Victoria Mixon's Reviews > Carmen

All my reading life I've heard of the quintessential Carmen, the wild gypsy woman who led hooligan bands and smugglers throughout Spain until she was a living legend. What a pleasure to finally read Prosper Merimee's classic 1830 rendition of the legend he heard from his friend the Contessa de Montijo in Madrid.

Carmen's clearly the seed from which sprang such marvelous creations as Catherine Earnshaw and Augusta Geraldine Alaisda of Gondal. This is storytelling based on the grand oral tradition, and like the translations of Paul Bowles is a vivid education for the practitioner of written fiction.