Literary criticism applies to various forms, such as film, poetry, language, and novels. It equips readers and writers with tools to analyze and appreciate a work of art"s multiple layers. It also allows them to conclude the job, the author, and the reader within a specific context or period.
In this series of essays, Danilo López-Román provides an engaging and insightful analysis of films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, along with works by Susan Briante, Theresa Cha, Robert Creeley, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, Federico García Lorca, Michael Ondaatje, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ernest Hemingway, among others. He also shares his perspectives on politics, poetry, literature, and the creative process. Additionally, López-Román offers his interpretation of various literary criticism schools that have emerged over the years, frequently using his poetry as a point of reference. In this context, the theories of Iser, Lacan, Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Genette, Bal, Eco, Bakhtin, and others gain new significance and are revitalized.
The true worth of this work is found in the book"s numerous graphs, charts, and personal anecdotes, which were written between 2007 and 2010 while the author was pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Texas-El Paso. In this regard, the book resembles a textbook.
The essays on Kafka, Murakami, Ishiguro, Amy Hempel, and Italo Calvino explore the layers of meaning in their works and connect them to concepts in physics and quantum mechanics. They question Reality, Memory, Space-Time, Spirit, and Matter.
