SOURCE: Swanson, Philip. “Concerning the Criticism of the Work of José Donoso.” Revista Interamericana de Bibliografia/Inter-American Review of Bibliography 33 (1983): 355-65.

[In the following essay, Swanson reviews criticism on Donoso through the early 1980s.]

The last decade or so has seen a proliferation of critical articles on José Donoso. During this period, differing critical attitudes have emerged and there is as yet no general consensus of opinion on the meaning of his fiction, or on the best ways to approach his work. It is proposed here to examine briefly some trends in Donoso criticism and to suggest some possible developments. My intention is to ignore merely introductory or expository criticism (e.g., that represented by such articles as those of Guillermo Carnero or Jaime Siles on El obsceno pájaro de la noche, or the general chapters on Donoso in books)¹ and to concentrate instead on what seem to be the more important and representative critical works.

A sizeable group of critics avoids trying to interpret Donoso's work at all, taking refuge in the idea that his novels (especially El obsceno pájaro) are impenetrable. Pamela Bacarisse points out that in El obsceno pájaro:

many pieces of information given to the reader are contradicted, many of the events recounted are then said not to have happened, there are conversations which may or may not have taken place and characters are themselves then someone else, or themselves and someone else. What the reader believes, on a narrative level, is up to him.

(p. 19)

She goes on to say that “it is surely impossible to know how to choose between the various versions of the truth we are given” (p. 21). Certainly, El obsceno pájaro does contain many contradictory elements, and on a narrative level, it is difficult, therefore, to decipher fully. However, this does not mean that the novel is impossible to interpret. Indeed, Bacarisse herself goes on to give a highly plausible analysis of El obsceno pájaro, showing that the narrator's condition of ontological insecurity turns the novel into a willed process of evasion.

John M. Lipski, meanwhile, claims that the various facets of El obsceno pájaro “destroy the multiple signifiers and ultimately disappear in a dazzling verbal explosion” (p. 46), and Z. Nelly Martínez seems to believe equally that the multiple viewpoints of the novel and its many possible interpretations make it undecipherable. She considers that it shows “la derrota del Logos-Logos que apunta a un significado trascendente o presentido,” which is replaced by “el juego de un sentido por siempre diferente y por siempre diferido” (RevIb, p. 55). Martínez thus reduces the novel either to “la noción del diferimiento del significado último de un texto al ser aquél (el significado) arrebatado por la praxis de una infinita postergación,” or to “la sucesión de diferencias de significado (de diferentes significados)” (p. 58).

In another article, the same critic comments that “así como las caretas simbólicas del narrador se invalidan mutuamente, también los diversos discursos se cancelan mutuamente revelando que la escritura misma es una máscara que enmascara el hecho de serlo” (Lo neobarroco …”, p. 641), and goes on to claim that “al final de la novela, cuando la conciencia narradora se hunde en la oquedad, sólo quedan ‘astillas, cartones, medias, trapos, diarios, papel, mugre’, vale decir sólo restan palabras, objetos inservibles, vaciados de significación” (p. 641).

However, she produces no hard evidence to show that this is the significance of the final scene of El obsceno pájaro.

Her words clearly echo those of Severo Sarduy who, in writing about El lugar sin límites, compares the transvestite Manuela to literature itself. He feels that the “planes of intersexuality are analogous to the planes of intertextuality which make up the literary object” (p. 33). He sees literature, like transvestism, as a kind of mask; just as the mask of transvestism merely hides “the very fact of transvestism itself” (p. 33), so writing is merely a mask which covers up an emptiness beneath.

Such views are shared by other critics. In an article on El obsceno pájaro, Alicia Borinsky says that “los elementos de la obra … se presentan como superficies,” but that “no guardan nada en su interior” (p. 294). She concludes that, “Leemos un juego de superficies que nos engaña porque no son, como estamos inclinados a desear, signo de interioridad. No hay nada detrás, sólo subsiste la ilusión de la máscara en una línes horizontal” (p. 294).

Similarly, Sharon Magnarelli claims that “the word in the novel becomes a surface, a simple envoltorio, the wrapping that never yields the object or subject that it pretends to cover” (MLN, p. 271), and that “the novel becomes a game with the discovery of the impossibility of unmasking or unwrapping the essence, with the impossibility of finding a centre, a core” (MLN, p. 272).

Ignoring any possible social, existential and metaphysical implications of El obsceno pájaro, Magnarelli declares that Donoso is “presenting literature and the written word as the principal themes of the novel” (MLN, p. 284) and even suggests that “la mancha negra” of Mudito's ashes, at the end of the novel, merely reflects his reduction to words, his being nothing more than “a dark stain on a white page” (MLN, p. 276). In another article, she makes her position quite clear: “The presence of the signifier once posited the presence of the signified; now the text accentuates the inevitable, eternal abscence of the signified” (HR, p. 418).

