Review Author(s): George R. McMurray Review by: George R. McMurray Source: Books Abroad, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Winter, 1968), p. 84 Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40122102 Accessed: 03-04-2016 21:19 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms
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84 BOOKS ABROAD
Carlos Martinez Moreno. La otra mitad.
Mexico. Mortiz. 1966. 343 pases.
After a comparatively late start, this Uruguayan writer seems to have reached his peak as a productive novelist. On the heels of his successful Con las primer as luces comes a work that again is focused on the amalgamation of past and present. Within this structure - a favorite one of Martinez Moreno - the novel
shuns development as far as plot and chronology are concerned. The narrator, one Mario Possenti, professor at the University of Montevideo, dwells in the consciousness of his memory, incessantly recreating the past in order to create new insights into his relationship with his mistress Cora, the nature of their experiences, and the essence of their beings. The novel revolves around a fixed point: the tragic moment in which Cora's husband kills her and commits suicide. Martinez Mo-
reno has plotted the triangle Mario-CoraCarlos against the notorious axis Delmira Agustini-Enrique Reyes that led to the murder of the celebrated Uruguayan poet by her husband, and his suicide, in 1914. With the intro-
duction of Delmira Agustini's shadow and
her intensely erotic poetry ("Eros, have you
never pitied the statues?"), a new dimension is added to the novel, namely eroticism as a way of life, be it on a social, physical, cerebral, or surrealistic level. The novel ends with the words "loneliness, night, void, time, isolation, and death," the key words for an awesome minor chord. More than a "recherche du temps perdu," La otra mitad constitutes the desperate effort of a human being to retain and examine his identity through the enigmatic relationship of love
in its multiple forms. Martinez Moreno's
somewhat Faulkner-like style is singularly
successful in capturing the cyclic search of his
protagonist. H. Ernest Lewald
University of Tennessee
Navarrete has divided his work into 194
sections, utilizing with success nouveau roman techniques such as temporal and spatial dislocations, repetition of scenes in ambiguous, kaleidoscopic patterns, and blending of reality and dreams. Although slow and difficult reading, the novel is redeemed by its limpid, poetic style which molds symbolic images from spon-
taneous, unsophisticated language. The vapid
dialogue of anonymous characters accentuates the principal theme: the alienation of an uprooted individual who sheds his authentic self when confronted by dehumanizing forces imposed from without. Moreover, while the dramatic historic process (evoked by visions of vast human migrations) lays the groundwork for one of modern man's basic dilemmas, God's sporadic appearance in the form of a mere bystander in no way counteracts the corrosive forces of environment.
Aqui, alia is a heavy, depressing story, but
its artistic attributes, philosophical implications, and skillfully manipulated avant-garde techniques demonstrate rigorous discipline and unquestionable literary talent. George R. McMurray Colorado State University
Federico Peltzer. La noche. Buenos Aires.
Emece. 1966. 153 pages.
This Argentine prose-writer has given us an unusual novel; unusual because its form consists entirely of a dialogue between a man and
a woman, of which only the woman's words
are recorded. Peltzer's experimentation ac-
complishes two structural objectives here: one,
he emphasizes the hermetic aspect of our deal-
ings with others; and two, he focuses on the
dominant theme in the novel, namely the search for one's identity. In this respect the title of the work alludes to Michelangelo's Florentine sculpture representing a woman wearily taking of? her mask. While the theme of alienation or lack of
Raul Navarrete. Aqui, alia, en esos lugares.
Mexico. Siglo XXI. 1966. 245 pages. In his first novel, a young Mexican writer (b. 1942) relates in desultory fashion the life
communication has been forced upon the modern writer by the conditions of mass society, from Boston to Buenos Aires, and is not given
any additional dimensions in this work, the
of a bemused individual as he roams the streets
psychological portrayal of the protagonist Mara
constitutes a fascinating study of the modern
of Mexico City. A series of flashbacks depicts
the protagonist's childhood in a pueblo, his
the demands of her social and her inner self.
unhappy youth spent separated from his
mother in the home of harshly unsympathetic
relatives, and finally his present state of mind, that of a disoriented stranger thrust into the
midst of a teeming metropolis where he is
doomed to relive his past loneliness.
Latin American woman who is torn between
She goes out of her domestic routine to have a
brief relationship with a painter. But Mara is
no Emma Bovary. She is a mature woman
who mistrusts sentimentality and fully accepts
her role as mother, wife, and member of the upper middle class of Buenos Aires. Her bour-
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