SOURCE: "Two Recurring Structures in Cela's Prólogos," in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. VI, No. 2, May, 1972, pp. 249-64.

In the following essay, Steel analyzes Cela's use of parenthesis and apposition to draw conclusions about the author.

No one who has read any of Cela's Prólogos can have failed to notice the vigorous personal style in which they are written. In all but the more deliberately scholarly of these essays, the writer gives us a series of reflections on a variety of subjects and in a style which one would expect of a stimulating and provocative essayist or lecturer.

What contributes especially to this personal style in the Prólogos is Cela's very frequent use of two types of structures: parentheses and phrases in apposition. Because of the frequency with which the writer uses these structures, many of his sentences give the reader the same sort...