Beltrán Soler is from Chile, a land in constant movement. A seismologist who knows more about the science of tectonic plate movement than about life, he is cocooned in a world of seismic data, scientific articles, and natural disasters. Beltrán believes he can protect himself from the world around him by losing himself to theoretical pursuits, but thousands of feet above the ground he so meticulously analyzes, on a flight to L.A. -- the capital of film and the city in which he was raised -- he has a conversation that sparks in him a firestorm of nostalgia. Suddenly, Beltrán finds himself recalling the fifty most important movies of his life -- films both precious and absurd that affected him during his childhood and adolescence in the 1960s and '70s. From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to Close Encounters of the Third Kind to kitschy disaster films such as Earthquake!, as well as cult classics of '70s sci-fi such as Logan's Run, Beltrán connects with his past by remembering the films he saw, the people with whom he saw them, and even the theaters in which they were shown. Recalling one movie after another, he reconstructs the unusual history of his eccentric and dysfunctional family, coming to terms with his obsession with the movies that helped define him -- often whether he wanted them to or not.
Set in the oddly parallel worlds of Nixon's suburban California and Pinochet's Santiago de Chile, this ingenious novel throws us into the claustrophobic world of an adolescent who tries to escape from a tumultuous and fragmented existence, one caught between two languages, two cultures, and two families that watch the same movies. Written in the eloquent, compelling, and often hilarious style that has brought Alberto Fuguet world renown, The Movies of My Life is a book about film and about how movies embed themselves in our souls, helping us all share a blinding fondness for the magic of make-believe.

The Movies of My Life

Literature & Fiction

FUGUET, ALBERTO

Ezra E. Fitz

Contemporary

Rayo

Thirty-something seismologist Beltrán Soler knows about earthquakes, but he doesn't quite grasp the notion that life, like the tectonic plate movement he studies, is in constant motion.
One day he begins to remember the fifty most important movies of his life, ones he saw as a child and teenager growing up in California and Chile. As his mind ranges from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Beltrán reconnects with his past. Through his cinematic journey he ultimately comes to terms with his eccentric family's search for what makes the world physically shift around them -- and for the other, not so easy to measure, cultural shifts that throw us all off balance in different ways.

The Movies of My Life: A Novel

United States

Harper-perennial

&#8220;A clever writer#151;an old fashioned cafe realist#151;who portrays a certain stratum of Latin American society on its bruised knees

Cortos

Una cinemática colección de cuentos cortos escrita por el aclamado autor de Las Películas de Mi Vida que examina la complejidad del intercambio cultural entre norte y sur En Cortos, Alberto Fuguet narra con singular destreza la turbulenta y algunas veces surreal existencia de seres humanos que por circunstancias de la vida, se encuentran desplazados tanto geográfica como emocionalmente. Cuenta la historia de una pareja chilena sin hijos y su antiséptica filosofía de vida, la de un hombre desesperado que un día decide ""desaparecerse"" en Texas con la esperanza de que alguien quiera encontrarlo . . . Cortos nos abre los ojos a la realidad de los niños ricos provenientes de países pobres que en últimas le temen a sus países de origen y a la influencia que tiene sobre ellos la cultura americana. Inquietante e innovadora, Cortos es una colección de cuentos que habla del fenómeno americano en su máxima expresión con personajes que buscan reinventarse y a la vez encontrarse en su lucha contra una realidad pendenciera.

Cortos: Cuentos (Spanish Edition)

Beltrán Soler es du Chile, una tierra que se mueve. Es, además, un sismólogo que sabe mucho sobre las placas tectónicas pero poco de la vida. Encerrado en su universo de datos sísmicos, libros científicos y catástrofes naturales, se protege del mundo que lo rodea. Pero a miles de kilómetros por encima del suelo que tanto analiza, en un avión camino a Los Ángeles -- la capital del cine, y la ciudad en la que creció -- tiene una conversación que le gatilla un sismo interno. De repente se le vienen a la mente las cincuenta películas más importante de su vida, aquellos filmes a la vez divertidos y absurdos que más lo afectaron durante su infancia y adolescencia durante los años sesenta y setenta.
Desde Willy Wonka y la Fábrica de Chocolates a Encuentros Cercanos del Tercer Tipo, pasando por las ruidosas cintas de catástrofe como ¡Terremoto! y los filmes futuristas de los setenta como Fuga en el Siglo XXIII, se conecta con su pasado, acordándose de las películas que vio, las personas con las que las vio y hasta de los teatros a los que fue. De recuerdo en recuerdo, de película en película, Beltrán reconstruye la historia de su excéntrica y disfuncional familia, y descubre que las películas que vio -- las que le gustaron y las que no -- fueron las que lo definieron como persona.
Ambientada en los dos mundos extrañamente paralelos de la suburbana California de Nixon, y el frío Santiago de Chile de Pinochet, esta ágil y contemporánea novela nos precipita en el universo cinematográfico de un adolescente que busca escapar de una existencia fragmentada, atrapada entre dos idiomas, dos culturas y dos familias que sin embargo ven las mismas películas. Escrita en el lenguaje dinámico y vivaz que ha hecho de Alberto Fuguet un escritor reconocido a nivel mundial, Las Películas de Mi Vida es una novela sobre el cine y sobre cómo las películas que vemos se vuelven parte de quienes somos.

