The Art of Reading

Lovingly rendered, this meandering meditation dabbles in commentary, prose, fiction and poetry to create a series of gentle, refined ruminations on the relationship between literature-in particular, Latin American literature-and its reader. Peruvian author and critic Ortega unveils the depth of his own relationship with literature at a luxurious amble, through his own original short works (mostly in translation), paraphrased conversations between colleagues Jeffrey Eugenides and Rick Moody, and analysis of Cervantes, Borges, Octavio Paz and others. What he lacks in focus, Ortega makes up in elegance and calm conviction. In one story, ""The Bad Poetry Bookstore,"" the narrator reminds himself, after perusing the shelves of the title shop, that ""the heart of a reader is beyond good and evil as it curls at the center of clear, expressive language, like some contented animal... seduced in the moonlight by the sirens' song that promises a long, wandering night of sapphires and daisies."" Such teasing insights into the elusive power of an evocative phrase-any evocative phrase-make up the large heart of this satisfying volume.