Christmas List By Manuel Puig

Manuel had just sent Guillermo Cabrera Infante, for Christmas, a map or chart of the Latin American Boom writers cross-dressed as MGM movie stars:

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER!

(by special arrangement with Emir Rodriguez Monegal)

PRESENTS

Line I

1) Norma Shearer

(Jorge Luis Borges)

Oh so refined!

2) Joan Crawford

(Alejo Carpentier)

So fiery and stilted

3) Greta Garbo

(Miguel Angel Asturias)

All they have in common is that Nobel

4) Jeanette MacDonald

(Juan Marichal)

Oh so lyrical and tiresome

5) Luise Rainer

(Juan Carlos Onetti)

Oh so sad

Line II

1) Hedy Lamarr

(Julio Cortazar)

Beautiful but icy and remote

2) Greer Garson

(Juan Rulfo)

Oh so warm

3) Lana Turner

(Jose Lezama Lima)

She’s got curls everywhere

4) Vivien Leigh

(Ernesto Sabato)

Tempermental and sick, sick, sick

Line III

1) Ava Gardner

(Carlos Fuentes)

Glamour surrounds her but can she act?

2) Esther Williams

(Mario Vargas Llosa)

Oh so disciplined (and boring)

3) Deborah Kerr

(Jose Donoso)

She never received an Oscar but still she waits

4) Liz Taylor

(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Beautiful face but such short legs . . .

5) Kay Kendall

(Guillermo Cabrera Infante)

Lively, witty, and glamorous. I expect big things from her

Line IV

1) Vanessa Redgrave

(Severo Sarduy)

A divinity!

2) Julie Christie

(Manuel Puig)

A great actress, but since she has found the right man for her (Warren Beatty) she doesn’t act anymore. Her luck in love, matters is the envy of all the other MGM stars

3) Connie Francis

(Nestor Sanchez)

Miss Christie’s Contract doesn’t allow any starlets under thirty to be signed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer!

4) Paula Prentiss

(Gustavo Sainz)

No more starlets under thirty!!!

From “Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman” by Suzanne Jill Levine (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 448 pp., $27.50)