Summary Conclusion Questions Bibliography
JUAN CARLOS ONETTI
Juan Carlos Onetti is a Latin American writer with a style all his
own. The contents of this paper discusses a brief coverage of Onetti’s
life during his work with the various literary magazines, his existentialist
narrative structure, and the repetitive subjects he uses within his works.
Onetti and Marcha
In 1939 Onetti became the editor of Marcha, a magazine
that came out weekly. He was known to contribute very humorous articles
and even signed his name as "Groucho Marx". He left March in 1942
to join the Reuter News Agency in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and later
became the editor of the magazine Vea y Lea.
Although no longer editor of Marcha, Onetti was a member
of a jury in 1974 where he aided in awarding author Nelson Marra an award
for his short story. Marra’s story portrayed a Uruguayan police inspector
as a rapist and torturer. The story was published in Marcha, and
soon afterwards the Uruguayan police closed down Marcha for ten weeks and
jailed Marra, Onetti, as well as another member of the jury, and the editor
and publisher of Marcha. Nelson Marra and the editor were
beaten "to prove that you cannot say the Uruguayan police resorts to beating".
(Wakeman, 606)
Once out of imprisonment, Onetti had a nervous breakdown and was even
put into a mental institution. He finally went into exile in Madrid,
where he remained to his death.
A Brief Life:
Existentialism As It Relates To Narrative Structure
A Brief Life does not follow a traditional narrative thread; it jumps
randomly between realities. The narrative structure’s disjointed
plot progression forces the reader to infer from the context, who is speaking,
and to whom it is being said. This gives the whole book a strange
sense of time, and frees it from conforming to any certain "reality".
Onetti used this narrative structure to symbolically demonstrate
the complex nature of human existence. It was Onetti’s belief that
we all live in a world that we, as humans, can never fully understand.
This notion was carried out through Brausen’s disillusionment with everything
in his life: Gertrudis, Stein, his feelings about himself etc. (pg.45.).
This frustration with life is what leads Brausen to divert his energy and
attention to the products of his imagination: Arce, Dr, Diaz Grey, Elena
Sala.
This resolution in the book comes not from any superficial story
(all of which remain unresolved) but from the ultimate switch in the point
of narration. In the final chapter of the book, the first person
"I" is no longer Brausen, but Diaz Grey. This switch marks Brausen’s
ultimate transformation into that which he had been trying to achieve all
along.
Brausen and His Women
Brausen frustrations with women are evident as he creates Elena
Sala. While the enigmatic Elena Sala never really becomes physically
involved with Diaz Grey (Brausen) she represents the type of body/personality
that Brausen wants in his real life but can never have as long as he is
with Gertudis. This fact adds to the feeling of frustration with
his pedestrian existence, which leads Brausen to simultaneously escape
and create in his new worlds.
Duality and Multiple Subjects
In lecture during seventh week, we learned in greater depth about the
duality contained within Onetti’s A Brief Life. Some examples
includes the presentation of two women, two personalities, two parts within
the book, two trips taken by the characters, two geographical areas, and
two "levels" (reality and fiction).
With that idea in mind, author John Wakeman stated that "Onetti has
been called an anti-novelist because of his lack of interest in a traditional
plot. His style has developed gradually into a highly individual
instrument, dense and oblique, full of overlapping (and sometimes contradictory)
narratives, obsessive reiterations, and elliptical monologues, in keeping
with his character’s own complexity and confusion, and the static nature
of his own vision on life." (Wakeman, 606) To paraphrase, Onetti
is known to have obsessive references to many things in his novels.
His character’s manner of speaking can be confusing with the idea that
they may say or do one thing, but then act on the opposite; his characters
are all complex beings, which is apparent in the character of Brausen.
Onetti’s obsessive references to certain subjects in his novels have
been brought to the attention of both readers and critics. For example,
Onetti often includes the issue of large women, his character Diaz Gray,
the fictional world Santa Maria, and prostitution. He also puts himself
into his own story quite often.
Chapter five of part one of the novel A Brief Life, Brausen
states, "…the man who had rented me half the office-his name was Onetti,
he didn’t smile, wore glasses, and let it be divined that he had time only
for vague scatterbrained women or intimate friends…Onetti greeted me with
monosyllables that he infused with an imprecise vibration of affability,
an impersonal disdain." (Onetti, 186-87) Brausen splits himself
into two other characters, Arce and Dr. Diaz Gray, and with this statement
it seems as if he is split into one more: Onetti. However, it does
not seem as if it is Brausen split into Onetti, it is as if Brausen were
a piece of Onetti. Onetti and Brausen share a picture frame and they
share an office; it is like two halves of one whole person.
