Overview
First published in Spain in 1983 and proclaimed "an instant postmodern classic, without a doubt the most disturbingly original Spanish prose of the century" (Encyclopedia Britannica 1985 Book of the Year), Larva is a rollicking account of a masquerade party in an abandoned mansion in London. Milalias (disguised as Don Juan) searches for Babelle (as Sleeping Beauty) though a linguistic funhouse of polylingual puns and wordplay recalling Joyce's "Finnegans Wake". A mock-scholarly commentary reveals the backgrounds of the masked revelers, while R’os's punning and allusive language shows that words too wear masks, hiding an astonishing range of further meanings and implications.Larva's tale, a reassessment of the Don Juan myth in our time, is told in single-minded pursuit of double meanings, but it is serious play. It revives a Hispanic tradition repressed for centuries by introducing the Madhatter English tradition of puns, palindromes, and acrostics, by creating Joycean echoes and pushing language to its maximum connotative capacity. Larva has been praised by such leading Spanish-language writers as Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, and Severo Sarduy, and establishes R’os as the most accomplished successor to Joyce.
"Inspired by 'Finnegans Wake' and 'Tristram Shandy', Larva is an extraordinary homage to its predecessors, and in this English version, a heroic feat of translation." (Times Literary Supplement 5-3-91)
"Bawdy, funny and insightful. . . . Now and then, amid laughter and complication, the reader may suspect that Wittgenstein has been reincarnated with a baggy-pants comic's sense of humor." (The Nation 3-11-91)
"One of the most splendidly, cleverly innovative books since Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin with a potato in his pocket. . . . Larva is a garden or worthly delights." (San Francisco Chronicle 1-13-91)
"The adventures of a language-crazed Don Juan in a wordscape composed of Joycean puns and Lewis Carroll-like portmanteau words." (Philadelphia Inquirer 12-23-90)
"This is a precedent-breaking parade of shifting identities and kaleidoscopic word play. . . . For polygluttonous lovers of word chicanery." (Library Journal 2-1-91)