There are few things I hate more than reading things I don’t want to read. I had to read this stupid novel because I can’t avoid at least mentioning it in my book, and I can’t mention something I didn’t read. For two miserable years, I would start this poorly written, boring novel, and then give up. And today I finally finished it!
The reason I hated Gutierrez’s novel so much is because it’s written in the North American postmodernist tradition of Pynchon, Burroughs, Delillo, etc that I detest. It’s the smirky, smart-assy, self-congratulatory branch of postmodernism that doesn’t deserve to polish the shoes of the great Hispanic postmodern tradition of José Donoso, Juan Benet, Juan Goytisolo, etc. Why a Spanish writer in 2012 would want to resuscitate the putrid corpse of early American postmodernism instead of feeding on the vibrant and beautiful postmodern tradition in his own language is a mystery. This kind of thing was in vogue in Spain 25-30 years ago when there was still a deep-seated belief that everything Spanish was inferior to everything American, but this was a long time ago.
I can’t even think of anybody else who writes this way in Spain these days. The obnoxious Generation Xers have either faded from the literary scene (like Ray Loriga mostly did) or swapped the immature worship of the US for writing books that actually make sense (Benjamin Prado is an example of the latter approach.)
I can only hope that I never have to suffer through anything else by this author.
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s encouraging that there are still some writers honest enough to actually read the books (or see the movies) that they’re praising or criticizing in their works.
Few things are more annoying than reading a lengthy review (or article or whatever) that goes into great detail, and often emotional angst, about a book or movie, and then see the words in the final paragraph, “I haven’t actually read/seen it yet, but…”
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I HATE people who do this kind of thing. They heard something somewhere and believe it qualifies them to editorialize about a book. Not even my worst students do that.
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