SOURCE: "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Pattern in Two New Novels by Camilo José Cela," in Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. V, No. 2, Spring, 1969, pp. 204-8.

In the following essay, Foster discusses how Cela uses pattern to structure the plots in his Tobogán de hambrientos and La familia del héroe.

The modern novel has undergone three major developments in the concept of plot structure: "total plot," "loose-ends plot," and pattern as a substitution for plot. Although the so-called "new" French novel—the third of these developments—has been principally a French phenomenon, it is possible to point to a few writers outside of France who have availed themselves of this form of the novel. In Spain, it is Camilo José Cela whose work best represcents the concept of pattern in the novel. Camilo José Cela (1916–) has become the undisputed leader of the Post-Civil War novel in Spain...