SOURCE: "What Makes the World Go Round," in Washington Post Book World, Vol. 25, July 23, 1995, p. 11.

[Stavans is a novelist and critic. In the following review, he examines Paz's treatment of love in The Double Flame, admiring its thematic breadth and depth.)

At 81, Octavio Paz is incredibly active. He delivers speeches around the globe, edits a monthly literary magazine, and manages to publish a book every eight months or so. He keeps up with technological and scientific developments and regularly comments on current events from the war in Bosnia to the peasant uprising in Chiapas. Happily, this stamina and youthful spirit also permeate his work. The central themes of The Double Flame, his latest title to be translated into English, are love and ardor, topics that might seem untimely for a man born at the outbreak of World War I. But the truth is that this book is a...