A similar conclusion is drawn by Alfred J. MacAdam: “What the narrator … says is in effect irrelevant. What matters most is the telling itself, the imposition of order (grammar) on arbitrarily chosen things (signs)” (p. 115).

It seems clear that such critics are not actually analysing or interpreting the text itself; rather, they are bringing certain literary theories to bear on to the text. Sarduy's article relies heavily on quotations from Lacan, Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Louis Baudry. Similarly, Z. Nelly Martínez spends about half of her first above-mentioned article discussing the post-structuralist theories of Jacques Derrida, with only an occasional reference to El obsceno pájaro itself. But can the implication that it is not worth trying to find any meaning in Donoso's work be justified? Not according to D. L. Shaw, who has written:

toda tentativa de presentar El obsceno pájaro de la noche como una serie de significantes sin significado está condenada de antemano al fracaso. Donoso es ante todo un hombre de ideas, un hombre con una cosmovisión muy definida, de la cual debe partir todo cafeque válido de su obra.

(p. 147)

Hugo Achugar, in his book on Donoso, makes a similar point, though less consciously and less directly than Shaw: “la producción literaria en tanto producción social propone un proyecto ideológico que da cuenta—a pesar incluso de la voluntad del propio escritor—de un modo peculiar y determinado de entender y reaccionar frente a la realidad social” (p. 12).

It is interesting to note that while Achugar actually chooses to emphasise ambiguity and indeterminacy as the essential features of the author's novels and stories, he is ready to assert of the short stories, for example, that “los textos … tienen una unidad que les viene de ser producidos por un hablante con una concepción del mundo determinada” and that “el conjunto de textos … tiene como todo acto humano un significado” (p. 39). It would seem, then, that for these critics the inherent ambiguity of the texts is not necessarily a barrier to understanding.

Donoso's own words might help. While on many occasions he has implied that there was no specific intention behind the writing of El obsceno pájaro, for example, and in a recent interview he goes so far as to claim that “el arte es irreductible a su significado” (Literatura y sociedad, p. 104), this is not at all the same as saying that there is no meaning in his work. Indeed, in many other interviews Donoso has frequently discussed the ideas behind his novels and has even commented on some specific themes or symbols. Thus, in one interview he recognises that it is “perfectamente aceptable” for different critics to see different meanings in his work: “es mejor que una obra pueda ser vista y entendida en muchos distintos niveles. A mí me agrada que los críticos digan que mis novelas son sociales, políticas, eróticas, etc.; que presenten otros niveles que vengan a ampliar o a negar los que yo veo” (Díaz Márquez, p. 8).

What this suggests is that art should not be brought down to a single meaning: He does not wish critics to “reducir la novela a una parte de sí misma” (Literatura y sociedad, p. 105). In other words, his work may have multiple and complex meanings but meanings, nonetheless. He explains this idea to San Martín:

Una novela tiene tantos niveles que elegir; uno no me satisfaría. Decir que es algo, y negar las otras posibilidades. Quisiera que fuera una cosa tremendamente polifacética, tremendamente vital, tremendamente movible, tremendamente barroca … como las ciudades medievales que de alguna manera tienen un sentido.

(Car, p. 202)

Having argued, then, that there are meanings to be found in Donoso's work, let us now turn to how some critics have applied themselves to finding them. An obvious first category is that of eccentric readings. A novel like El obsceno pájaro, for example, is an extremely complex work of art and one which presents many difficulties for reader and critic alike. This has resulted in a batch of rather odd interpretations. Silvia Martínez D'Acosta, for example, in an essay full of mysterious references to Indian rituals, suggests that Humberto Peñaloza feels a homosexual attraction to don Jerónimo de Azcoitía, the repression of which causes his paranoia. Humberto's desire for Inés is seen as in reality only a front for his sexual attraction to don Jerónimo. The same critic also claims that Humberto sees Peta Ponce as a mother figure, whom he rejects out of a fear of incest, and Dr. Azula is said to be the father figure who condemns the idea of incest. In an article on Coronación, Ramona Lagos treats us to a phychoanalytical explanation of the importance of the colour pink to Andrés, and later puts forward some curious interpretations based on an analysis of the significance (as she sees it) of the names of the characters in the novel. She also asserts that Andrés' collection of sticks represents a phallic symbol, and in analysing his relationship with Lourdes, she claims that the servant was in love with Andrés but that now “ha transferido sus sueños de amor hacia el gusto por el comer” (p. 302). Equally curious offerings come from Anita L. Muller, who sees Mudito's death by fire in El obsceno pájaro as representing “su unión con Dios, su purificación y la destrucción de las fuerzas malignas” and the pumpkins as “el milagro del maná para las viejas hambrientas” (p. 94), and from Francisco Rivera, who sees the frustrated hopes for a miraculous child as a parallel for Humberto's frustrated attempt to become a writer.

