Kiss of a Spider Woman (Mandarin Edition)

I still remember when I first heard about this book. I was in my last year of high school and a friend was reading it as part of an essay for English class. I remember hearing her rave about how great it was and she let me read the back cover while we sat in a free period. She let me borrow it once her essay was done and I enjoyed it so much that I later bought my own copy.

I've always remembered this book as being one of the greats. One of my favourites. Not what you would expect, I suppose, from a teenage girl, considering the topics covered in the story. But there is something about this story that speaks to me. It speaks of love, friendship, life and the trials and tribulations of a regular Joe in the real world.

This will always be one of my favourites and I will always continue to read it on a regular basis.

Totally unexpected. From the title (because that's a fabulous way to judge a book) I assumed it was some sort of Suspense, Noir, Mystery book.

Not even close. I enjoyed it but I am miffed at how it is a musical...can't even imagine how anyone would think of turning it into one, or what there is to sing and dance about. I may just have to check it out to see.

The story of two men in a prison in Argentina. One Molina who is there for sexual crimes and Valentin, there for Marxist revolutionary activity. The story starts with another story; the story of the Panther woman. During the imprisonment, Molino tells Valentin various film stories; The Panther woman, the Leni the spy, the Spinster, the Ugly Maid, and Zombie Woman, and last the Singer. Structure wise, this is a uniquely written book. The author tells it with dialogue, using -- to indicate a change in speaker. He also uses the subplots with the various movies and he also uses footnotes both actual (Freud and not factual, Taub). There is also italicized words that represent stream of conscious.First Sentence: --Something a little strange, that’s what you notice, that she’s not a woman like all others.Quotes: “In a man’s life, which may be short and may be long, everything is temporary, nothing is forever.”“It’s a question of learning to accept things as they come, and to appreciate the good that happens to you, even if it doesn’t last. Because nothing is forever.”Last words: “No, Valentin, beloved, that will never take place, because this dream is short but this dream is happy.”

Years ago, I feel asleep during the movie version of Kiss of the Spider Woman. Somehow, though, I knew there was a great story there.Two men, Molina and Valentin, share a prison cell in Argentina. Molina, who is gay, is serving 8 years for "corruption of a minor" and Valentin is a political prisoner. The story unfolds mainly through conversations they have. The author has interrupted the dialogue with the retelling of movie plots by Molina to Valentin -- this is something the two men do to relax, to avoid thinking about darker issues. And, there are a series of footnotes, most of which explain various theories of homosexuality.The author makes these three styles work together to allow us to understand the two main characters and the strong bonds developing between them. As the story evolves, so does their relationship. The dialogue is true and realistic. This is a story about acceptance and loyalty. Excellent writing, great story.

The storyline is very gripping: two political prisoners in an unknown Latin-American jail are forging an unlikely friendship amongst a background of torture, poisoning and psychological pressures. The fantastic background story is only an expression to one of the protagonist's fantasies. Readable, without being patronizing and intellectual, this book will be suitable for everyone and also for students who are interested in gender/queer studies.

First off, I really, REALLY loved this book. I got it through paperbackswap.com, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the person who had it before got rid of it. I'm not parting with this book, EVER.The story follows two cellmates, one in jail for being part of a political uprising, another for being gay and engaging in sexual activity with a minor. Almost the whole story is told in dialogue between the cellmates, with not a word of exposition or description. There are a couple things that are really amazing about Manuel's technique here. One is that he manages to convey EVERYTHING through dialogue alone--the setting, what the characters are doing, how they're feeling. The second is that even though the dialogue has to carry such a heavy load, not ONCE does it sound strained or unbelievable. There was not a single moment when I had trouble "hearing" what was being said.Molina, one of the cellmates, loves movies, so he passes the time for both of them by relating the plots of movies in detail to his cellmate. These movies become a vehicle for the characters to talk about other things and reveal information about themselves and move the plot along. Once in a while the movie descriptions feel like they get a little long. The book is also peppered with footnotes, mainly academic footnotes explaining various theories of homosexuality. I could never quite make sense of these footnotes--I wasn't sure if they were somehow supposed to relate to the plot, or whether they were there because Manuel was writing at a time when homosexual characters were rare in literature and he felt that in order to justify the presence of Molina, he had to explain to his audience what homosexuality was all about. :: shrug ::Anyway, a really, really beautiful book. ****.5"The kind of woman who is most in need of liberation, and desperately so, is the "woman" which every man keeps locked inside the dungeons of his own psyche. Roszak points out that this and no other is the form of repression that needs to be eliminated next, and the same with respect to the man bottled up inside of every woman. Furthermore, Roszak has no doubt that all of the above would represent the most cataclysmic reinterpretation of sexual life in the history of humanity, inasmuch as it would involve a restructuring of all that concerns sexual roles and concepts of sexual normality that are currently in force." - footnote to Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

A beautifully written story about two men--one straight, one gay--who share a cell as prisoners during the Argentine military dictatorship in the early 1970s, and the relationship that develops between them. If you can, try to read it in Spanish, because the English translation is quite clunky and doesn't begin to capture the quicksilver nature of Puig's prose. The book is much better than the movie made of it in the 1980s.