An evaluation of Ernesto Sábato's collections of essays leads one to the conclusion that his production in this genre is basically oriented toward the study of the human being in an irrational and transitory universe…. A talent for essay writing is evident in all of these collections, although it is apparent that in the volumes of essays the results are uneven, occasionally leaving the reader confused by the encyclopedic nature of certain collections while reaching the zenith of lucidity and clarity in others.

If man is the protagonist of Sábato's essays, it is the rational world of science which is the adversary. Granted that there are numerous essays which deal with other subjects, it nevertheless remains that this central theme continues throughout the essays and extends, as it were, into [his novels]…. (p. 28)

Three collections of essays deal specifically with the central theme of Sábato's literary production…. They are Uno y el universo (1945), Hombres y engranajes (1951), and Heterodoxia (1953). Three additional collections of essays, all of which appeared after the fall of Perón, deal more directly with Argentine themes but at the same time show a close spiritual relationship to the other essays. El otro rostro del peronismo and El caso Sábato, both of which appeared in 1956, are lucid commentaries on the tragic political dichotomy which existed for decades in Argentina and which was responsible for the chaotic national situation at the time they were published. Tango, Discusión y clave (1963) analyzes that "humble suburb of Argentine literature which is the tango." As in El otro rostro del peronismo, this volume makes a historical survey of the origin and development of the popular musical and dance form, but Sábato uses this vehicle to add numerous comments on a variety of other topics.

When Uno y el universo first appeared, the intelligentsia of Argentina was unanimous in its recognition of Sábato as one of the brightest young figures on the literary horizon….

In later years critics examining this first volume in the light of Sábato's more mature efforts have concluded that it is highly imperfect as a cohesive statement or credo, a fact recognized by Sábato himself in his view of the book—one of tender irony—some eighteen years after its publication. Ostensibly it is an attempt to repudiate the world of science. (p. 29)

In the preface the author affirms that the reflections which appear in the volume are not the product of vague contemplation of the world about him. Rather they are units of thought which he has encountered along the road to self-discovery. Here then is the key to Uno y el universo and to Sábato's career as a writer: one seeks to know distant lands, man, nature, or perhaps even God; later it becomes apparent that the phantom so assiduously sought is one's own self. It is, in short, a journey into the personal universe of Sábato on which the reader embarks, and the seventy-four entries represent various stages in the revelation of the personal philosophy of the man.

There are in this volume no pretensions of a philosophical system implied; Sábato is not so dogmatic as to profess to be the possessor of the only system of truth. Here as in the other essays an attempt is made to reveal the author's personal convictions, his universe. (p. 30)

In separate essays Sábato rejects the goal of automatism of the Surrealists and "photographic" reproduction of the external world advocated by nineteenth-century Realists. The former when carried to its ultimate conclusion does not invariably produce a thing of beauty, and the carbon-paper reproductions of the Realists are completely unnecessary. The latter are, in addition, as completely subjective as is any creative work. Sábato thereby provides a key to the subjective essays and novels he was to write after 1945. It is a subjective world that is described; the four protagonists of his novel, Sobre héroes y tumbas [On Heroes and Tombs (1961)] all contain autobiographical characteristics. The universe for Sábato, then, is his own particular domain.

The very subjective values which Sábato assigns to art and letters are, because of their absence from pure science, the basis of his rejection of his years as a student and professor of physics and mathematics. There is, therefore, a close relationship between the central themes of Uno y el universo. Pure science disregards and rejects human and artistic emotions and sentiments and eliminates, as it were, the anguish one faces at the prospect of death. If science were the only world, it would be devoid of the illusory beauty and emotional satisfaction of painting, music, and literature. Sábato states that unless the alarming dominance of science is brought to a halt, the world will be transformed into a series of geometric curves, logarithms, Greek letters, triangles, and probability projections, and nothing more than this. A second key to the author's later writings is provided by this rejection of science. Within his personal philosophy nothing will be admitted which does not include human emotions and the element of subjectivity. The writer and the painter must view the world as they see and comprehend it without subjecting their vision to any set of preconceived scientific principles. (pp. 30-1)