Other critics disguise pedestrian observations with rhetoric, sometimes to a point at which the critic's comments seem to be almost devoid of meaning. This is the case of Paul West, among sundry others. He writes of El charlestón: “this Donoso in a minor key is still an iridescent vertical invader of horizontal categories” (p. 66). As for Tres novelitas burguesas, West says: “the surprises … are irrevocable and, for all their sheen of ephemera gloatingly pinned onto cork, diagnostic of the human brain itself, done almost with a brain-side manner” (p. 66).

Fortunately, however, there have been more convincing attempts at interpretation. A frequent approach is via social comment, and some critics heavily emphasise this element in Donoso's work. Guerra Cunningham, for instance, sees Coronación as a novel concerning “la caída total del mundo aristocrático en decadencia” (p. 421), while in reference to the characters of the same novel, John S. Brushwood claims that “their obvious function as a commentary on the Chilean oligarchy … transfers the reader's attention to a specific political situation” (p. 239). Similarly, Charles M. Tatum sees the “central theme” of El obsceno pájaro as “the demise of a feudal society” and “the decay of an oligarchical system” (LALR, p. 100). Even Antonio Cornejo Polar sees it as “la gran novela de la decadencia burguesa” (p. 110).

The problem with this approach is that it tends to oversimplify, for clearly there is much more even to Donoso's early work than social criticism. Several critics (including, for example, José Promis Ojeda, Isis Quinteros, and even Tatum himself in a different article) have pointed out that there are as many similarities as contrasts between the social classes in Donoso's novels. Others (such as Kristen F. Nigro and John J. Hassett) have actively attacked social interpretations. In fact, Donoso's himself has insisted that “no tengo ninguna visión social” (Castillo, “José Donoso …,” p. 958), and has elsewhere declared: “Nada me irrita tanto como los críticos que reducen mis novelas a sus elementos sociales, esos que quieren que yo haya escrito ‘el canto del cisne’ de las clases sociales chilenas” (Libre, p. 74).

A substantial amount of Donoso criticism, while avoiding such reductivism, nevertheless, has centred on a fundamental theme of Donoso's work which does have some social relevance. This is the idea that the rational world based on the principles of social convention prevents the individual from fulfilling himself on an instinctual level because it forces him to suppress his more natural inclinations. This concept is central to Tatum's approach. He believes that “Donoso's fiction leaves the impression that a rigid set of conventions, mores, and values dominates his characters of all social classes, frustating spontaneous self-expression” (LangQ, p. 49).

George R. McMurray points out, in his book on Donoso, that this theme is linked with the surrealists' dream of “the liberation and transformation of man which they hoped to accomplish through the establishment of a direct link between the objective and the subjective realms and through the elimination of the contradiction between the real and the imaginary” (p. 110). Perhaps the most thorough treatment of this theme is that offered by Hernán Vidal in his book José Donoso: surrealismo y la rebelión de los instintos. Vidal interprets all of Donoso's novels from this point of view and supports his argument with extensive references to the theories of Carl Jung. The book is cogently argued and well written, but it contains, in my view, a number of misinterpretations of specific aspects of Donoso's work and, once more, it often tends to overemphasise the more social implications of its main theme. Equally, it sometimes appears to offer interpretations that are rather too optimistic. Although he recognizes that the liberation of the unconscious can have disastrous consequences, Vidal often seems to think that Donoso really does believe that man can achieve fulfilment in this way. McMurray is more cautious: He emphasises Donoso's pessimism and suggests that “the surrealists' aspiration of ameliorating the human condition through their artistic endeavor would more than likely strike him as naïve” (p. 150), a thought echoed by Quinteros in her book (pp. 196-7). Nevertheless, the basic theme of Vidal's book reflects a central concern of Donoso's writing, and this is a subject to which critics (such as Promis Ojeda, Tatum, and many others) have returned again and again.

