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Kiss of the Spider Woman

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 · rating details · 4,223 ratings · 240 reviews

Sometimes they talk all night long. In the still darkness of their cell, Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the film he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens. Valentin believes in the just cause which makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love which makes all else endurable. Each has always been alone, and always - especially n...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published April 3rd 1991 by Vintage (first published 1976)

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Dec 14, 2008 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: don-t-cry-for-me, crime-and-punishment, love-and-other-indoor-sports, hagging-out

So funny thing, I actually started this book once when I was a kid, maybe about nine years old? Strangely, I thought I remembered what I'd read really clearly, but then on this rereading realized I'd read more of it before than I'd previously realized. Also funny, my passion for this book waned around the same place this time as when I was nine, though this time I stuck with it and followed through to the end.

So this book takes place in a Latin American prison cell occupied by a political prison...more So funny thing, I actually started this book once when I was a kid, maybe about nine years old? Strangely, I thought I remembered what I'd read really clearly, but then on this rereading realized I'd read more of it before than I'd previously realized. Also funny, my passion for this book waned around the same place this time as when I was nine, though this time I stuck with it and followed through to the end.

So this book takes place in a Latin American prison cell occupied by a political prisoner and a window-dressing, mama-adoring homosexual. The beginning, and much of the novel throughout, is the gay guy recounting old films he's seen, in incredible detail.

Okay. So. All you English majors out there probably know what these are called, the fantastical, shimmering stories-within-stories that are so much more purely imaginative and sensual and far out than the main story itself ever could be -- you know what I mean, like the interludes in Don Quixote and Judy Blume's Starring Sally J. Freeman as Herself and Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle and a thousand other books I can't think of right now.... There's something about those kinds of stories that I really wish I could get at here, but I probably can't. What are they like? They're like the icing, but you can't just eat the can of icing (not that I haven't, but it isn't good, or it is, but it makes you nauseous). The stories are like the silk rose on your underpants, but you can't just have underpants made up of silk roses. They're the non-porn sex scene, the roller coaster drop, the hook of the song, the cherry on the sundae, the beauty mark, the car detailing, the best part of the show.... I know these are super lame, useless, pedestrian analogies, but I've been wanting to write this review for days and the right words just haven't come, so in the end I thought I'd just say what I could and appeal to you all for help. Do you guys know what I mean? I mean the thing that is the best thing, but you can't have it just alone, because it isn't good by itself. You can't have just holidays all the time every day, they don't mean anything without the mundane regular days in between..... These stories-within-stories are like that. I know writers have tried to do away with the dull base as much as possible -- Chaucer springs to mind? -- and just have the stories, but it isn't the same rush and delight. Why is that?

Well, I guess some of that's extremely obvious. The films in this book are so beautifully told that it's a just a pure pleasure to read them, but what makes them so compelling is knowing these characters and experiencing what it is to consume these narratives both directly yourself, but also through them. The first film in here, an erotic horror movie about a panther woman, I remembered clearly from my childhood reading of this book, and this time I realized that back then I got partway through the second film, which is a completely over-the-top Third Reich propaganda romance, before the nine-year-old me got freaked out and confused by the Nazi element, and bored with the two grown-man prisoners, so then bailed for a Sweet Valley High or something.

Anyway, I just loved the first half of this book. In my scoring system, a four-star book is one I think about when I'm not reading it and am always excited to pick up, while a three-star is one I have to push myself a little to return to sometimes, out of a sense of obligation and desire to get through. Kiss of the Spider Woman shifted from a four to a three about midway through, which had not a little to do with the footnotes.

Footnotes in fiction.... well, we should not speak ill of the dead, and sometimes they're good, but in general they are.... not.... always.... my favorite thing. Especially here. The footnotes here felt like the total opposite of those sugary, thrilling stories-in-story: they were the sand in the spinach, the fly in my soup. Who was supposed to be writing these footnotes? At first I thought it was like an annotated transcript compiled by the jailers, but that wasn't it. Will someone who's read this please explain what the hell these Freud and Marcuse footnotes about the etiology of homosexuality were about? Because I just really didn't get it at all. Was he trying to make an analogy between homosexuality and Marxism? For awhile it seemed like that was where he was going. Was Puig trying to say that commies are fags? Because I've heard that before, and I'm not sure he needed all the psychoanalytic footnotes to say it, he could've just had a mean fratboy pop his head in the cell and make that point.... I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm just cranky, because I don't think that's necessarily a bad point if that was where he was going with it, but I can't help it, the footnotes just really screwed things up for me. Maybe I'm too dumb and impatient, I don't know, but I just found them distracting and incomprehensible.... And it sucks when you're reading something and you just don't get it! So yeah, maybe it's my own fault, but the footnotes were a huge problem for me, and really yanked me out of the narrative, which was sad because for the most part I really did love this book.

