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    El Túnel
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    El Túnel
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    El Túnel
    Ebook146 pages2 hours

    El Túnel

    By Ernesto Sabato

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Cuando se publicó por primera vez en español, "El Túnel" ganó el aplauso de Thomas Mann y Albert Camus y fue descrita como un clásico existencialista” recuerda The New York Times Book Review. En efecto, El túnel es una de las mejores novelas cortas del siglo veinte. Desde su publicación en 1948, ha sido traducida a las lenguas más importantes del mundo.

    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherCrabapps Publishing
    Release dateJul 21, 2011
    ISBN9781465876867
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for El Túnel

    4/5

    579 ratings25 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It started out slow and boring, but picked up by the middle. The most intriguing aspect was revealed by a conversation between Maria's cousins somewhere in the second half of the book. Hunter discussed writing a novel that would be a satire on detective/crime fiction, whereas the main character uses deductive/inductive method in real life and becomes the modern Don Quixote (just as clumsy and awkward). Recast as such a novel, The Tunnel is a fascinating read.

      Reading Russian literature discussion by Argentinian intelligentsia was another unexpected bonus.
    • 5/5
      A confession from an overly analytic, jealous, paranoiac murderer. Fantastic prose.
    • 5/5
      I will say this is one of my favorite books, ever. Is short but it has so much inside! It makes you think about your life, it makes you think about the people that is next to you and your relations. Sabato manage to put all the ingredients in just one book is jut amazing.
    • 5/5
      Ernesto Sabato writes about an artist, Juan Pablo Castel, narrating his own story about desire and obsessive love through the lens of madness. I would describe the nature of the narrator, but let me quote his own assessment from early in the book:"My brain was in pandemonium: swarming ideas, emotions of love and loathing, questions, resentment, and memories all blended together or flashed by in rapid succession." (p 47)Juan had just discovered that his beloved Maria Iribarne was married to a blind man. He thinks, "why hadn't she warned me she was married?" There is much he does not know about Maria in spite of his longing for her; a longing that leads him to the brink of despair.This story, set in Buenos Aires, is told from the narrator's point of view, but the narrator, like the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, is deranged, living in an internal world that is filled with discontinuities with the outside world of other people because it is based on his own delusions rather than the real world. His thoughts seem to bounce between two poles represented by moments of acute focus on reality contrasted with a bizarre world where he understands no one and they do not understand him. All of this is enhanced by increasingly complex dreams. He wants to be with Maria but when she seemingly rejects him, by leaving for the "estancia" in the country, he retreats in to a world of "absolute loneliness". He describes this world:"Usually the feeling of being alone in the world is accompanied by a condescending sense of superiority. I scorn all humankind; people around me seem vile, sordid, stupid, greedy, gross, niggardly. I do not fear solitude; it is almost Olympian." (p 81)The novel is short with only thirty-nine short chapters over less than one hundred fifty pages. Even so it is complex and suspenseful although it begins with the seemingly straightforward declaration from the narrator that he is "the painter who killed Maria Iribarne." The obsessiveness of his love for Maria is demonstrated by both his stalking her, watching from a distance, and his imagining what she must be thinking, often extrapolating delusional thoughts from a brief note that she has written. For example, when she writes him the note "I think of you, too. Maria" he immediately begins to wonder if she was nervous and whether the note betrayed "real emotion" followed by exuberance over the signature. The simple act of her signing her name led Juan to a feeling that "she now belonged to me." (p 49)The narrator gradually becomes more intense in his thoughts about Maria. This is accompanied by difficulties relating to the few other people he encounters in the book; symbolized by the disintegration of his painting and by references to the increasing turbulence of the sea. The story is not without humor demonstrated best by Juan's encounter with a postal clerk who will not return to him a letter he has written to Maria. He demands that it be returned because he left out an important thought. As a reader you almost feel sympathy for Juan as his entreaties are blocked by the petty bureaucrat, but this lighter moment does not last long and the urge to sympathize melts away as he returns to his delusional world.Ernesto Sabato has created a mesmerizing story of a man who has lost touch with reality and his obsessions over a married woman who eludes his grasp. He is an artist who cannot abide this world so he creates a world of his own. When the two worlds collide the consequences are grave. His narrator shares the sickness of Dostoevsky's narrator in Notes from Underground along with the life of urban denizens found in the works of Hamsun and Kafka among others. Brilliant in its evocation of this modern world it raises questions for any reader who dreams of other realities or shares, even in a little part, questions about the nature of the real world around himself.
    • 4/5
      A novel that really shows the character's thoughts and makes one think like him.
    • 4/5
      sabato creates a misanthropic artist whose task it is to prove that the world is inhabited by frauds even at the expense of love and his sanity.

      I'd forgotten how amusingly dark this book is:

      "I have always had a tenderness and compassion for children (especially when through supreme mental effort I have tried to forget that they will be adults like anyone else)."
    • 5/5
      Me encanta!!! Me lo debía hace tiempo. Aún no lo termino, me gusta saber que está ahí.Para desenchufarme de la rutina
    • 5/5
      excelente libro??
    • 4/5
      muy bueno

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Lo leí a los once por primera vez siempre lo reelo. Me parece fascinante la idea de meterse en la cabeza del asesino, verlo desde su ángulo y tener otra perspectiva del asunto.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      my good
    • 5/5
      Lo leí en mi infancia. Cada cierto tiempo lo vuelo a revivir. Mi libro favorito.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      El inicio es bastante bueno así como la primicia que maneja este libro, entrar en la red de pensamientos de un hombre afligido de la vida por su propia visión de esta, creyendo que esta atrapado en un túnel que lo aleja de todo y al encontrarse con una desconocida quien él cree es la única que lo comprende (la chica de quien se enamora) sale a relucir un ser que va de un apasionado amor inicial a uno posesivo, paranoico y lleno de dudas.

