SOURCE: "The Insubstantial Country of the Mind: Cuentos by José Donoso," Critica Hispánica, Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall, 1983, pp. 97-106.

In the following essay, Adelstein explores Donoso's preoccupation with the psychological functioning of his characters, which Adelstein contends marks each of the tales in Cuentos.

The world of José Donoso: a country of the reflections and dreams of puppets, of their imaginary discourse with others. . . . It is alike Jaynes' world of "unseen visions and heard silences."¹ It is the country of the mind.

The world described by Donoso in Cuentos² is one that is filled with anxieties, antagonisms and emptiness. The characters are the instruments of those physical/psychological realms which encompass them. They live not only in the physical world which surrounds them, but also in a psychological environment which seems to weigh more heavily on their personalities. The protagonists are Iliadic men, lacking a will of their...