Oh yeah, so far this isn't much of a review. I did really like this book, which is beautifully written, and I'd love to see the movie, which I bet is good, especially since this reads like a script -- or actually scripts. It was a lovely thing to read right after Darkness at Noon, and I feel it'd be a nice segue to Our Lady of the Flowers, but I'm not sure I'm up for that right now. Kiss of the Spider Woman is one of the most romantic books I've read, and it made me realize yet again what a sucker I am for romance novels. If you, too, are secretly enamored of love, movies, and/or storytelling, you should probably read this. I liked what I personally took Puig to be saying about love, which might be that love is a childish fallacy, a campy pasteboard concoction, a screen for vile propaganda, an escape, a distraction, a desperation, a helpless Freudian outgrowth from early childhood.... but also it's everything. In the end, it's all there is. And maybe that's corny and not what he meant, but that's what I got, and I'll buy it.

I'm really sad because I read Rachel's gorgeous edition with the spectacular movie cover of the lovely blue Spider Woman with her ferns and her web, and it's not an option on here, and it's so beautiful I can't even stand it! Can anyone fix that?(less)

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Aug 26, 2007 MkB rated it 5 of 5 stars

-- What are you reading?
-- Kiss of the Spider Woman.
-- Hey, I've heard of that.
-- Likely because of the movie that was made of it.
-- How is the book?
-- Fantastic. Essentially all dialogue, but somehow all the more descriptive for it.
-- Huh. You gonna finish those fries?

18 likes · like · see review

Dec 19, 2008 brian rated it 2 of 5 stars

no comment.

i have a few rules regarding bookface. one of 'em being that you just don't write a book report within a month of DFJ reporting on the same book. i mean, c'mon. it'd be like singing a duet with morrissey. or crossing swords with john holmes. or moving into the kremlin directly after stalin. or going scotch for scotch with christopher hitchens...

you're only gonna look like an asshole when compared to a master.

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Aug 01, 2008 Fabian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

More than anything, this book gets me excited about the possibilities of writing. Puig revolutionizes the way the novel is framed: his awesome work is a play, a stream of consciousness, a historic document, a research paper, a review of films... it is all these things in one poignant and hard-to-put-down novel.

The two main characters (Molina, the sad, deceitful and complex "Spider Woman" who lures and tests the headstrong Valentin) hold entire worlds inside of them. They are both outcasts, trag...more

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Aug 11, 2007 Nathanial rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: jailbird faggots

Shelves: drama

Puig's tale consists [almost] entirely of dialogue. Written in the mid-seventies, during the Argentinian junta of 'disappearances' and mass incarceration, Kiss of the Spider Woman traces the evolving relationship of two convicts: a youthful dissident and an older homosexual. Later made into a successful movie, the plot itself mainly revolves around the movies that one character describes to the second. As a book of ideas, Puig's short novel glosses over character history and contextual backgroun...more

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Feb 21, 2009 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: po-mo freaks, lovers of weird lit

Shelves: 1001-books, undergrad

Really fascinating novel that I wasn't expecting to like at first. You're kind of swept up in the dialogue between unidentifiable characters in an unidentifiable setting--and you're left in this limbo for a good 20 or so pages. But Puig's undercutting of generic and authorial authority in the text, his wonderful use of oral storytelling (in written form?), and the politics implicit and explicit to the text make this both an enjoyable and provocative read. By the end of the novel, I felt as thoug...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Puig, Manuel. KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN. (Eng. trans. – 1978). *****. This novel has been sitting on my to-be-read pile for almost three years now. I managed to find a first edition in a used book shop in Seattle back then, but never got around to reading it. I remember seeing the film many years ago and thinking it was fabulous but never got around to reading the original. I’m glad I finally did. Two men are cellmates in an Argentine prison. Molina is a windo dresser, homosexual, sentenced to ei...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Karla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

El libro me fue asignado para una clase de literatura que se enfoca en América Latina. Sin embargo, he de confesar que desde las primeras páginas este libro no fue un deber académico sino un auténtico placer, ese que es provocado por el libro adecuado en el momento adecuado.

