The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz

[Diane]

Rating: 3 Stars

The edition I read is The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings

I feel guilty giving a book with a GR average of 4.19 stars such a low rating, but...

First off, this is a collection of non-fiction essays. I am not sure how they contribute to the advancement of the novel. These essays are extremely well-written and there are some very interesting facts about Mexico's history and cultural identity. Despite not being overly fond of essays in general, I really did enjoy those parts. What I really didn't care for was how opinionated Paz is about certain things, particularly about the role expectations of women in Mexican society (or what he felt their role should be). I do realize this book was written in the 1950s, but his views seem to certainly predate that. I also felt that some parts of the essays were a bit repetitive.

Overall, I thought I would love this book but it fell a bit short of my expectations.

[Patrick]

Pre-2016 review:

***

In this essay, Paz defines the Mexican identity, as seen in the early 50s, through the prisms of history, philosophy, linguistics and ethnology. This is quite an erudite and challenging book, but nevertheless quite interesting to read and showed me Mexico and, by extension, Latin America under a different light. However, its presence on the List is highly questionable, considering that this is an essay, not a novel. I am sure that other writings from Paz could have been substituted here. If the intent was clearly to include an example of an essay, maybe it would have been wiser to include a more representative and accessible example, such as the original template for the genre, Montaigne's Essais. Even Kundera, in many passages of his books, conjugates essay and poetry much better than Paz would have done.