Julian Rios, one of Spain's most distinguished novelists, has written an entirely new kind of art book. Impressions of Kitaj is both an impassioned long conversation with the meditation on the work of the American painter R.B. Kitaj. One of the most important painters working today, Kitaj has lived in London for many years. In 1993 the Tate Gallery will mounted a huge retrospective of his work which will later travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Impressions of Kitaj has both and is a result of a long friendship and conversations between the artist and the writer. The book will be highly illustrated and is published to coincide with the opening of the Tate exhibition.

Kitaj: Pictures and conversations

Ríos, Julián

Biographies & Memoirs

Hamish Hamilton

From one of Spain's most distinguished--and daring--writers comes this intensely erotic and shamelessly literary adventure through the streets of London. Emil, the mysterious narrator, has been abandoned by the woman he loves. Filled with doubt and nostalgia, bent on therapy or distraction or revenge, he wanders the city in search of her. Driven by the anguish of rejection and desire, he writes twenty-six letters to his fugitive lover, each an intricately detailed account of his affairs with twenty-six women who preceded her. Each of these figures bears an uncanny resemblance to a famous literary heroine, from Proust's Albertine to Fitzgerald's Daisy to Nabokov's Lolita to Queneau's Zazie. One by one, in alphabetical order, Emil's letters adopt the tone, style, and substance of the great novelists of the twentieth century, while, in recollection, his past love affairs grow increasingly extravagant and hallucinatory. As we follow his physical and creative journey, we try to unravel fact from fantasy, emotion from delusion, while searching for clues to the novel's amorous alphabet, the building blocks of modernist and postmodernist literature. A seductive puzzle saturated with wordplay, Loves That Bind is a linguistic tour de force of remarkable agility and wit.

Loves That Bind

Literature & Fiction

Literary

KNOPF

Julián Ríos's sensual and stylish Loves That Bind was acclaimed as "a literary tour de force" by the Washington Post Book World. Now, in Monstruary, the author is back to his old tricks, using dazzling wordplay and masterful allusions to give us a sensual exploration of art, literature, and the shadowy realms of the human spirit. Ríos takes us into the eerie existence of the painter Victor Mons, who has created a series of works titled Monstruary, a menagerie of personal demons summoned from the disturbing and often erotic images of his past. We follow Mons on nocturnal outings and infernal escapades, as he encounters fiendish figures, otherworldly phantasms, and the beautiful models and prostitutes who serve as his muses. And we meet a host of fascinating and haunting characters: the architect who attempts to deconstruct a real city by constructing imaginary ones; the anonymous patron who commissions his portrait to be painted on his mistress's skin; Mons's ethereal lover, who torments him by recounting her infidelities--which he then paints; the mysterious itinerant collector, who may be only an actress playing the role of a lifetime. In Monstruary, Ríos assembles all the monsters of the Western world—from classical antiquity to the silver screen, from the Minotaur to Dracula—and collapses the boundaries between reality and imagination, leading us into a new domain where the ghoulish and the exquisite collide and combine. With language that is playful, inventive, and virtuosic, he shows us the dark side of the human heart, and the strange places where life and art overlap, each feeding and inspiring the other.

Monstruary

Contemporary

From one of Spain's most distinguished--and daring--writers comes this intensely erotic and shamelessly literary adventure through the streets of London. Emil, the mysterious narrator, has been abandoned by the woman he loves. Filled with doubt and nostalgia, bent on therapy or distraction or revenge, he wanders the city in search of her. Driven by the anguish of rejection and desire, he writes twenty-six letters to his fugitive lover, each an intricately detailed account of his affairs with twenty-six women who preceded her. Each of these figures bears an uncanny resemblance to a famous literary heroine, from Proust's Albertine to Fitzgerald's Daisy to Nabokov's Lolita to Queneau's Zazie. One by one, in alphabetical order, Emil's letters adopt the tone, style, and substance of the great novelists of the twentieth century, while, in recollection, his past love affairs grow increasingly extravagant and hallucinatory. As we follow his physical and creative journey, we try to unravel fact from fantasy, emotion from delusion, while searching for clues to the novel's amorous alphabet, the building blocks of modernist and postmodernist literature. A seductive puzzle saturated with wordplay, Loves That Bind is a linguistic tour de force of remarkable agility and wit. From the Hardcover edition.

