith", both of which he considered to be Paz's masterpieces. All other collections of essays are only briefly mentioned throughout. Stavans' book also suffers from glaring inconsistencies, as in his passages on Paz's magazine, "Vuelta". Although he acknowledges the international contributors & scores of translations Paz's magazine provided its readership, Stavans writes, "To read its pages was to suppose that most people in Mexico, and for that matter in the whole southern hemisphere, were comfortably tolerant of diverse views, not much concerned with local politics, highly literate, and metaphysically driven, which was and is far from true in a nation where 75 percent of the population lives in poverty and 49 percent is still illiterate." A few pages later, Stavans tries to make a case that in his later years Paz had become a sort of reactionary, too close to the PRI government to be effective anymore, "His seventieth birthday, in 1984, and then again his eightieth were jointly celebrated with great fanfare by the ruling party and Televisa, with TV programs, conferences, and museum exhibits. Paz was seen by a large segment of Mexico's population as disconnected from the nation's new artistic, antiestablishment trends, as a close friend of the status quo, and as an ally of the United States, his magazine as a reactionary organ of Mexico's intellectual right." If we take Stavans' former statement about the presumptions of "Vuelta" which he claims cannot possibly be true, such as a highly literate population, how are we supposed to accept the latter about a large segment of Mexico being concerned with where Paz stood on the latest artistic developments & their views of his magazine? Although this is for the most part an irritating read, with many inconsistencies strewn throughout, a few of Stavans' analysis of Paz's work is dead on. However, before reading this I would seek out Jason Wilson's infinitely superior study of Paz & his work, which is thankfully devoid of the envy & derogatory remarks that stain Stavans' book.
5.0 out of 5 stars
I disagree with the previous reader,
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This review is from: Octavio Paz: A Meditation (Hardcover)
Dr. Stavans has been compared to Mr. Octavio Paz. And for good reason: this is a short book, but it's powerful. It doesn't do what trashy academic books do all the time: the say absolutely nothing. Dr. Stavans offers a strong, critical portrait of the Nobel Prize winner, and some people in the establishment won't like that. He has the courage to say what others won't!
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