Siendo esta novela la primera que leo del autor, aunado a su peculiar narrativa (o mejor dicho, falta de ésta)que se centra en los diálogos de los personajes, he de confesar que esta novela me impresionó desde las primeras pá...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Arwen56 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romanzi, favorites

Avevo visto il film, tanti anni fa. La regia era di Hector Babenco e gli interpreti William Hurt, Raul Julia e Sonia Braga. Ne ero rimasta affascinata, sia per la trama sia per l’intensa recitazione.

Solo oggi ho letto il libro. E mi è piaciuto quanto la pellicola, se non di più.

Non mi è facile parlarne, poiché l’emozione nasce esclusivamente dagli impercettibili cambiamenti nel rapporto tra due uomini che sono reclusi in una cella, da cui escono solo per brevi attimi, scanditi e separati da una...more Avevo visto il film, tanti anni fa. La regia era di Hector Babenco e gli interpreti William Hurt, Raul Julia e Sonia Braga. Ne ero rimasta affascinata, sia per la trama sia per l’intensa recitazione.

Solo oggi ho letto il libro. E mi è piaciuto quanto la pellicola, se non di più.

Non mi è facile parlarne, poiché l’emozione nasce esclusivamente dagli impercettibili cambiamenti nel rapporto tra due uomini che sono reclusi in una cella, da cui escono solo per brevi attimi, scanditi e separati da una serie di “trame” di film che Molina racconta a Valentín. La storia reale e tristemente cruda di un omosessuale e di un perseguitato politico si mescola così alle storie false e sentimentali, ma che comunque coinvolgono perché è Molina che ce le racconta, di quel mondo illusorio che è quello della celluloide.

Giorno dopo giorno, film dopo film, i due uomini, così diversi, si avvicinano e scoprono che è nel parlare, nel condividere anche ciò di cui si vergognano che nasce la comprensione, l’accettazione dell’altro e la sconfitta della solitudine. Con delicate e lievi parole, l’unione tra i due verrà ad un certo punto suggellata anche dall’unione fisica, pur restando Valentín un eterosessuale.

E di questo non si pentirà mai, tanto che nella bellissima chiusa del romanzo dirà, rivolgendosi nel delirio che segue alla tortura a Marta, la donna che ama, ma in realtà parlando a Molina, che ormai è morto: “Ah quanto t’amo! Era l’unica cosa che non potevo dirti, avevo paura che me lo chiedessi e in questo modo sì che t’avrei persa per sempre”. Ma Molina non glielo ha chiesto mai. Molina sapeva che Valentín non era né avrebbe mai potuto essere il suo uomo, ma sapeva anche che era intelligente abbastanza per capire quale fossero le sue reali esigenze. In quella cella si realizza un piccolo, grandissimo miracolo: due persone si comprendono e depongono le armi, le innumerevoli armi con cui, tutti i giorni, cerchiamo di sopraffare gli altri. E’ solo una tregua, intendiamoci. L’uomo è fatto così. E’ da folli pensare che possa andare altrimenti. Ma, talvolta, per qualche inspiegabile motivo, succede che due anime si incontrino. E finchè dura, è bellissimo.

Questo libro racconta uno di quei momenti.
(less)

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Apr 02, 2012 Lacolz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

—¿Te imaginas una historia donde pones a un preso político compartiendo celda con un homosexual?
—¿Un rojillo y un travesti?
—Sí, algo así. ¿Te lo imaginas?
—Sí. Y de hecho, más que imaginarlo, eso ya lo he leído.
—¿Y qué tal?
—Bueno, pues así como lo planteas, de entrada, no suena mal, pero no le estás haciendo justicia a la novela, al autor.
—¿Por?
—Bueno, así como lo planteas dejas de lado muchas cosas.
—Pero es que sólo es una pregunta detonante.
—De todas maneras, no transmites la indiferencia del u...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Raisu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, read-in-2011, historical, 20th-century

Remember VCR? We had had the movie "Kiss of the Spider Woman" on tape when I was in high-school. It was taped from TV by my parents. But then something else was taped over it, E.R. or My So Called Life, probably, because those were the things we kids watched back then. So, when that episode of the aforementioned E.R. or MSCL ended, the movie begun, but not from the beginning. It was confusing, but very engrossing, so I ended up watching it anyway. And then forgot about it for years. Recently, I...more

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Sep 28, 2010 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book's blurb says this was made into a film where William Hurt, who played the role of Molina, was named best actor at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. I haven't seen the movie but I was not surprised by this: Molina is a difficult role for any actor.

