Customer Reviews

el tunel (Spanish Edition)

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Sábato, a través de Juan Pablo Castel, nos atrapa en la desesperación de encontrarle un significado a la vida. Muchos lectores hablan de la sicología del personaje principal pero olvidan que la novela demuestra los fines absurdos donde llegan los que se guían exclusivamente por la lógica--esa gran herramienta creada por el hombre que suele confundirse con la verdad (absoluto que buscamos sin éxito). Castel proporciona inferencias insólitas que poco a poco lo van ahogando, escondiéndole cada vez más la posibilidad de su amor ideal y revelándole una melancolía inevitable. Sus grandes razonamientos solo logran incrementar el misterio. Esta obra brilla precisamente porque Castel sufre la gran soledad de la condición humana. María Iribarne--bella, triste, indefinible, misteriosa e inalcanzable--es la víctima del trágico Castel--el que búsca estancarla en su esquema de la vida. Aunque comete un acto atroz, el lector se encuentra compadeciendo al protagonista por sus semejantes locuras--ya que todas son extremadamente humanas. Hay algo de Castel en todos. Este es un libro dimensional que se debe de leer varias veces para aprender de sus dolorosas sutilezas. Esto resulta placentero, ya que la narración de Sábato es sumamente accesible y seductora.

este libro es excelente tanto por su tratamiento de un tema tan complejo como la mente humana y ademas por ser tan corto, conciso y preciso espero que todos lo disfruten

This is the only piece of fiction I have read that has grabbed me to the point that 'I could not put it down'. Juan Pablo Castel is obviously insane ---- but then why do I keep reading his confession? This is 115 pages and it just does not stop. Don't bother trying to categorize this work. It is one of a kind.

Sábato's "El Túnel" is a deep study into the human psyche. María Iribarne is seen by Juan Pablo Castel as a reflection of himself, as a soulmate capable of understanding his deepest fears, dreams and passions, represented by the window in his painting. However, Castel comes to the painful realization that María is also human, with her own world of sin and confusion, a member of the cynical world which he despises and keeps away from. Shattered by his knowledge that even his new search for a completion of himself in María must end in finding society and the lowliness of existence, he decides to kill her. Basically, he is afraid of really getting to know himself through María, afraid of pursuing his new conquest without relying on his logic and rationalism, which end up becoming paranoic becuase of his continued inability to fully predict and comprehend María, the mysterious figure of all that is unknown, hidden, liberating, and satisfying in his own self. So it is that the books becomes not only an insight into the psychology of a troubled man trying to find something fresh in a stale society, but also a critique of blind faith in rationalism and logic, urging us to sometimes forget the analytical and sometimes mechanical workings of our mind and to embark on our search with the greatest weapons and expressions of our individuality: our feelings. Upon finding that our own thought and even what seems pure to us may be corrupted by the world, we are left with the need to seek a higher meaning. This return to spirituality, as a uniting and balancing force of both men's rational capacities and his physical and psychological needs and desires, is also present in the work of Hermann Hesse, another writer whom I recommend to those interested in the eternal struggle of man against his worst enemy: his own inner world.

As a resident in Argentina, I have learned that the Argentine dream comes true for someone who lives a good life in or around Buenos Aires, drives a European car, speaks English, travels to Europe and/or to the United States, and works for an international company. Hence Argentina, a nation built on immigrants and with a strong culture, has never developed a strong national identity. A friend of mine, studying here for her doctorate in counseling, commented recently that her time is spent studying French theories.
France is what I had in mind as I read Ernesto Sábato's El túnel (The Tunnel), which describes the descent and fall of Juan Pablo Castel, a noted Argentine painter who becomes addicted to María Iribarne, the only person he feels understands what his work really means. Castel does not love, can not love, will not love, and only briefly, at times, rises above his own demons to experience lucidity and the fresh air of common sense. His soul cannot be touched, and his dark world of pain is like a dark tunnel without end. María, a married woman touched to her core by one of his paintings, forgoes her vows to be with and comfort a man incapable of receiving it, thus losing out on the comfort she hopes to receive from him.
The book, written in 1948, impactingly expresses the existentialism and nihilism that came for fore (and in the case of nihilism returned to the fore) after World War II. The chief proponent of this existentialism was the French philosopher Sartre, and one character in The Tunnel is found reading a Sartre book. This is not to suggest that Sábato is merely rehashing the work of another. On the contrary his work plumbs the depths of these two schools of thought: he existentially looks for meaning as life does not inherently possess it, and in his case meaning can not be found, only nihilistic darkness. He ably expresses the inability of Castel to find joy, even when it is there for the taking. Even when Castel seems to break through to what might be called a more sound reasoning, the reader has doubts that it will endure. Sábato takes these schools of thought and gives them a novelistic passion, making this a classic of modern Latin literature. And, like other Argentine writes such as Manuel Puig and Julio Cortázar, he makes use of the geography of Buenos Aires, showing how the city has had its effect on contemporary literature.
Castel, due to his own worldview, never leaves his tunnel and suffers for it. The reader can leave it, but only after Sábato adroitly narrates why Juan Pablo Castel has done what he has done.

Leí "El túnel" hace unos años y recuerdo que casi enloquezco de furia ante la cadena inevitable de razonamientos que se forman en la mente de Castel a medida que la historia transcurre. Sábato nos deja impotentes y perplejos al confrontarnos con una personalidad devastadora y acuciante como la del personaje principal. (Tiempo después de haber leído este libro, alguien a quien yo quería mucho dijo que le recordaba a María. Por supuesto me atermoricé, tanto como cuando leía las páginas de Sábato.)

Al contrario de lo que me sucedió con la lectura de sus otros libros (Sobre Héroes y Tumbas, Abalón el Exterminador, o sus ensayos) no pude encontrar en éste la puerta entreabierta que el autor siempre deja al final del camino.

La primera vez que lei el libro entendi que Juan Pablo Castel mato a Maria Iribarne por promiscua. La segunda vez que lo lei llegue a la conclusion de que Juan Pablo Castel no supo entender el amor de Maria Iribarne. La tercer vez que me aproxime a El Tunel senti lastima por Castel y por Iribarne. Finalmente vi que el drama era muchisimo mas complejo que lo que acabo de exponer y que mientras mas lo leyera mas complicado se iba a poner el asunto. Un libro bellisimo, un drama psicologico potente, un estandarte de la literatura Americana.

The tunnel is one of the most powerful short stories ever written in the vein of existential insight. This novella is a must for fan's of Camus.

It is amazing how the aothor make you keep on reading inspit of telling you the end of the book in the first line. You have to read it!!

In every case there was a dark asnd loney tunnel : mine!
That is the initial premise who will open you the gate to get in in the complex world of Martell and Maria . The deeep influence this book has had since its first release has reached to Milan Kundera .
The complex and dramatic circumstances which involves the disturbed and introspective character of Martell is written with in a perfect style and it has not any to envy to the best works of Edgar Allan Poe or Guy de Maupassant .
Ernesto Sabato , Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar conform the gloriuous trilogy of Argentine writers in the XX Century.