Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Kiss of the Spider Woman

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

7 reviews

seraphimgt's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

"...when it comes to love, it's a question of earning it, and at the end of some dark trail, strewn with all kinds of hardships, love awaits those who struggle to the last in order to earn that love." (170)

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chalkletters's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Dad asked me yesterday about the benefits of doing the International Baccalaureate rather than A-levels. I wasn't convinced there was one when it came to having to do subjects you weren't interested in or good at. Did I benefit from an extra two years of Maths, or did I just struggle for no reason and bring down my overall score? What I could have said, however, was that the IB curriculum for specific subjects is pretty great. I don't think I would have covered Manuel Puig or Miroslav Holub in A-level English, and they're authors well worth reading.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is unusual both in form and content. Much of the story consists of Molina reciting films he remembers, though Manuel Puig deliberately introduces ambiguity over how much is from memory and how much Molina might be making up. The rest of the novel is about Molina's relationship with his cellmate, Valentin, what the relationship means to both men and how they treat one another when under pressure from the world outside their cell.

Manuel Puig offers no description of what the cell is like. Kiss of the Spider Woman is written entirely in dialogue, with the only visual input coming from Molina explaining aloud how things look in the films he remembers. A reader has to do a lot of filling in the gaps and joining the dots; it's impressive how often this comes intuitively, but it's not perfect. There are times when not having dialogue tags makes it difficult to keep track of who is speaking a given line. (Top tip: write V and M next to the dialogue markers in particularly tricky passages.)

While it's not the easiest novel to read, Kiss of the Spider Woman has a lot going on. It's reminiscent of the poetry of someone like W H Auden; each word and action is chosen with care to fit into one or more of the themes running through the novel. Even the films reflect the same concerns: people being other than what they seem, trust, betrayal. There are also supposedly academic footnotes written by Manuel Puig that interrupt and complicate the flow of the narrative. The reader has to choose for themselves whether they'll read the entire multi-page footnote then go back to the story, or reach each page in full as a mix of story and footnote, or read the story first and ignore the footnotes altogether. If you had time, you could do all three, and each option would throw different light on the themes Manuel Puig is trying to highlight: there's a reason people can and do spend hours discussing this novel.

Honestly, Kiss of the Spider Woman probably wasn't a great novel to reread for this blog; it would have benefitted more from a slower pace where I could also have reread all my marginalia, rather than pushing through as quickly as possible to get to the next thing on the list. Despite that, it was good to refresh myself, and I do appreciate having a written review to refer back to the next time I reread it.

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s_l's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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emudds's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

me getting to this in the middle of a reading rut like that tiktok audio - FINALLY some good fucking food !! reading the dialogue between molina and valentin felt like reading a play and i really loved how much those snippets highlighted those small moments of intimacy between them. weird time in my personal life to be reading it (lol) but also feel like that's why it resonated so much.

yk the vibes time for a quote i liked: "'but don't you suffer even more, after having been so happy but then winding up with nothing?' 'molina, there's one thing to keep in mind. in a man's life, which may be short and may be long, everything is temporary. nothing is forever.'" :'))))

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_rocio_'s review against another edition

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emotional funny sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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danidamico's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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saintsaens's review against another edition

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informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The writing style is peculiar (script-like dialogue for most of it) but once you get used to it, it reveals a very subtle story-telling relying on embedded narratives to express the characters' emotions and their own thoughts and views on the world.

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