Molina here is a gay guy who is in a Latin American prison for child molestation. He becomes the cellmate of Valentin, a fanatical revolutionary. No two persons could have been more different. Molina has no interest whatsoever in politics which, h...more The book's blurb says this was made into a film where William Hurt, who played the role of Molina, was named best actor at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. I haven't seen the movie but I was not surprised by this: Molina is a difficult role for any actor.

Molina here is a gay guy who is in a Latin American prison for child molestation. He becomes the cellmate of Valentin, a fanatical revolutionary. No two persons could have been more different. Molina has no interest whatsoever in politics which, however, is practically the world to Valentin. But they found one thing to share: their love for stories, specifically those told in movies. Molina loves to tell these stories based on the movies he had seen, Valentin survives the monotony of each day, especially during the nights he couldn't sleep, listening to Molina. Through these stories, interspersed with their dialogues about their own personal lives, their characters and backgrounds are revealed.

Then there are the footnotes on the science or psychology of homosexuality. The effect is like you're watching a long, secretly filmed conversation between two prisoners, one of them gay, and Sigmund Freud annotates the exchanges.

Occasionally, there are reports from the military authorities who have detained the two. Here the reader finds out that Molina is actually being used to elicit information from the rebel Valentin about the revolutionary group Valentin belongs to. Molina gives the appearance of cooperation to get out of prison because he has a sick mother to care for. But he had fallen in love with Valentin, while the latter, at least, had become attached to him too.

I wonder how the director Hector Babenco treated their love scenes inside the prison cell. With the barest minimum of words, most of them just ellipses in fact, Manuel Puig masterfully conveyed their tenderness, making me want to experience gay love too (he, he, just kidding!).

Lastly, the book has its italicized passages. Unshared secret thoughts by either Molina or Valentin alone. Flashbacks. The last one being the hallucinations of a probably dying, heavily-tortured Valentin. By then, Molina had been dead already, killed by Valentin's own comrades after he (Molina) got out of prison.

A wonderful love story, told in such a unique way(less)

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May 07, 2010 Taylor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 9th-grade

This is one of the best books i have ever read, i will miss reading this book so much. The reasons i love this book are you become really absorbed and you want to keep reading. But this book is also very challenging at the same time which makes it very good for lit-circles, because some part are confusing and so much happens one would need help clarifying some parts. This book is at a 9th grade reading level and its mostly challenging because this book is written as a play but there is no name o...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Taka rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, other_lit

A mix of Auster, Gaddis, and DFW--

The main story between two cellmates, one gay, the other straight, how their relationship evolves is engrossing. And many of the films Molina, the gay character, tells his cellmate are also interesting, though it takes some getting used to as it keeps breaking up the narrative in the beginning. I do, however, have reservations about the footnotes, which consist of dry/dull (though rather clear) academic disquisition on homosexuality. Though they do help illumina...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Bucket rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

o.k. this book was very good. also from what i remember many years ago a decent movie? (as much as anything involving william hurt can be).the problem: i took serious issue with the many oddly placed notes throughout the story. one of the main characters in this story is queer and there are all these notes at the bottom of the page going into freud's and other fucked up western psychologists' theories about homosexuality as a pathology. if the question of whether those notes were in the original...more

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Jan 16, 2009 Fiona rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spanish

I'd seen the film ages ago and thought I knew what to expect from the book, but I was wrong. I've never read anything quite like this, in that the book has no narration at all. Most is in the form of pure dialogue, like a radio play without sound effects. At points, there are long, long footnotes, mostly academic discussions of theories of homosexuality, which seem to be inserted at random (i.e. not directly related to the reference-point in the main text, though the theories are relevant to the...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Beatriz Chavarri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Si ya con Boquitas pintadas sentía que Manuel Puig era un autor fenomenal, con la rara capacidad de desdoblarse y crear un discurso completamente femenino, sin que se sintiera el artificio literario (no se siente como un escritor imitando la voz de una mujer, sino que parece que se lee el diario de una mujer, y no de paso una mujer de altos vuelos intelectuales sino criada entre radionovelas, tangos y boleros), con El beso de la mujer araña descubrí a un autor a quien bien puedo llamar genial, a...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Amanda added it · review of another edition