Loves That Bind: A Novel

Vintage

In Monstruary, Julián Ríos takes us into the eerie existence of the painter Victor Mons, who has created a menagerie of personal demons summoned from the disturbing and often erotic images of his past. We follow Mons on nocturnal outings and infernal escapades as he encounters fiendish figures, otherworldly phantasms, and the beautiful models and prostitutes who serve as his muses. Ríos calls up all the monsters of the Western world-from classical antiquity to the silver screen, from the Minotaur to Dracula-and collapses the boundaries between reality and imagination. With playful and inventive language, he shows the dark side of the human heart and the strange places where life and art overlap.

Northwestern University Press

First published in Spain in 1983 and proclaimed “an instant postmodern classic, without a doubt the most disturbingly original Spanish prose of the century” (Encyclopedia Britannica 1985 Book of the Year), Larva is a rollicking account of a masquerade party in an abandoned mansion in London. Milalias (disguised as Don Juan) searches for Babelle (as Sleeping Beauty) though a linguistic fun house of polylingual puns and wordplay recalling Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. A mock-scholarly commentary reveals the backgrounds of the masked revelers, while Ríos’s punning and allusive language shows that words, too, wear masks, hiding an astonishing range of further meanings and implications. Larva‘s tale, a reassessment of the Don Juan myth in our time, is told in single-minded pursuit of double meanings, but it is serious play. It revives a Hispanic tradition repressed for centuries by introducing the Madhatter English tradition of puns, palindromes, and acrostics, by creating Joycean echoes and pushing language to its maximum connotative capacity. Larva has been praised by such leading Spanish-language writers as Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, and Severo Sarduy, and establishes Ríos as the most accomplished successor to Joyce.

Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel

Dalkey Archive Press

A pairing of Kitaj's art and the conversations inspired by it.

Kitaj: Pictures and Conversations

Arts & Photography

Kitaj, R.B.

Individual Artists

Moyer Bell Ltd.

Just as Ezra Pound wrote an "Homage to Sextus Propertius" to pay tribute to an important influence, Juli?n R?os offers in his novel an "Homage to Ezra Pound" (as the original Spanish edition is subtitled). On November 1, 1972, news of Pound's death in Venice reaches three Spanish bohemians in London, passionate admirers of "il miglior fabbro" ("the better craftsman," as Eliot called him), who decide to honor Pound's memory by visiting various sites in London associated with him.
Filled with allusions to Pound's life and works and written in a style similar to Finnegans Wake, R?os's word-mad novel features the same characters from his first novel "Larva" the poet Milalias, his girlfriend Babelle, and their mentor X. Reis, each of whom writes part of the novel: Milalias writes the Joycean main text, Reis (as Herr Narrator) adds commentary on facing pages, and Babelle furnishes maps and photos. Together, they compile the "Parting Shots" at the end, dazzling short stories that expand upon incidents in the main text. Sound confusing? No more so than "The Cantos," and R?os is much funnier.

Poundemonium (Spanish Literature)

A striking reassessment of the Don Juan myth. A literary tour de force, this extraordinary novel is told in single-minded pursuit of double meanings, but it is serious play. Larva is a rollicking account of a masquerade party in an abandoned mansion in London. Milalias (disguised as Don Juan) searches for Babelle (as Sleeping Beauty) through a linguistic funhouse of puns and wordplay recalling Joyce's Finnegans Wake. A mock-scholarly commentary reveals the backgrounds of the masked revellers, while Rios' allusive language shows that words too wear masks, hiding an astonishing range of further meanings and implications. Larva revives a Hispanic tradition repressed for centuries by introducing the English tradition of puns, palindromes and acrostics (a word puzzle in which certain letters in each line form a word or words) and establishes Rios as the most accomplished successor (in any language) to Joyce.

Larva: A Midsummer Night's Babel (Spanish Literature Series)

United States

A riotous tribute to James Joyce and a surprising tour of the house of fiction.

House of Ulysses (Spanish Literature)

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Books by Ríos, Julián

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Kitaj: Pictures and conversations

Loves That Bind

Monstruary

Loves That Bind: A Novel

Monstruary

Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel

Kitaj: Pictures and Conversations

Poundemonium (Spanish Literature)

Larva: A Midsummer Night's Babel (Spanish Literature Series)

House of Ulysses (Spanish Literature)