SOURCE: Turner, David G. “San Manuel Bueno, mártir, y tres historias más.” In Unamuno's Webs of Fatality, pp. 122-29. London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1974.

In the following excerpt, Turner explores the role of faith as well as the symbolism of the lake, river, and mountain in Saint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr.

Of the four novels which comprise this volume, the last, Una historia de amor, was added as an after-thought, having been first published as early as 1911. In the Prologue, Unamuno points to “el pavoroso problema de la personalidad, si uno es lo que es y seguirá siendo lo que es” as an important feature common to the leading characters of the other three novels ([Obras completas], XVI, 575). This, as the author himself recognises in the following paragraph, in fact characterises all his protagonists (including those of Una historia de amor), so it does not provide the...