The Shipyard (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Juan Carlos Onetti
- First Published: 1961
- Type of Plot: Existential allegory
- Time of Work: The late 1950’s
- Setting: The fictional city of Santa Maria and its hinterland, modeled after the River Plate basin towns of Argentina and Uruguay
- Principal Characters: E. Larsen (Juntacadaveres, Don Jeremias Petrus, Angelica Ines Petrus, A. Galvez, Galvez’s wife, Kunz, Dr. Diaz Grey
- Genres: Long fiction, Existential literature
- Subjects: 1950’s, Self, Prostitution or prostitutes, Religion, Antiheroes, Argentina or Argentineans, Shipbuilding
- Locales: South America
The Novel
The narrative focus of The Shipyard provides a closely detailed, agonizing, but simultaneously ironic inside view of Larsen’s doomed attempt to make a comeback and acquire respectability in the Santa Maria area, from which he was exiled five years earlier for his connection with a brothel there. Having returned to Santa Maria for a day at the beginning of the novel, Larsen goes upriver to Puerto Astillero and obtains the meaningless post of general manager of an idle shipyard. Its decayed plant is presided over remotely by its owner Jeremias Petrus. The only...
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See Also:
Juan Carlos Onetti (Long Fiction)Juan Carlos Onetti (Short Fiction)Juan Carlos Onetti (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
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