SOURCE: “Caught in Our Logical Absurdities,” in Saturday Review, Vol. XLVII, No. 31, August 1, 1964, p. 32.

Yates is an American educator, editor, translator, and critic, specializing in Spanish literature. In the following review, he appraises the English translation of Arreola's Confabulario total, noting that the work satirizes “man and his entanglements with logical absurdities.”

In 1962, Juan José Arreola published in Mexico City his Confabulario total. It was, in a sense, his “Collected Works,” since it brought together most of his short stories, including some of the earliest, which date back to 1941; his latest short sketches or fables (from which the book takes its title); his Bestiario of 1958, a satirical, anti-U.S. play, and all of his most recent prose pieces.

The present translation of Confabulario total, as the newest title in the Texas Pan American Series, confers a certain distinction on the forty-six-year-old author, for probably more of Arreola's over-all...