Plainly, interpretations like those of Vidal and McMurray must in some way relate to a consideration of the mental states of the protagonists of Donoso's stories and novels. This leads us on to a fifth trend in Donoso criticism, namely that which attempts to analyse his work on the basis of a psychological or psychoanalytical examination of the texts. Many critics have pointed out Donoso's lack of faith in the unity of the personality and his obsession with its disintegration. John Caviglia puts the emphasis on the mental collapse that follows any attempt at rebellion against the collective values of our society: “the abandonment of the norm … leads not to unique individuality but to disintegration and chaos” (p. 38). This reminds us of Vidal's stress on Jung's concept of the repressive effect that the collective unconscious has on the individual, a point taken up by Helen Calae de Agüera in her useful article on Tres novelitas burguesas. There is also a great interest in actually describing the process of mental disintegration. McMurray, for example, details the symptoms of schizophrenia and goes on to show how Humberto Peñaloza of El obsceno pájaro manifests the characteristics of a schizophrenic patient (Ch. 5). Pamela Bacarisse similarly sees Humberto's condition as one of schizophrenia with elements of ontological insecurity, and she puts forward an excellent analysis of the text based on this diagnosis.

However, there have also been many less satisfactory attempts at this kind of analysis. The unwisdom of taking the psychoanalytical process too far was mentioned à propos of Ramona Lagos' article on Coronación. Sometimes, too, this kind of approach results in the substitution of closely argued analysis by vague and unhelpful comments. Typical of many is Emir Rodríguez Monegal, who sums up the author's work as the expression of “una realidad torturada y pesadillesca, una realidad que complete el mundo de la superficie, que lo lastra de sombras, que lo duplica es claves terribles” (p. 85). Such nebulous statements are sadly familiar to students of Donoso.

The same problems occur when criticis try to establish relationships between myth and Donoso's work. Prominent here are Quinteros, Richard J. Callan, and G. Durán. Although Quinteros and Callan do make some stimulating points in their work, one can not help feeling that they sometimes go too far in their desire to seek out mythical elements in Donoso's novels. This tends to deflect them from the task of analysing what the works under consideration, in the end, are about. Such an approach is perfectly valid when it aids our understanding of the texts, but, as Donoso himself has suggested, this is often not the case. In an interview with McMurray he said: “I believe some critics tend to over emphasize mythical interpretations which often do not greatly increase the reader's understanding of a literary work” (Hispania, p. 392).

It may be time for critics to place less emphasis on psychological or mythical examination of Donoso's work, and to turn directly to the texts themselves in order to try and find out what it is that Donoso has to tell us about the human condition. There is now, I think, a need for an approach which will pay more attention to the levels of meaning in his novels, while, at the same time, bearing in mind the essentially ambiguous nature of much of his work and taking into account the multiplicity of elements that go to make it up. This would contribute to a greater understanding of Donoso's work without contravening the author's own wishes that his novels should not be interpreted reductively.

A major area of thematic significance which has been particularly neglected is that relating to the existential and metaphysical aspects of Donoso's work. Apart from the vague references to nothingness and hopelessness that recur in Donoso criticism, there have been very few attempts to analyse exhaustively and clearly this side of the Chilean author's writings. Only a few critics have explicitly and unambiguously referred to the importance of this theme. Shaw insists that it is “un tem fundamental en la obra de Donoso: su nostalgia de la fe, de un Dios garante de un ‘orden’ existencial sin el cual no hay más que caos” (p. 148). Robert Scott observes that “Donoso has always been concerned with death and its horror” (p. 134), and in a useful article (despite its jargon and its obsessive desire to relate the argument to the theories of Ernest Becker), he suggests that El obsceno pájaro dramatises the individual's need to fight against the annihilation represented by death. In an article on the short stories, McMurray points out the importance is Donoso's work of “la angustia existencial del hombre moderno en un caótico desprovisto de Dios” (NNH, p. 134). He develops this idea more fully in his book on Donoso, especially in relation to El lugar sin limites and El obsceno pájaro.

However, the theme has not been dealt with as fully as it deserves, since most critics have hitherto chosen to see man's anguish mainly as a result of sociological or psychological factors, or, as in the case of Achugar, as a result of his awareness of the inherent ambiguity of reality. This is especially true of Coronación and Este domingo. The metaphysical aspect of these novels has really only been discussed in relation to the individual characters' expressions of fear. There has been no real attempt to see the existence of this obsession on a symbolic level underlying the plot of these two novels. Even in considerations of El lugar sin límites and El obsceno pájaro, critics have tended to couch their language in vague abstractions whenever they have touched on this aspect of the novels.

