Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Joseph Sommers

Critical Essay by Joseph Sommers

SOURCE: A review of Cantar de ciegos, in Books Abroad, Vol. 40, No. 1, Winter, 1966, pp. 69-70.

Sommers was an American educator and critic whose books included After the Storm: Landmarks of the Modern Mexican Novel (1968). In this review of Cantar de ciegos, Sommers praises the "wide ranging variety" of the stories in the collection.

One of Mexico's most accomplished young writers (born in 1928) confirms his admirable penchant for experimenting, almost always successfully, with new themes and styles, in this second volume of short stories [Cantar de ciegos].

Equidistant between earlier fictional works—the novel La región más transparente and the novelette Aura—this new volume has points of contact with both. Primarily, however, Cantar deciegos stands on its own merits: wide-ranging variety of tone and treatment; remarkable blend of universality and sophisticated cosmopolitanism; peak moments of incredibly biting satirical humor (not excluding a touch of obscenity); and the...
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