SOURCE: Molina, Ida. “Truth and Compassion: Aventura en lo gris and La maison de la nuit.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos XII, no. 2 (May 1978): 217-25.

In the following essay, Molina compares the relationship of truth and compassion in Aventura en lo gris and Thierry Maulnier's La maison de la nuit.

The central theme of both Buero Vallejo's Aventura en lo gris and Thierry Maulnier's La maison de la nuit deals with the question of the relative value of truth.¹ Of the many possible aspects of this theme, the authors concentrate on the general relationship between truth and compassion. A fanatical pursuit of truth at all cost, personified by Maulnier's Krauss, can be as pitiless as the opportunistic use of truth as an instrument of achieving personal power by Buero's Alejandro. Maulnier's major protagonist, Krauss, is a dogmatist who hopes to create a “pitiless world” in which there will...