Hitherto, we have mainly been concerned with thematic interpretations of Donoso's work. One reason for this is that the majority of Donoso criticism actually takes the form of content analysis, most of it being concentrated on El obsceno pájaro. Apart from the would-be socialists and structuralist approaches mentioned at the beginning of this study (which do not always clarify our understanding of Donoso's work), there have been very few convincing attempts at a sophisticated, formal analysis of his fiction.

Nevertheless, we can begin to distinguish several types of critical reaction to the formal aspect of Donoso's novels. Some critics simply include a few passing references to the novel's structure in the course of a largely thematic or generalized study. Rodríguez Monegal, for example, contrasts briefly what he sees as the traditionalism of Coronación with the more professionally executed Este domingo and comments on the importance of symbolism and juxtaposition, without investigating their technical impact on the novels in any depth. The formal level of Hassett's general article on El obsceno pájaro merely involves references to the novel's “unique narrative structure” (p. 29), which he sees as “an endless series of repetitions, substitutions and transformations,” which has the effect of “forcing the reader to constantly adjust his visual apparatus to accommodate the next wave of images passing before him” (p. 30).

Other critics make more specific observations about the structure of the novels, but these often stand in isolation and do not constitute a genuine departure from content analysis. Isaac Goldemberg and Ramona Lagos, for instance, both offer essentially thematic interpretations of Coronación. But, at the same time, the former does suggest that the novel is structured around the interaction of a social and psychological axis and points to the existence of three layers of isolation. Lagos, meanwhile, emphasises the novel's division into three parts and the parallels between Misiá Elisa's two parties. It is a pity that these ideas were not developed more fully. We see a similar pattern of approach in Caviglia's article on El obsceno pájaro. His analysis is not essentially formal, but he does make a brief attempt to demonstrate how the novel's jubling of different points in time shows “the distance between disillusion and an adolescent's illusory desires” (p. 43). Promis Ojeda's article on Donoso's work is also largely thematic, but he, too, includes useful formal observations, especially on El obsceno pájaro, whose structural basis he sees as one of contradiction and ambiguity. He also makes the interesting point that Donoso's work progresses from the presentation of the process of conflict (Coronación, Este domingo) to a situation where the reader is given a more general image of the actual state which results from such conflicts (El lugar sin límites, El obsceno pájaro).

The most common type of critical approach to the formal aspect of Donoso's novels (especially El obsceno pájaro) is to introduce a general comment on style and structure without making an adequate attempt to develop or explain it. Thus, Eyzaguirre refers to El obsceno pájaro as an “obra mucho más ambiciosa que las anteriores” which “no deja lugar a dudas del gran dominio de Donoso sobre el arte de novelar” (p. 277). However, this is all that he says about the novel. He does not attempt to explain the functioning of Donoso's artistry in El obsceno pájaro. Similarly, J. Marco comments on the same novel that “la forma es también el contenido” and states that, despite the novel's apparent chaos, Donoso's “maestria organizadora” points to the existence of a hidden structure which makes sense of the novel as a whole (p. 318). What Marco does not explain is the relationship between form and content, or what the hidden structure of El obsceno pájaro actually is.

It is of some interest that of the books devoted to Donoso none takes an exclusively or even predominantly formal approach. When their authors do consider the technical aspects of Donoso's work, they tend to discuss them in relation to features of the new novel as a whole. In other words, their most common feature is to point out how Donoso's use of ambiguity and audacious structures constitutes a challenge to the traditional novel's simplistic perception of reality. To be sure, Quinteros goes some way beyond this, particularly in her comments on Este domingo and El obsceno pájaro, and McMurray includes useful, if rather general, remarks on Donoso's technique in the creation of mood and his use of symbolism and stream of consciousness. When Vidal, on the other hand, comes to grips with the structure of El obsceno pájaro, the account he gives is, in my view, confused and even contradictory. Perhaps the best general work in this respect so far is Achugar's. Although his approach is more thematic than formal, an awareness of the importance of Donoso's fictional technique is implicit throughout his study. His book emphasises the process of development in Donoso's presentation of ambiguity within reality, seeing his work as having moved from the simple opposition of appearance and reality to a total denial of objective reality in El obsceno pájaro. While there is room for disagreement with some areas of Achugar's analysis, his book is a significant contribution to Donoso criticism and certain aspects of his general thesis are closely relevant to any formal analysis of Donoso's work.