By no means a purist in the matter of language and literary style, Sábato rejects those who attempt to make language conform to a dictionary or to the pronouncements of an academy. His concept of two types of language—a language of science and a language of life,—is an original thesis reached in part because of his earlier contacts with the world of science and subsequently with the world of art. Ironically, he points out that the works of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, and Montaigne contain so many "errors" because these authors did not have the benefit of an academy dictionary. Likewise he takes Américo Castro to task for stating that certain elements in Argentina are creating linguistic anarchy, stating at the same time that the only languages which are no longer anarchic are those which are dead. Sábato's theories on language are very much in accord with those of the structural linguists. (p. 34)

There is no doubt that Hombres y engranajes is Sábato's most representative essay. Here is the best example of an entire volume constructed around a central theme, man's desperate struggle to realize his spiritual potential as an alternative to the menacing fate of being a mere cog in the gears of the mechanical age. The subtitle of the volume indicates that it is a study of money, reason, and the decay of modern times. To reach these conclusions Sábato goes back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance for keys to the understanding of the present age. (p. 36)

In analyzing Existentialism, Sábato takes a wary look at those like Sartre who reject the very existence of God. Such an absurd total lack of hope in the future is a meaningless philosophy for Sábato. As will be seen in Sobre héroes y tumbas, the very fact that man continues to struggle within his circle of operations and to produce works of beauty in the middle of a hostile world is in itself a source of continued hope. Existentialism seeks a conciliation between the objective and the subjective world, between the absolute and the relative, and as a result of this attitude Sábato hopes to see a synthesis of man and the community in which he lives. As the late Jewish philosopher Martin Buber stated, individualism disregards society, and collectivism refuses to consider the individual. A dialogue between these two states of being is Sábato's answer to the dilemma of man in a scientific age; man with man, not man as a gear in a machine, is his objective. (p. 38)

In many ways El escritor y sus fantasmas [1963] is a synthesis of the previous volumes of essays published by Sábato. It is, in the words of the author, a series of variations on a single theme, a theme that has obsessed him from the very moment he began to write: Why and how does one write prose fiction? These notes and reflections, expanded here into a lengthy essay, form what Sábato calls a personal diary, something more like a confidential letter to a close friend than a book for the general public. At the same time, Sábato seeks to clarify for himself these vague intuitions concerning his own literary life, hoping that this process of self-analysis will also aid the young writer seeking to identify himself in the literary world and the literary critic "who explains to us how and why we should write." (pp. 45-6)

Sábato cogently defines the present crisis through which man is passing and describes the literature which results from the basic conflict between a mechanized society and the individual. One is reminded almost immediately of Hombres y engranajes, which develops the same thesis. Inescapably he arrives at the same conclusions: the long historical process beginning in the Renaissance has resulted in a mechanized society against which man has rebelled through successive periods of Romanticism, Marxism, and Existentialism. The perennial themes of solitude, the absurdity of death, and the delicate balance between hope and desperation have acquired new relevance in the chaotic twentieth century. As Sábato sees it, the only solution to these problems is a highly personal one, an attitude which brought down the wrath of leftist critics on El escritor y sus fantasmas. His defense of the artist in his search for a profound personal solution to his anguish was not in line with Marxist collective realism any more than was his defense of Western literature compatible with the superficial propagandistic lines that flowed from leftist pens. But not being one to compromise on vital issues, Sábato has remained firm in his disagreement with the leftist press…. (p. 47)

In sum, El escritor y sus fantasmas may be considered a key to the two novels which Sábato has produced. In it he attempts to answer many of the most puzzling problems which El túnel [1948] and Sobre héroes y tumbas have created in the literary world, although at times Sábato himself throws up his hands in despair at his inability to explain his own creations. His own characters at times seem to go out in search of an author to immortalize them, and Sábato views himself as an agent in the creative process rather than a producer. He does, however, correct a number of critical misinterpretations of his novels and provide a means of understanding many enigmatic passages. (p. 48)