Las Peliculas de Mi Vida: Una Novela (Spanish Edition)

Shorts

A genre-bending collection of tales from one of Latin America’s most radically original minds     In Shorts, Alberto Fuguet brilliantly chronicles the occasionally bizarre, unceasingly turbulent existence of the geographically and emotionally displaced.   From the tale of a childless Chilean couple with an antiseptic life philosophy to an account of a desperate man who "disappears" himself in Texas, dreaming that someone actually wants to find him, Shorts opens our eyes to the reality of rich kids from poor countries swilling their cosmopolitans in New York, scared to death of their own homelands, and shows the influence of American pop culture on the hearts and minds of those who have never set foot in "Yankee Bohemia."   Unsettling and enlightening, Shorts conveys the American phenomenon of self-invention at its most extreme, as the culturally confounded rage against deflated fantasies in the face of obstinate realities.

Beltrán Soler es de Chile, una tierra que se mueve. Es, además, un sismólogo que sabe más sobre las placas tectónicas que de la vida. Camino a Tokio, hace escala en Los Angeles, donde pierde el avión y se enfrenta a un temblor que lo remece. De pronto, las cincuenta películas más importantes de su vida, aquellos filmes que vio durante su infancia y adolescencia en los 60 y los 70, lo acosan. Desde Willy Wonka y la Fábrica de Chocolates a Encuentros Cercanos del Tercer Tipo, pasando por las ruidosas cintas de catástrofe como Earthquake! y los filmes futuristas de los setenta como Soylent Green, Beltrán se conecta con su pasado y su excéntrica y disfuncional familia. De recuerdo en recuerdo, de película en película, Beltrán descubre la dimensión casi épica de la historia de los Soler. Ambientada en los dos mundos extrañamente paralelos de la suburbana California de Nixon, y el frío Santiago de Chile de Pinochet, esta ágil y contemporánea novela es sobre dos idiomas, dos mundos y dos familias que ven las mismas películas.

Peliculas de Mi Vida, Las: Una Novela (Spanish Edition)

Biographies & Memoirs

A genre-bending collection of tales from one of Latin America’s most radically original mindsIn Shorts, Alberto Fuguet brilliantly chronicles the occasionally bizarre, unceasingly turbulent existence of the geographically and emotionally displaced.From the tale of a childless Chilean couple with an antiseptic life philosophy to an account of a desperate man who "disappears" himself in Texas, dreaming that someone actually wants to find him, Shorts opens our eyes to the reality of rich kids from poor countries swilling their cosmopolitans in New York, scared to death of their own homelands, and shows the influence of American pop culture on the hearts and minds of those who have never set foot in "Yankee Bohemia."Unsettling and enlightening, Shorts conveys the American phenomenon of self-invention at its most extreme, as the culturally confounded rage against deflated fantasies in the face of obstinate realities.

Literary

A privileged teenager in Santiago, Chile, Matias seems oblivious to the benefits of being a member of the wealthy class, but underneath Matias's apathy lies an emotional turmoil that comes out as he grows up and becomes father to a child.

Bad Vibes

Cordero, Kristina

St Martins Pr

Gathers stories by Latin American authors about the United States, its society, and its culture, as seen by Spanish-speaking visitors, immigrants, and residents.

Se Habla Espanol/spanish Spoken Here: Voces Latinas En USA (Spanish Edition)

Paz-Soldan, Edmundo

Alfaguara

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by FUGUET, ALBERTO. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by FUGUET, ALBERTO

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by FUGUET, ALBERTO. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Movies of My Life

The Movies of My Life: A Novel

Cortos

Cortos: Cuentos (Spanish Edition)

Las Peliculas de Mi Vida: Una Novela (Spanish Edition)

Shorts

Peliculas de Mi Vida, Las: Una Novela (Spanish Edition)

Shorts

Bad Vibes

Se Habla Espanol/spanish Spoken Here: Voces Latinas En USA (Spanish Edition)