Le he puesto a este libro el apodo: "El libro de la nota al pie de pagina" no se si era solo mi edición (que cabe destacar que era de mis papas así que es bastante vieja) pero repetidamente me encontraba con esencialmente paginas llena de pie de nota, que al mio parecer un poco fastidia al momento de mantener el hilo de la lectura.

Dejando eso aparte, el libro me gusto mucho. Habla de un tema bastante original, y el contraste entre los dos personajes es genial. Son personas que afuera de la cárce...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Amanda added it · review of another edition

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Jul 21, 2011 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book basically consists of dialogue, and the two inmates have interesting conversations, but I am not sure what to think about the various films that Molina talks about, the numerous footnotes regarding theories on sexuality, and the ending after Molina and Valentin separate. When I take a step back and think about the overall flow of the plot, I feel like what's described can be considered somewhat ordinary. Two inmates get acquainted with each other, try to keep each other company, and ad...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Lamski Kikita rated it 3 of 5 stars

A book that is entirely in dialogue. I really enjoyed this new format and really liked the story. I love how you gradually meet the characters; they're not just presented to you in the first few pages, you kind of have to earn knowing them and finding out about their life. I especially enjoyed the presentation of the story of political and social oppression in a completely new form; it is indirect and sneaky, yet it strikes stronger than the usual direct and critical discourse.

I would have given...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Emanuela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa-straniera

Questo romanzo è un concentrato di storie e di tematiche personali e sociali. Escludo riferimenti alla trama che è disponibile; quella del film è abbastanza fedele:
Il bacio della donna ragno

La storia si sviluppa su parecchi piani di cui:
1-Reale: due uomini si trovano in carcere nella stessa cella. Tra loro si crea via via un rapporto sempre più confidenziale.
2-Fantastico: uno dei due, Molina, racconta all'altro la trama di alcuni film, dall'horror allo storico, al sentimentale tragico ecc.
3-Sagg...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Suvi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1970-1999, _1001-before-you-die, novels, _latin-america, lgbt

There's no narrative voice in Puig's novel, only dialogue. Despite this the novel is wonderfully multilayered, and Puig has subtly weaved the stories of the main characters among the recountings of the films Molina has seen. Loved the choice of films, Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) among others. By recounting films the jail time of Molina and Valentín goes by faster, helping them to forget the harsh reality. However, reality seeps through the stories because you can't ever e...more

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May 16, 2011 Carly rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel was very intriguing, though it was difficult to read and very uncomfortable at points. I appreciated the way in which the stories the main character, Molina, would tell would aline with what was occurring in his relationship with Valentin, his cellmate. I feel like this book is ideal for class discussion, and extremely though provoking. However, I was unimpressed with the rather stereotypical portrayal of Molina as a flamboyant homosexual man, and thought that the fact that he was the...more

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Dec 14, 2010 Paola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa

Sicuramente il titolo di questa recensione piacerebbe a Molina...
Bello questo romanzo di Puig, ma é un bello malsano. La rappresentazione del sentimento poco differenziato, quasi canino di Molina, l'omosessuale, nei confronti del compagno di cella, Valentin, ribelle rivoluzionario idealista di sinistra, ha qualcosa di malato, che ti fa proprio pensare ad un ragno mentre tesse la tela.
La cifra per poter leggere questo romanzo sfugge e nel contempo se ne possono trovare diverse.
Storia d'amore?
Pre...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Pete rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

Kiss of the Spider Woman does not have a traditional narrator. 9/10 of the book is strictly dialogue, with the shifts in speaker being demarcated only by a dash. It's easy enough to keep track of who is speaking because most of the dialogue is between two men sitting in a prison cell. What do they talk about? Well, do you know anyone that likes to go on 20-30 minute descriptive rants about a movie that you have not seen and never want to see? If you like that, then this is the book to you. It ha...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Michael rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Failed revolutionaries, cynics, people who like to whine

