Customer Reviews

Pedro Páramo

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The simple beauty of this book just stuns me, and the way it builds and assembles from something surreal into a simple family story is masterful. Juan Rulfo sold tires and worked other jobs. He was not a fluffy, intellectual writer, and it wonderfully shows.

From this brief eerie novel about the spirit world--Pedro Paramo--was born a dozen Latin American literary classics of the 20th Century by the likes of Alejo Carpentier, Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Luisa Valenzuela, Giannina Braschi, and Cristina Peri Rossi who are all known for their own rare blend of the magical and the hyper real. What makes Pedro Paramo a real stand-out is the stark approach to language and plot. In a nutshell, it's a story of a man who, upon the death of his mother, visits an old town in search of his father only to find a ghost town--literally--a town populated with earthly and other-worldly beings. I buy this book as gifts to those who are discovering a love for magic realism, the Latin American boom, and the Post-Boom writers because Juan Rulfo is an undercelebrated master who is not easily found in book stores. Thank goodness for Amazon.com!