Liverpool Monographs in Hispanic Studies 5

Reading Onetti. Language Narrative and the Subject

Mark Millington

LMHS 5. ISBN 978-0-905205-26-7. Cloth. vi+345pp. 1985.

The Uruguayan Juan Carlos Onetti (born 1909) is one of the leading exponents of the new Spanish American novel. This study offers a close reading of the novels published between 1939 and 1964, and of Dejemos hablar al viento (1919). Dr Millington traces the various stages of Onetti's existential and artistic evolution and utilises narrative theory to illuminate Onetti's complex fictional world. The analyses in this book rarely offer a straightforward exposition of Onetti's ideas or seek simply to celebrate Onetti; rather there is an implicit respect for the novels' capacity to stand up to and reward rigorous analysis.

Reviews

Modern Language Review 83 (1988) 501-2 (Steven Boldy): "an intelligent and stimtating book, highly serious in conception and execution, lucid and rigorous in its methodology: an essential contribution to the understanding of the mysterious Uruguayan."

Romance Quarterly 36 (1989) 252-3 (Pablo Martínez Arévalo): "Este valioso y exhaustivo estudio es sin duda una de las más sólidas contribuciones al estudio e interpretacion de la novelstica de Onetti por la pluralidad y consistencia de las lecturas que propone y por el reconocimiento y aceptación de los límites que los mismos textos imponen por su densidad "material" y sus implicaciones filosóficas."

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 64 (1987) 280-81 (Peter Turton): "a perceptive study"