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millibear's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
CW: There's some brutal descriptions of children being raped by high-school boys in some later chapters. They're brief, but vivid.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse and Rape
What a strange book! "Betrayed by Rita Hayworth" is, like, all dialogue, in a sense. Chapters can be overlapping conversations flying over the head of a child, one-sided gossip fests with a friend, long and rambling stream of consciousness babbling from a grade-schooler, vitriolic letters from high-schoolers, lonesome diary entries... Not much standard sentence spacing or punctuation in parts, but it drives home that characters are speaking from their hearts and pouring things out. The sense of time and place is strong, even without any third-person-objective descriptions of surroundings. Very cool. "Betrayed by Rita Hayworth" follows the family and friends of a young child named Toto as he grows up in Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s. It's more vibes than plot, but worth reading just to see what Puig does with conversations. I can't speak to the original Spanish text, but Jill Levine's translation into English is really pleasant to read.milliebrierley's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
amparrot's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
karengomezv's review against another edition
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
scarlettletters's review against another edition
3.0
So, if I were to read this again, it might be a four-star. It tells the story of people in a small Argentinian village. Almost every chapter is from the perspective of a different character, spanning in time from 1933 to I think 1949 or so. You learn about people through the eyes and voices of others in the town. However, the reason I think I would get more from a re-read is that there are so many people to keep track of and different families and ages and such. One of the characters in the book comments that he doesn't like Dostoevsky because there are so many people who are called different names at different times, which I hope was intentional irony on Puig's part. Overall, it was an interesting structure and a great peek into an area of the world I know nothing about.
lnatal's review against another edition
5.0
'La traición de Rita Hayworth' fue designada, en una encuesta organizada entre los críticos por el periódico 'Le Monde', como una de las cinco mejores novelas extranjeras aparecidas en el bienio 1968-1969 en Francia. Relato de la vida de una ciudad de provincias en la argentina de los años 30 y 40, el libro desvela con turbadora crudeza la alienación de una colectividad dominada por los mitos cinematográficos.