Using the style and tone of traditional fables, Juan Benet turns the formula into a contemporary art form to serve his own artistic and ideological purposes [in Trece fábulas y media]. While some of the short tales end with morals concerning traditional concepts of destiny and death—i.e., each man's destiny is his alone and man voluntarily or involuntarily seeks his own death—others end with reversals of traditional ideas or with no moral at all…. [One of the fables, for example,] tells of a general who overlooks one decisive detail in his preparations for war. The fable has alternate endings: one in which the general's troops win, and another which shows the enemy triumphant. Readers may choose. (p. 308)

Religious themes are at the core of two of the tales: one deals with Abraham, who refuses to sacrifice Isaac and states that he owes explanations to...