Viewed as a whole, El túnel is a desperate effort on the part of Juan Pablo Castel to communicate with another being, equally free and with a mind and spirit similar to his own. This theory has been analyzed in the subsequent volume of essays, Heterodoxia, in which this type of communication is offered as the only means of escaping from abject solitude and isolation. (p. 52)

Viewed as a statement of total isolation, El túnel is in the mainstream of twentieth-century Existentialism. Both Castel and Sábato seem to fit the category of the nonatheistic Existentialist. In Hombres y engranajes Sábato took a wary view of Sartre's rejection of the existence of God, and Castel states that Christ is "the being for whom I have felt and even today feel the deepest reverence…."… At the same time, in El túnel one can see at almost every turn the Existentialist view of the absurdity of the world and the resulting withdrawal of the Existentialist protagonist into total isolation reminiscent of the idea of a hermetic existence as seen in Sartre's Huis clos. Sábato never reaches the depths of Sartrian despair which he finds absurd in itself, and he always sees a glimmer of hope—although only a glimmer—to urge mankind forward and to save it from total anguish. "Anyway, I can paint…." Juan Pablo Castel concludes. Although there are many ways in which Sábato departs from a rigid Sartrian Existentialism, there is evidence in the fact that María is a reader of Sartre that he at least finds a certain brotherhood of anguish in the French novelist. Castel's insistence on the use of the name "Juan Pablo" may also be an indirect reference to Jean-Paul Sartre. (pp. 56-7)

One cannot deny the importance of El túnel as a kind of central depository of all the themes found in Sábato's essays and in the monumental Sobre héroes y tumbas. The almost total isolation of man in a world dominated by science and reason is the most important of these themes, but at the same time the reader also sees the inability of man to communicate with others, an almost pathological obsession with blindness, and a great concern for Oedipal involvement as important secondary themes. El túnel is a masterpiece depicting a case of pathological jealousy which effects the complete disintegration of a rational mind. It therefore stands as a classic example of the state of complete Existentialist isolation in which spatial and temporal considerations gradually disappear. The key to Castel's attempt to escape from his tunnel is the scene in his painting, "Maternidad," and it leads to María whom he seeks to possess physically and ultimately spiritually. And when neither type of possession is possible, Juan Pablo Castel realizes that he cannot—and never could—escape from the tunnel in which he has lived since childhood.

In the relationship between Castel and María there are obvious Oedipal overtones. Jealousy and physical possession gradually assume important roles in the development of the action, and the tortured life of the protagonist is reflected on the level of the subconscious by a series of dreams, one of which has definite Kafkaesque interpretations. Reality, such as it is, is seen exclusively through the eyes of a disturbed painter. In no way does Sábato seek a return to nineteenth-century Realism, for the only Realism of El túnel is magical in nature, transporting the reader to the unreal world of the inconceivable from the very first line of the novel. (pp. 63-4)

[Sobre héroes y tumbas] stands as Sábato's most important work to date and as one of the truly great works of twentieth-century Argentine letters. (p. 65)

Running to over four hundred dense, compact pages in the original edition, it confronts the serious reader with many of the same physical and spiritual doubts that assail its creator. Sábato openly admits that he himself may not fully comprehend all of its symbolic and thematic ramifications, many of which have been subsequently offered by readers, critics, and even psychiatrists. But out of the pages certain lucid themes emerge from which valid conclusions indicative of Sábato's concept of twentieth-century Argentina may be drawn.

Ernesto Sábato's second novel is a national novel which seeks to present an analysis of contemporary Argentina from the historical, the demographic, and to a certain extent the geographic point of view. In contrast to El túnel, which was primarily the case study of an individual, Sobre héroes y tumbas is a vast, panoramic screen on which a series of provocative tableaux are alternately projected. Less than half a dozen primary characters appear in the first novel while a catalogue of the second reveals some twenty-five primary figures and dozens of secondary ones…. The novelist's concept, therefore, is basically different in the two works. The second novel is conceptually closer to the essay, El otro rostro del peronismo, in which Sábato presented the historical influences which shaped the Argentina of 1955 and which resulted in the Perón dictatorship. (p. 66)