It is clear, then, that although some kind of consensus exists on a few points, there has as yet been no over-all assessment of Donoso's fictional technique. With regard to Coronación, the critics seem to be polarised into two groups: those who emphasise the traditional elements of the novel and those who see important innovative elements in it. Critics like Cedomil Goic, for instance, have attempted to show that Coronación's technique is not as transparent as it might seem at first. Goic argues that Donoso's skilful manipulation of point of view gives the reader a more convincing and more ambiguous vision of reality. Goic is the only critic to really develop this idea (although G. I. Castillo-Feliú and Quinteros paraphrase him in their studies of Coronación), and this important article must be seen as marking a major development in the critical interpretation of Donoso's first novel. Achugar, too, is one of the few critics to emphasise the fact that traditionalism and innovation are “elementos coexistentes en el texto” (p. 73). This is an important pointer towards the path that future criticism of Coronación should follow. It is not enough simply to show the existence of realist or avant-garde elements in the work: We must endeavour to demonstrate the transitional nature of the novel by examining analytically the tensions created by the coexistence of two potentially conflicting elements within a single literary artefact.

The structure of Este domingo has received more critical attention. This is probably because the novel's symmetrical structure is relatively easy to identify, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of formal analyses of this novel have been descriptive in nature. Joan Rea Boorman's section on Este domingo, in her book on the new novel, and Quinteros' structural analysis of it both fall into this category. While both critics point out that the novel's technique creates a more ambiguous picture of reality, they do not clarify sufficiently how this is achieved. Even McMurray, in his chapter on Este domingo, only offers general observations about the novel's organization and about Donoso's evocation of mental processes. So, it must be said that most of the formal discussions of Este domingo have not progressed far beyond straightforward descriptions of Donoso's arrangement of his material. Analyses of El lugar sin límites have also tended either to ignore its formal aspects, or to offer only passing comments of a very general nature.

The majority of formal criticism, meanwhile, has been concentrated on El obsceno pájaro. Lipski makes some relevant points about Donoso's style and his use of “paradigmatic interpenetration” in order to generate ambiguity But at the end of his article, he unfortunately slips into vague, semiotic jargon, and instead of clarifying his stance, he seems to plump for the idea that the novel is ultimately undecipherable. Several other critics, including Achugar, Quinteros and Gertel, also advance the view that ambiguity and indeterminacy are fundamental to the novel's structure. But we seem to have been slow in developing critical techniques which are adequate for dealing with the extremely complex form of works like El obsceno pájaro, Fuentes' Terra Nostra or Sábato's Abaddón el exterminador. It is possible, however, that the recent article by Georgescu on the last-named novel may indicate a way forward based on modified Barthesean principles².

Meantime, some of the best analyses of Donoso's technique are to be found in José Donoso. La destrucción de un mundo, edited by Antonio Cornejo Polar. Indeed, Cornejo Polar himself, both in his introduction and in his article on El obsceno pájaro, emphasises the importance of the relationship between form and content. He says of El obsceno pájaro, for example: “no se trata de ‘decir’ destrucción; se trata, más bien, de encontrar algo así como un significante no arbitrario que plasme, encarngndolo, ese significado” (p. 109).

His identification of a law of substitution as the structural basis of Donoso's work is a significant critical achievement. Adriana Valdés shows the importance of substitution and reversability in her article on El obsceno pájaro in the same book. She examines the motif of the “imbunche” on a verbal, syntactic and semantic level, and suggests that the various motifs, with all their contradictions, help to bind the novel together in some kind of over-all unity. Raúl Bueno Chávez applies the law of substitution to Este domingo, and, although his study limits itself to a small area of analysis, it shows an important aspect of the organizational basis of the novel. Fernando Moreno Turner, meanwhile, offers a description of the narrative technique of El lugar sin límites and shows how the rule of inversion can be applied to almost all of the characters.

While Valdés and Moreno Turner sometimes fail to relate their points fully to the meaning of the novels and some of the other articles are only partial studies of the aspect of technique under consideration, they do point the way forward for future criticism to follow. A more sophisticated formal approach to Donoso's work is vital for a more complete appreciation of this author's fiction.

Future criticism, of course, also will have to incorporate Donoso's later work. The bulk of work on Donoso comes to a rather abrupt halt after El obsceno pájaro. This is perhaps due to the disappointment of some critics, like Shaw, at what they see as the relative simplicity of the later work after the tortuous complexities of El obsceno pájaro. However, it is plain that the quality of a novel does not depend on its stylistic and structural complexities. Indeed, Donoso's later work is, to a certain extent, a reaction against the tendency to see a good novel as one which maximises complexity. The new novel emerged as a reaction against certain stereotyped forms of literature and Donoso may be worried that it is now close to replacing one set of stereotypes with another.

