SOURCE: "Some Thoughts on José Donoso's Traditionalism," Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. VIII, No. 1, Winter, 1971, pp. 155-58.

In the following essay, Coleman explores the subtle psychological themes that he contends underlie the apparent realism of Donoso's early stories.

It is quite interesting that the work of Jose Donoso (b. Santiago de Chile, 1925) has often been described as traditionalist, traditionalist, that is, in the English sense, admiring as he does James and Austen. There has even been mention of the word costumbrismo, referring to the genre very much dear to nineteenth-century Spanish writers generally considered to be minor—except Larra, of course. This is confusing, and needlessly so. Such a generally sensible critic as Mario Benedetti, for example, in commenting upon Donoso's first collection of short stories, El veraneo y otros cuentos (1955),¹ noted his preoccupation with Chilean reality. Benedetti also underlined the inclusion of many national "Types" in these...