Kiss Of The Spiderwoman

I suppose like most people I had my first exposure to the story, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, from the 1985 Hector Babenco starring William Hurt and Raul Julia. It seems like the kind of film that Roger Ebert would endorse and persuade me to search out. Since that time I have become a fan of the author Mauel Puig-his novel were a major source for inspiration for the films of Wong Kar-wai. After reading a couple of his other novels I finally got a copy of Kiss of The Spiderwoman (1976). Of course it is known for the excellent dialogue that slowly reveals the psychology and past histories of the two main characters-Valetin, the freedom fighter and Molina the homosexual. Puig is somewhat know for his experimental prose style-and I see here he adds scientific footnotes on the psychology of homosexuals through out the text and records the conversations between the warden and prisoners as ply text rather than unattributed as it is when the two prisoners are having a dialogue. Moreover, there are several stream-of-consciousness passages that describe films that Molina has seen that he recounts to pass the time while in the prison.. It is a powerful story that has historical antecedents in Argentina's "Dirty War" in the 1970s.