Randy’s Reviews > The Eye of the Heart: Short Stories from Latin America > Status Update

I noticed check marks in the table of contents that indicate stories I liked in previous readings. The Alligator War by Horacio Quiroga and now I've added one for The Piano by Anibal Monteiro Machado. Two very different stories. Both quite wonderful.

Yzur by Leopoldo Lugones replan d an experiment designed to teach a chimpanzee to speak. The narrator is frustrated by his chimp's refusal to utter words. He humanizes the animal until finally on Yzur's deathbed, words are finally uttered. Is the lesson that forcing an animal outside of its natural state will lead to death?

The writing in this story didn't capture my attention all that well.

The Bourgeois King by Ruben Dario was not entirely to my liking. I often get frustrated when characters do nit exercise their options. In this case the poet should've left. He managed somehow before being ridiculed by the king....

The Psychiatrist, by Machado de Assis asks a familiar question: what makes a person sane? Are we all, a little bit crazy? Through the studies of the main character, it becomes apparent that all of us are imbalanced in some way, and that is perfectly normal.