''Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages'' (Spanish: ''Maldición eterna a quien lea estas páginas'') is a 1980 novel by

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

novelist

Manuel Puig Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne (December 28, 1932 – July 22, 1990), commonly called Manuel Puig, was an Argentine author. Among his best-known novels are '' La traición de Rita Hayworth'' (''Betrayed by Rita Hayworth'', 1968), ''Boquitas pint ...

. Originally written in English, it was first published in Spanish in the author's own translation. As in other works by Puig, the story is formally experimental, consisting of mostly unattributed dialogue, digressing into stories within stories. It also bears many of Puig favorite motifs, including sexuality and leftist revolutionary politics.

Plot introduction

The novel is set in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, near Washington Square. Larry, a poor and otherwise-unemployed former college student, accepts a part-time job taking care of 74-year-old Mr. Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez is an Argentine expatriate who has apparently lost his memory, as well as his understanding of basic concepts such as love and sexual arousal. Though the two men are ostensibly strangers, their conversations reveal that they may somehow have intimate knowledge of each other's pasts. Abruptly and without clear explanation, dialogue often digresses into elaborate melodramatic reenactments of events that may or may not have happened to the two men.

References

Novels by Manuel Puig 1980 novels Greenwich Village Novels set in New York City Seix Barral books {{1980s-novel-stub