SOURCE: "Plot and Space in Juan Carlos Onetti's Tan Triste Como Ella,'" in Symposium, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, Spring, 1983, pp. 68-83.

In the following excerpt, Murray aims to demonstrate that the meaning usually found in a story's plot has been transferred to the physical surroundings and space occupied by the main characters in "Tan triste como ella. "

It has often been observed that Juan Carlos Onetti's unhappy lot is to represent trends before their time. He was writing fantastic stories before the fashion for the fantastic, New Novels before the New Novelists came along. While Onetti's penchant for setting yet-to-be vogues has doubtless created difficulties for him, for his admirers such a tendency denotes something positive and lasting: his broad and profound representativeness of what is typical and abiding in twentieth-century fiction. No one should be surprised that it could only be a South American, and specifically a...