The criticism to appear so far on Tres novelitas burguesas has been very sparse and in general rather superficial³. There has been little, too, as yet on Casa de campo⁴, and practically nothing on La misteriosa desaparición de la marquesita de Loria, El jardín de al lado ⁵ or Cuatro para Delfina. If past experience is any guide, future considerations of these novels will emphasise, as usual, their more specific themes (such as the political aspect of Casa de campo and the more personal aspects of El jardín de al lado). However, it will also be interesting to consider whether or not we can detect any change in Donoso's narrative technique and attitude toward literature, or see any development from the position of metaphysical anguish and pessimism that, for the most part, characterises Donoso's work up to and including El obsceno pájaro de la noche. The movement away from the darkness, chaos, and complexity of El obsceno pájaro to the lighter, more simple and more humorous tone of the later work may indicate, if not a change in attitude, then at least some kind of progression or evolution. The seriousness and the sense of despair are, without doubt, still there, but we can perhaps intuit a greater sense of calm and acceptance.

To conclude: Despite sporadic allusions to its partial incomprehensibility and a few eccentric aproaches, Donoso's work has given rise to a first phase of criticism which has been largely concerned with interpretation of content. Different approaches, social, psychological, and mythical, are already well represented, though greater emphasis remains to be placed on Donoso's basic existential malaise, its possible sources and development. While considerable areas have been explored and some quite closely mapped, there is more systematic work to be done here, especially with regard to novels other than El obsceno pájaro and with regard to the latest works, where a change of outlook may be under way. Far less has been done, however, on Donoso's literary technique, the structural arrangement of his narratives, the devices employed, the narratorial stance, or the ways in which effects are achieved. There is room for comparative study of his symbolism, his use of irony and the actual means by which he presents the ambiguity of reality. Finally, the development of his style remains to be examined. Only when we begin to give systematic attention to Donoso's works as what they are, that is, literary artefacts, and not merely vehicles for the expression of ideas, can we consider that Donoso criticism has really taken off.

