The Time of the Hero Essay | Critical Essay #2

The Time of the Hero Critical Essay #2

In the following essay on Mario Vargas Llosa's novel The Time of the Hero (La cuidad y los perros), Hilda L. Baker discusses the engrossment of the reader that the novel engenders, and what impact this has both on narrative structure and within literary theories of reader-writer constructed spaces.

Reading is never a natural and innocent activity. The
condition of the reader is to come after, to be constituted
as reader by the repertoire of other texts, both
literary and nonliterary, which are always already in
place and waiting to be displaced by a critical reading.
—Jonathan Culler

In literary critical circles, a contemporary author's reputation customarily rests more on his recent works than on his earlier efforts, however well received they might have been. Too often we critical readers forget our initial enthusiasm for a work in our rush to assess more...
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