SOURCE: "A Sentimental Realism," in Review, No. 74, Fall, 1974, pp. 46-7.

In the following essay, Alonso contends that while Lezama Lima's realistic writing style was influenced by the works of Ruben Dario and Maria Eugenia Gongora, Paradiso is sincere but unconvincing in its realism.

Perhaps, as the dust jacket claims, Paradiso was met with "unqualified enthusiasm" in Italy and France. But this was not the case here, and it is easy to see why.

Although comparisons can and have been made between Paradiso and Ulysses and Remembrance of Things Past, Lezama's book owes much more to the poetry of Dario and Góngora than to the novelistic breakthroughs of Proust and Joyce. Not surprising, perhaps, since Lezama is known as Cuba's premier lyric poet. However, this also means that Paradiso is rooted in precisely those literary traditions that, more than just foreign, have long been regarded in English with...