Notes

1. Bibliographical items referred to in the text are as follows (where there is no ambiguity, page references alone are given; where there is ambiguity, appropriate abbreviations, of which there is a key at the end of this note, are also supplied): H. Achugar, Ideologia estructuras narrativas en José Donoso (1950-1970). Caracas, 1979; P. Bacarisse, “OPN: A willes process of evasion,” Contemporary Latin American fiction, ed. S. Bacarisse. Edinburgh, 1985, 18-34; E. Bendezú, “Donoso: fabulación y realidad,” Cornejo Polar, 161-70; J. R. Boorman, La estructura del narrador en la novela hispanoamericana contemporánea. Madrid, 1976, 111-21; A. Borinsky, “Repeticiones y máscaras: OPN,” MLN, 88 (1973), 281-94; J. S. Brushwood, The Spanish American novel. Austin, Texas, 1975; R. Bueno Chávez, “ED: la autenticidad del relate novelesco,” Cornejo Polar, 59-72; H. Calae de Agüera, “Desintegración de la personalidad on TNB,” CHA, 320, 1 (1977), 478-87; R. J. Callan, “Animals as mana figures in José Donoso's ‘Paseo’ and ‘Santelices,’” ELWIEU, 2 (1975), 115-22; G. Carnero and J. Siles, “Dos comentarios sobre José Donoso,” CHA, 259 (1972), 169-78; G. I. Castillo-Feliú, “José Donoso y su novela,” Hispania, 54 (1971), 957-9, and “Reflexiones sobre el perspectivismo en C de José Donoso,” Hispania, 63, 4 (1980), 699-705; J. Caviglia, “Tradition and monstrosity in OPN,” PMLA 93 (1978), 33-45; A. Cornejo Polar, “Introducción” and “OPN: la reversibilidad de la metáfors. José Donoso. La destrucción de un mundo. Buenos Aires, 1975, 7-11 and 101-12; R. L. Díaz Márquez “Conversando con José Donoso,” Horizontes, 37 (1975), 5-12; J. Donoso, “Entrevista a José Donoso: a propósito de OPN,” Libre, 1 (1971), 73-6, and “La obra literaria del novelista José Donoso,” Literatura y sociedad en América Latina, eds. V. Tascón and F. Soria. Salamanca, 1981, 103-11; G. Durán, “OPN: la dialéctica del chacal y del imbunche,” RevIb, 42 (1976), 251-7; L. F. Eyzaguirre, El héroe en la novela hispanoamericana del siglo XX. Santiago, 1973, 267-77; I. Gertel “Metamorphosis as a metaphor of the world,” Review, 9 (Fall 1973), 20-3; C. Goic “C: la espectacularidad de lo grotesco,” Cornejo Polar, 43-57; I. Goldemberg, “C de José Donoso o los límites del aislamiento,” MNu, 36 (June, 1969), 74-80; R. Gómez Palmeiro, R. “José Donoso, el retorno de la novela psicológica,” Nueva Estafeta, 43-4 (1982), 75-7; L. Guerra Cunningham, “La problemática de la existencia en la novela chilena de la generación de 1950,” CHA, 339 (1978), 408-28; J. J. Hassett “The obscure bird of night,” Review, 9 (Fall 1973), 27-30; R. Lagos, “Inconsciente y ritual en C”, CHA, 335 (1978), 290-305; J. M. Lipski, “Donoso's Obscene bord: Novel and anti-novel,” LALR, 4 (1976), 39-47; A. L. MacAdam, Modern Latin American narrative. Chicago, 1977, 110-18, and “José Donoso: CC,” RevIb, 47 (1981), 257-63; L. I. Madrigal, “Alegoría, historia, novela: a propósito de CC de José Donoso”, Hispam, 25-6 (1980), 5-31; S. Magnarelli, “OPN: Fiction, monsters and packages,” HR, 45 (1977), 413-9, and “Amidst the illusory depths: The first person pronoun and OPN,” MLN, 93 (1978), 267-84; J. Marco, Nueva literature en España y América. Barcelona, 1972, 313-9; Z. N. Martínez, “Lo neobarroco en OPN de José Donoso,” El barroco en América, various authors, Madrid, 1978, 635-42, “OPN: la productividad del texto,” RevIb, 46 (1980), 51-65, “CC de José Donoso”, Narradores latino american 1929-79, Caracas, 1979, 261-8, and “CC de José Donoso: Afán de descentralization y nostalgia de centro,” HR, 50, 4 (1982), 439-48; S. Martínez D'Acosta, Dos ensayos literarios: Barrios y Donoso. Miami, 1976, 69-84; G. R. McMurray, “La temática en los cuentos de José Donoso,” NNH, 1, 2 (Sept. 1971), 133-8, “Interview with José Donoso,” Hispania, 58 (1975), 391-3, and José Donoso. New York, 1979; F. Moreno Turner, “La inversión como norma: a proposito de LSL,” Cornejo Polar, 79-100; A. Muller, “La dialéctica de la realidad en OPN,” MNH, 2, (Sept. 1972), 93-100; K. F. Nigro, “From criollismo to the grotesque: Approaches to José Donoso,” Tradition and renewal, ed. M. H. Forster, University of Illinois, 1975, 208-32; J. Promis Ojeda, “La desintegración del orden en la novela de José Donoso,” Cornejo Polar, 15-42; L. Quinteros José Donoso: una insurrección contra la realidad. Madrid, 1978; F. Rivera, “A conflict of themes,” Review, 9 (Fall 1973), 24-6; E. Rodríguez Monegal, “El mundo de José Donoso” MNu, 12 (June 1967), 77-85; M. San Martín, “Entretien avec José Donoso”, Car, 29 (1977), 195-203; S. Sarduay “Writing transvestism,” Review, 9 (Fall 1973), 31-3; R. Schwartz, Nomads, exiles, and emigrés. The rebirth of the Latin American narrative, 1960-80. Metuchen, N. J. and London, 1980, 100-11; R. Scott, “Heroic illusion and death denial in Donoso's OPN,” Symposium, 32 (1978), 133-46; D. L. Shaw, Nueva narrativa hispanoamericana. Madrid, 1981, 141-53; C. M. Tatum, “OPN: The demise of a feudal society,” LALR, 1, 2 (Spring 1973), 99-105, and “Los medallones de piedra: The hermetic beings of Donoso,” LangQ, 13 (1974), 43-8; A. Valdés “El ‘imbunche’: estudio de un motivo en OPN,” Cornejo Polar, 124-60; H. Vidal, José Donoso. Surrealismo y la rebelión de los instintos. Barcelona, 1972; P. West, “The Sanskrit everyone knows,” Review (Spring 1977), 64-7. (Abbreviations used above for Donoso's novels are as follows: C: Coronación; ED: Este domingo; LSL: El lugar sin límites; OPN: El obsceno pájaro; TNB Tres novelitas burguesas; CC: Casa de campo.)

2. Paul Alexandru Georgescu, “Ernesto Sábato y el estructuralismo,” Nueva Estafeta, 41 (April 1982), 47-58.

3. For example, see note 1 above: Bendezú, Calae de Agüera, McMurray, Schwartz, Shaw, and West.

4. For example, see note 1 above: MacAdam, Madrigal, Martínez, and Shaw.

5. For example, see note 1 above: Gómez Palmeiro.