A comprehensive and insightful study of the literary and political ideas of Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most important contemporary writers in the Spanish-speaking world. Interest in Vargas Llosa and his remarkable corpus of novels is strong and widespread throughout the world. A trailblazing book like TEMPTATION OF THE WORD should command attention among both scholars and general readers.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Author of such monumental novels as The War of the End of the World (1985), Vargas Llosa was part of the vanguard of Latin American writers taking the literary world by storm beginning in the 1960s. Kristal's analysis of Vargas Llosa's writing is rather erudite, but readers of serious literature will persist--and be rewarded for their persistence with excellent ideas. To know Vargas Llosa's fiction is to know of his intense political consciousness; that he ran for president of his native Peru signaled the deepness of his political awareness and commitment. Professor Kristal not only acknowledges the overarching factor of Vargas Llosa's political mind-set but also divides his writing career into compartments corresponding to the "vicissitudes" of his ideas on, particularly, capitalism and, especially, the declining success of the Cuban revolution--but, as Kristal observes, all the while "determined to reconcile his passion for literature with his political convictions." The author is careful, however, to separate political content from literary technique and talent, not letting the former dictate judgment of the latter. Brad Hooper
Review
Forthright comparative criticism without the tics of jargon or pretentious literary philosophy, this is an excellent and eminently readable vade mecum for a world-class author. For anglophone readers, it is unquestionably the place to start in the pleasurable unraveling of the mysteries of Vargas Llosa's fiction.
--Choice Outstanding Academic Book 1998
Temptation of the Word manages to do what much extant criticism of this author has attempted and failed at: to give a virtually totalizing view of Vargas Llosa's work without reducing it to one single theme, or siding with one political position. This constitutes a new and original treatment of the subject and represents comparative literature at its traditional best.
--Enrico Mario Santi, Georgetown University --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
--Choice Outstanding Academic Book 1998
Temptation of the Word manages to do what much extant criticism of this author has attempted and failed at: to give a virtually totalizing view of Vargas Llosa's work without reducing it to one single theme, or siding with one political position. This constitutes a new and original treatment of the subject and represents comparative literature at its traditional best.
--Enrico Mario Santi, Georgetown University --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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