José Donoso [with El jardín de al lado] once again shows himself to be a master of the least understood of the major literary forms, the novella….

The novella is a most self-conscious form and El jardín a splendid example: it provides hints both about itself and about the genre. First, it is self-reflexive: art and the production of art are themes to which it returns constantly. This has a decided effect on the protagonists: they are presented in terms of a myth or archetype of the writer, in a way analogous to Mann's Death in Venice. Here Donoso studies a failed writer's inability to cope with life, which has deprived him of a controllable, comprehensible milieu. Finally, El jardín relates art to death and exile: in order to become an artist it is necessary to withdraw from life and then turn experience into art...