Sobre héroes y tumbas is … a kind of obscure labyrinth leading into the heart of the very soul of man. At the same time it seeks keys to explain the nature and purpose of existence. Sábato superimposes the national image on these problems to present a work that is both Argentine and universal at the same time. (p. 72)

Sabato is not an easy or a pleasant novelist to read; his most common themes—incest, blindness, insanity, arson, and abnormal psychology—are not suitable fare for the casual reader seeking light entertainment. But for the reader with an abiding interest in the problems of modern man in an inhospitable world, he has a message filled with despair yet tempered with a small but highly significant measure of hope. In the same way that his view of life, especially in Sobre héroes y tumbas, is given from a multiplicity of vantage points, so is his style one which employs a vast number of techniques to achieve the end result. (p. 132)

The frequent use of dreams and dream sequences in Sábato's novels is a technique used to formalize the irrational world through which his characters pass. In a sense, they represent windows in the darkness which allow the reader to comprehend actions which would otherwise be meaningless to him. It must be remembered that Sábato passed through the portals of Surrealism, and although he rejected the ultimate consequences of the movement, he did retain a great degree of its interest in the irrational world as it was frequently portrayed through a dream sequence. Only when the Surrealists reached the point of declaring that the true world was the world of the irrational did Sábato reject them just as he had rejected the dogmatic rationalists at an earlier date. For the author of El túnel the world must be, in the final analysis, a synthesis of these two extreme points of view. Man is neither pure reason nor pure irrationality; he is somewhere between the extremes of the scientist and the Surrealist on an enigmatic plane of human existence. (p. 145)

Stylistically, all of Sábato's writings are characterized by a high degree of clarity which, although somewhat obscured by the multiplicity of his approach in the second novel, sets him apart as a true master of the tongue of Cervantes. There is little doubt that his early training in science and mathematics had a great deal to do with the evolution of such a style. Uno y el universo and Heterodoxia both show evidence of a mind with a scientific orientation in the unnecessarily precise manner in which they are organized. El túnel and even Sobre héroes y tumbas show moments of almost pure dialecticism as Castel, Fernando, and occasionally Martín analyze the events in which they are ensnared. It is not uncommon to find the various alternatives to a problem numbered and listed as if they were the result of scientific analysis. (pp. 147-48)

There can be no doubt that the principal value of Sábato's essays and novels is the fact that he focuses his interest on the spiritual problems of modern man lost in an inhospitable world dominated by science and reason. Man is, therefore, the point of departure in all of his writings. Sábato begins on a general level by seeking to identify man's destiny and role in the confusing events of the twentieth century, but he also considers the same problems on a national level by attempting to synthesize the spiritual crisis of Argentina since 1930. Finally, he turns his attention to the individual man and to the crises of life universally faced by all: the end of childhood, the end of adolescence, the end of life itself. Sobre héroes y tumbas stands as a literary monument in which Sábato takes all of these themes presented earlier in his essays and in El túnel and develops an answer for the first time to the problems he has presented. Man must reject science and reason as the solution to the problems of society and reaffirm an interest in the human dignity of the individual. Mass society must give way to the solitary soul and allow him to become the center of attention. Likewise, on a national level Argentina can no longer disregard the "invisible" peasant or the factory worker if it is to achieve the greatness its past heroes envisioned, and in the final analysis each human being must dedicate himself to the task life has assigned him.

Sábato's major contribution to literature is his creation of novels and essays of a metaphysical dimension unknown in earlier Spanish American letters. His masterpiece, Sobre héroes y tumbas, stands as the novel of Buenos Aires and without a doubt is the most representative national novel of Argentina written in the twentieth century. Sábato has successfully attempted to intregrate the historical, geographical, and demographic elements of contemporary Argentina into a unified novel which better than any other answers the question: What is Argentina? (pp. 149-50).

Harley D. Oberhelman, in his Ernesto Sábato (copyright © 1970 by Twayne Publishers, Inc.; reprinted with the permission of Twayne Publishers, a Division of G. K. Hall & Co., Boston), Twayne, 1970, 165 p.