SOURCE: A review of Memorias: Infancia, adolescencia y cómo se hace un escritor, in World Literature Today, Vol. 69, No. 1, Winter, 1995, pp. 109-10.

In the following, Arrington offers a positive assessment of Memorias.

In his collection of reminiscences, Memorias, Adolfo Bioy Casares (b. 1914 in Buenos Aires) openly discusses his early orientation toward the opposite sex, his various love interests, and his infidelities. Some of his fondest memories relate to life on the family estancia. His father looms large in these pages and deserves credit for instilling in the future writer an interest in literature. Bioy recalls, for instance, how his father would often recite to him classic sélections from gaucho poetry.

Among these formative experiences the author includes two unforgettable manifestations of the fantastic: the multiple reflections that emanated from a mirror in his mother's room, and the visual effect created by a triple photo of his...