To further this point, Brausen is often seen lying in bed, smoking
a cigarette, thinking and daydreaming. Wakeman responds of Onetti’s
presence in his own novels much like the image he portrays for Brausen,
the "image of himself, of so many of his characters, is as a ‘lonely man
smoking somewhere in the night…turning toward the shadow on nonsensical
fantasies.’" (Wakeman, 606)
Onetti’s character Doctor Diaz Gray appeared in the novels A Brief
Life (1950), Toward A Nameless Grave (1959) and the story "The
House in the Sand" (1949). In "The House in the Sand", Diaz Gray
is involved in writing illegal prescriptions for morphine, just like his
character does for the beautiful Elena Sala in A Brief Life.
Santa Maria made so many appearances in Onetti’s novels that several
critics refer to those novels as "The Santa Maria series". They include
"Hell Most Feared" (1957), Toward A Nameless Grave, The Shipyard
(1961), Body Snatcher (also translated as Corpse-Gatherer) (1964),
Death
and the Girl (1973), Let the Wind Speak (1979) and the stories
"Sad As She" (1963), and "Pre Sencia" (1978), which was later made into
a novella in 1986.
Santa Maria is a dream world where Onetti’s characters such as
Brausen's brief lives exist. Geographically, Santa Maria is located
between Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
Daniel Balderstom, translator of Onetti and Others, said that in the
world of Santa Maria "women were desired, possessed, and remembered, but
rarely exist as beings with any interiority or depth of their own."
(Onetti, ix)
Onetti supposedly intended to end the existence of Santa Maria in several
books, namely the novels Let the Wind Speak and Death and the Girl, as
well as his story "Pre Sencia". Of Death and the Girl, Djelal Kadir
wrote it "seals off the world of Santa Maria and its myth definitively."
Daniel Balderstom wrote of the same subject, "Onetti’s more recent work
reveals that there can be no definitive end to Santa Maria, that it is
instead caught in a lingering decline reminiscent of the slow death in
[the story] ‘Goodbyes’. No sweet sorrow, this parting." (Onetti,
xiii) It is apparent that although Onetti may have wanted to burn
down Santa Maria so it would not exist anymore, it may have made its existence
even stronger. The characters he presents readers are able to conjure
up a make-believe world such as Santa Maria and add and subtract anything
they please. Once something ends, it can be resurrected ? there are
no rules in a world of make-believe. So although Onetti may have
tried to bring an end to Santa Maria, there is always the possibility of
it coming back to life in another imaginative mind.
Large women were often present in Onetti’s novels. They were
usually former prostitutes, such as La Gorda and Mami in A Brief Life.
Mami was referred to time and time again as a very full-figured woman,
but never in the contexts of being vulgar or ugly. She was graceful,
sweet, and even had her own sort of beauty. She was no longer a prostitute,
but a motherly figure (hence the weight and name "Mami", or "Mother").
She had aged, and with age brings weight gain and wisdom. With wisdom
brings an inner beauty. La Queca, who was also a prostitute in A
Brief Life, was small; she was young, naïve, and continued to
participate in prostitution. She had not yet made it to the level
that Mami had.
Prostitutes are almost always included in Onetti’s work. Some
novels with prostitution or prostitutes characters including Body Snatcher
and A Brief Life. William Faulkner, the principle North American
author with influence for Onetti, included prostitution is his story "A
Rose for Emily." Faulkner had a large audience during the forties
in Spanish America, so "Faulkner no doubt lent Onetti the idea of an imaginary
place with a density of its own" with his "A Rose for Emily", and "the
reading of Faulkner helped consolidate features already present in his
earlier fiction and facilitated the full elaboration of the imaginary city
of Santa Maria." (Onetti, xi) Onetti was such a fan of Faulkner’s
to the point where he wrote a chronicle of essays titled Homenaje a William
Faulkner y otros ensayos (1975), translated as Homage to William Faulkner
and Other Essays, as well as placing a portrait of Faulkner above his the
head of Onetti’s bed "where a crucifix might traditionally hang."
(Onetti, ix)
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Questions
1. What do you think the significance is with Onetti’s references to
people’s mouths?
2. What similarities, if any, do you see within Onetti’s A Brief Life
and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury?
3. Is there a possibility that Onetti portrays himself as Brausen?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burk, Mark. Colonial Latin America. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990.
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge University
Press, 1995.
Guy, Donna. Sex and Danger In Buenos Aires. Licoln,
London: University of Nebraska, 1991.
Luis, William. Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Washington, D.C.: Gale Research Inc., 1994.
Onetti, Juan Carlos. Body Snatcher. Translated by
Alfred MacAdams. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.
Onetti, Juan Carlos. Goodbyes and Stories. Translated
by Daniel Balderstom. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1990.
San, Gustavo. Onetti and Others. New York: State
University of New York Press, 1999.
Sole, Carlos A. and Maria Isabel Abreau. Latin American Writers.
Scribner, 1989.
Wakeman, John. World Authors, 1970-1975. 1st ed.
New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1980.
Warner, Marina. Alone of All Her Sex. London: Picador,
1985.