In The Art of Fugue, as in music, themes are taken up and responded to, revisited and modified, not by different voices in this case, but in different tones that contrast and coexist harmoniously: thus we move from childhood memory to writing diary, from portrait to literary criticism, from short story to chronicle. Capable of all themes and tones, in this book Pitol is a wonderful reader and a first-rate narrator. With a newfound freedom, he enjoys telling us what he thinks and reflecting on how he narrates and how others narrate, in addition to establishing a highly interesting record of his evolution as a writer, which includes his closeness to other writers, the reading and translation of great works, travel and sojourn in different countries, and the unpleasant vicissitudes of our own.
