SOURCE: "The Text in Its Context," in Review, No. 74, Fall, 1974, pp. 30-4.

In the following essay, Monegal compares Paradiso's themes and structure to the works of Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Dante, focusing on the novel's literal, allegorical, and spiritual elements.

It is easy to make the wrong assumptions when reading Paradiso. Originally published in Havana in 1966, the first and (until now) only novel of the great Catholic poet circulated almost clandestinely throughout the entire Hispanic world until 1968 when it was republished simultaneously in Mexico and Argentina. The original edition, by the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC), consisted of 4,000 copies, most of which never left the island. For some time, then, the novel was only known through enthusiastic and often raving supporters like Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa and Severo Sarduy, and through polemics stirred by its many dazzling homosexual episodes. But the book...