If one is in the mood for speculation there's a lot of material to work upon in ["The Outsider"]…. It is ostensibly the story of a crime, and the narrator, who begins, "I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed Maria Iribarne …," is presumably going to tell all. He does and he doesn't, and it is Ernesto Sabato 1911– Courtesy of Ernesto Sabatowhat he doesn't tell which provides the speculative possibilities. He mainly doesn't tell about Maria Iribarne, a fadedly beautiful inhabitant of Buenos Aires, and if you can find this tale of passion credible at all you will want to know more about her. (p. 18)

What you do get to know about her concerns some vague, inner loneliness that she always is aware of, and since Castel, too, has this kind of loneliness (characterized by a feeling of being on the outside of things) they become...