Most everything about this odd book is enjoyable: the dialogue is crisp and never flat, the characters believably drawn, and the film plots that comprise much of the storytelling are told with startling freshness. Valentin and Molina's cell could be anywhere where two people are discussing life; Puig's themes are universal, the suffering is real. There are a few unexpected twists that keep the heart of the rather dry story beating, and it is apparent that Puig feels deeply about both men and has...more

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Sep 23, 2009 Abeer Hoque rated it 3 of 5 stars

KotS-W is a conversation between two inmates, a gay window dresser and a revolutionary. I was biased from the beginning, but against the blurb writer. The window dresser is described on the back of the book as self centred but charming, but in no way does he come across as self centred, unless you pick on something late in the book (which would be a spoiler so I won't mention it more explicitly), but even that wouldn't be considered self centred IMHO (he was really a lovely man). The revolutiona...more KotS-W is a conversation between two inmates, a gay window dresser and a revolutionary. I was biased from the beginning, but against the blurb writer. The window dresser is described on the back of the book as self centred but charming, but in no way does he come across as self centred, unless you pick on something late in the book (which would be a spoiler so I won't mention it more explicitly), but even that wouldn't be considered self centred IMHO (he was really a lovely man). The revolutionary is described as fiercely idealistic, thus setting us up for what we should think of each of these men. I hate being told what to think.

But the worst was the footnotes on homosexuality that invade the text, totally randomly. According to my further research, these footnotes were inserted by Mr. Puig himself (randomly, this much is true), to display the "scientific" and political investigations into the "causes" of homosexuality. Each succeeding theory apparently disputes the last, perhaps building up to a house of cards. It didn't work for me because no matter how less lame a theory of homosexuality is, it's still lame, and offensive, and plus it took me away from the actual text for pages and pages at a time.

I like footnotes when they're funny and relevant and resonant (see "Oscar Wao" or "the Amulet of Samarkand"), and maybe back in the 70's when this was published, KotS-W's footnotes were provocative and subversive, but now, in our multi-culti gay ways, they appear dated and disrespectful.

Ok, so ax the book jacket blurb, and the footnotes, and I much enjoyed KotS-W. The growing friendship between two unlikely friends is profound and beautiful and told through the vivid and visual movies that the window dresser recounts for the revolutionary. I don't know that the movies actually contributed that much to the book - mostly because there were so many films and so much time was spent on retelling them - but they were so interesting, I didn't care.

One last complaint: I did find the omniscient jail reports to be a rather obvious device for telling the reader what's happening behind the scenes. I would have rather Mr. Puig figured out a more subtle conceit. Again, further research tells me these are "experimental" fictional techniques, but I am yet not compelled. (less)

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Feb 25, 2013 Stuart rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is a modern masterpiece, and something everyone should read once. Puig's tale of sex and love, passion, betrayal, politics and oppression, is woven together from dialogue, dreams and footnotes, movie summaries and sharp, cutting images rendered in elegant prose that mimics the morphine hallucinations and fantasies that provide escape from the tortured lives led by the protagonists. The main characters, Valentine and Molina, are slowly defined by their reactions to the world and each ot...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Stasia rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this many years ago and now, after reading it again, can't for the life of me remember what I must have thought about it. It's a strange book. On the one hand, I love the dialogue between the two main (and basically only) characters, and the way their relationship develops as they share a prison cell. On the other hand, Puig intersperses the book with these massive and very tangentially-related footnotes, primarily regarding theories of homosexuality. Mostly Freud. And I'm really not sure...more

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About Manuel Puig

Manuel Puig (born Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne) was an Argentinian author. Among his best known novels are La traición de Rita Hayworth (1968) (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth), Boquitas pintadas (1969) (Heartbreak Tango), and El beso de la mujer araña (1976) (Kiss of the Spider Woman), which was made into a film by the Argentine-Brazilian Director, Héctor Babenco and in 1993 into a Broadway musical.

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Quotes from Kiss of the Spider Woman

“The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again.

” — 21 people liked it

“Es que habría que saber aceptar las cosas como se dan, y apreciar lo bueno que te pase, aunque no dure. Porque nada es para siempre.” — 5 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/588242.Kiss_of_the_Spider_Woman?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348202962l/588242.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/588242.Kiss_of_the_Spider_Woman?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig[/url]

Kiss of the Spider Woman

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