Book Review: THE LAST DREAM

Zoe Keller

Blue background: In red at top: "The Last Dream." Below: A photo of Pedro Almodóvar, a white man with grey hair, his eyes closed. He's wearing a blue jacket with a red shirt.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for a copy of The Last Dream in exchange for an honest review.

Summary of The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar

With this debut collection, film legend Pedro Almodóvar delivers … twelve stories carefully selected from his personal writings dating from the late ‘60s to the present. Almodóvar writes: “I’ve been asked to write my autobiography more than once, and I’ve always refused … I’ve never kept a diary, and whenever I’ve tried, I’ve never made it to page two; in a sense, then, this book represents something of a paradox. It might be best described as a fragmentary autobiography, incomplete and a little enigmatic.”

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… In the title story, “The Last Dream,” Almodóvar reflects on the death of his mother. Other entries in the collection include a love story between Jesus and Barabbas, a story of retribution that formed the basis for the film Bad Education, a manic adventure about a film director searching for painkillers on a bank holiday weekend, and a gothic tale centered around a repentant vampire.

(Translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne.)

Fiction Meets (Non)Fiction

I first encountered Almodóvar’s work as a senior in high school. I was in Blockbuster, looking for something to review for my Spanish class. I came upon a censored copy — i.e., blurred sex scenes —  of Bad Education (2004), which I rented because it starred Gael García Bernal. That film made me an Almodóvar fan for life.

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Finding out that Almodóvar had written what he calls an autobiography sent me over the moon. But autobiography is a misnomer or a half-misnomer. The Last Dream peppers autobiographical essays throughout. However, it mainly contains short pieces of fiction that offer glimpses into Almodóvar’s brain.

While every piece of fiction holds truths about the author, these pieces felt rawer than most of this auteur’s work. I’m used to his pop-art-colored, melodramatic-yet-restrained films. That’s not to say these short stories are unedited; instead, they are less finessed. Or at least, edited to seem less so.

Writers Writing

And still, perhaps my favorite piece in The Last Dream is a personal essay in which Almodóvar writes about his reactions to Leïla Slimani’s views on writing. A writer writing about another writer’s writing about writing!? So meta! But beyond the quirky joy of meta-ness, Almodóvar adds useful commentary that should resonate with writers and lovers of writing.

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I want to shout out Frank Wynne’s translation. So often, translated books feel translated. Not The Last Dream. Almodóvar’s voice shone loud and true. Wynne has a true gift; this collection feels Spanish yet is perfectly understandable to the Anglophone reader. 

I highly recommend The Last Dream to any Pedro Almodóvar fans. Someone new to his work might not glean as much out of it, but the fiction is compelling nonetheless. If you’re a fan, purchase the book at your local indie bookstore. If you’ve never seen an Almodóvar joint, pick this up at your local library. 

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The English version of Pedro Almodóvar’s The Last Dream is out on September 24, 2024. The original Spanish is out now. 📚

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