The Formal Expression of Meaning in Juan Carlos Onetti’s Narrative Art

This work, the first comprehensive study of Onetti, is based on four major works, Tierra de nadie, La vida es breve, El astillero and Juntacadáveres. Jones carefully shows how his “fluid suspension” style and “spiral” structure reinforce Onetti’s central preoccupation concerning the human condition—that of the struggle between man’s hope for salvation and escape from total alienation on the one hand, and his inevitable condemnation and entrapment on the other. The declared intention of Jones, to “discover unique elements that comprise Onetti’s poetic reality . . . and the manner in which he projects that reality as a potential esthetic experience,” is successfully achieved.