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Loading... Sor Juana's Second Dream: A Novel (1999)by Alicia Gaspar de Alba
  
None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) amandacb | Mar 23, 2010 |  ) elliezann | Aug 17, 2009 | Books like this can be a lot of fun. It's an opportunity to take an historical figure shrouded in mystery and recreate a full-bodied woman, in this case in a sort of pastiche style one might call lesbian historical pulp fiction. My beef with this book lies in the occasionally exercised first person approach to telling the story. Sor Juana is largely revealed in this novel through fictionalized journal entries and letters. What might work with other subjects comes across as presumptuous. Due to the infantile tone and content, you're not likely to forget that the first person aspect of the novel is most definitely the fictionalized aspect of the story. I'm not convinced that Gaspar de Alba does justice to her subject, though it is a valiant effort. At the end of the day, Sor Juana's poetry stands up very well on its own and speaks volumes of her own life. Fiction really isn't needed to stir our imaginations in order to fill in the gaps, though this is an instance where it is fun to try (and an unfortunate letdown when it doesn't quite succeed). (  )1  mambo_taxi | Feb 28, 2009 | no reviews | add a review
This bold novel unravels the mystery and complexity of the woman Carlos Fuentes calls "the first great Latin American poet." Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), poet, playwright, rhetorician, and musician, is often equated with Sappho, the lesbian poet whom Plato baptized the "Tenth Muse." The Mexican nun has fascinated readers around the world for centuries as scholars have attempted to understand her brilliance, her feminism, the affairs of her heart, her decision to enter a convent at the beginning of her luminous intellectual career. Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, an illegitimate criolla, is sixteen when word of her self-taught erudition travels to the palace in Mexico City and she becomes an attendant to Doña Leonor Carreto, Marquesa de Mancera. Wanting only to study, confused by her love for la Marquesa, and loathe to marry, in five years Juana becomes Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the Convent of Santa Paula of the Order of San Jerónimo. There, her quill becomes her salvation and damnation as her notoriety mounts with each new artistic commission. Popular with court and clergy, she receives a stream of guests at the convent, among them la Condesa de Paredes, who becomes Sor Juana's intimate friend. More than two decades later, after brilliantly defending her right to think, teach, and write, Sor Juana appears before the Inquisition and abruptly withdraws from the spotlight. Mixing fiction with Sor Juana's own words, and drawing on the most recent Sor Juana scholarship, Alicia Gaspar de Alba creates the most full-bodied portrait of Mexico's Tenth Muse to date. This remarkable novel about a remarkable woman will enlighten a new generation of readers, and stoke the interest of devotees who already are captivated by the inspiring Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. "An adventuresome exploration into the lyrical and historical vision of an extraordinary woman, written by an extraordinary novelist who has given us a new possibility to dream and invent Sor Juana Inés all over again."--Marjorie Agosín, Wellesley College "Beautifully written, without doubt the best book I have read this year. A masterpiece."--Greg Sarris, author of Watermelon Nights No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.75)
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