      Esto gracias a su sobre análisis de las cosas (qué en el libro se hace ver que algunas veces se equivoca o simplemente sigue adelante sin pruebas) y termina por destruir a lo único que él cree a podido penetrar a su túnel de vida.

      Suena bien al inicio, pero a partir de la mitad del libro esto primicia que dije va en declive hasta el final.

      No es un mal libro, es bastante bueno pero le faltó algo para mantenerlo fresco y sus últimos capítulos terminan siendo muy inferiores a lo inicial.
    • 5/5
      se come algunas palabras pero muy bieno
    • 5/5
      Excelente!
    • 5/5
      Is an amazing book :3
    • 4/5
      "I was suffering the tortures of the damned in my personal hell of analyzing and imagining." The narrator of this short novel finally realizes the truth about himself only after he has murdered the woman he loves. From his prison cell he tells us how it happened.Juan Pablo Castel is a successful artist in Buenos Aires, but despises the very critics who praise his work because they praise it for the wrong reasons. One day at a showing he sees a young woman gazing intently at a detail in one of his paintings--the one detail in all his work that, in Castel's mind, has meaning. It is a a detail all other have overlooked or ridiculed. Castel later obsesses about this woman. She understands him! They are meant for each other! He must find her! Finally he does find her. He learns that her name is María Iribarne. She is the woman he will murder.Ernesto Sábato gives us a remarkable portrait of a disturbed mind, but one that never ceases analyzing itself. "Before the words were out of my mouth," he recalls, "I was slightly repentant. Behind the person who wanted the perverse satisfaction of saying them, stood a purer and more compassionate person ready to take charge." Repeatedly he acts on a cruel and selfish impulse, then abjectly begs forgiveness, only to repeat the cycle minutes later.Castel sees himself imprisoned in a tunnel through which he travels from birth to death, unable to veer from its "dark and solitary" course. Other people he sees as being free to relish life, make choices, party and be happy, but not himself. His only hope is to find another troubled soul in a her personal tunnel somehow parallel to his own. But having found the woman of his dreams, he is consumed by an irrational jealousy that destroys them both.The Tunnel is a grim but captivating study of the darker side of human behavior. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      A taut and powerful book, speckled with monologues like the Underground Man's or Josef K.'s, a violent and 'love story', and a hideous murder out of deluded obsession and possessive hatred. (This is no spoiler - our narrator tells you all this in Capitulo I).

      When it was released in the late 1940s, it was then classified as an existential novel, in the vein of Dostoyevsky and Camus. Presently, however, it may be regarded more of a successor to the former, in its psychological portrait of a deranged man and his ugly descent into hatred and violence.

      (Read in the original Spanish/Lo leí en el español original)

    • 4/5
      A brief and poetic tale of obsessive Argentian love. The Stranger falls in love and can't get out. The most impressive thing about the book is that every word matters. It is a book you sip rather than gulp.
    • 2/5
      A fictionalised account of a convicted murderer, a picture very quickly emerges of an arrogant, controlling individual whose unhealthy obsession with an unknown woman at an art exhibition eventually spirals out of control and ends with him killing her.Juan Pablo Castel comes across as a very unsympathetic and condescending character with a methodical and calculating mind, and maybe with this confession given the opportunity to finally tell his part of the story in full. He promises to "tell the story of my crime - that and nothing more." Yet the first few chapters have the feel of someone writing down his thoughts uncensored and unedited, rambling, finally able to tell the art critics and the world in general what he thinks of them and people at last willing to listen, as a serialisation in broadsheet newspapers perhaps? (" How often have I sat for hours in some dark corner of my studio, driven to despair by reading an account of some crime in the newspaper. Even so, it is not always in accounts of crimes that we find the most reprehensible acts of humankind; to a degree, criminals are the most decent and least offensive people among us. I do not make this statement because I myself have killed another human being; it is my profound and honest conviction. Is a certain individual a menace to society? Then eliminate him and let that be an end to it. That is what I could call a good deed. Think how much worse it would be for society if that person would be allowed to continue distilling his poison; think how pointless it would be if instead of eliminating him you attempted to forestall him by means of anonymous letters, or slander, or other loathsome measures. As for myself, I frankly confess that I now regret not having used my time to better advantage when I was a free man, that is, for not having done away with six or seven individuals I could name.") To me, this passage perfectly encapsulates the essence of his character, established in the first chapter: someone who superficially still gives the appearance of being of sound mind, yet from one moment to the next is able to utter something completely insane, the fact that he talks so calmly about his callous disregard for someone's life making it even more chilling. As he plays through every permutation of how he might see her again, and which shape the encounter would take, I became very afraid for Maria, the impression one of a seriously disturbed individual. After a chance encounter he even resorts to stalking her, sending her letters and calling her at home, extremely possessive and always wanting to be in control, and already showing signs of severe paranoia. Yet there are also glimpses of a different character underneath: someone who is shy and self-conscious, and aware of his faults and shortcomings; in these instances I could not help but feel empathy and pity for him. Then, from page 84 onwards, the psychological study of a killer's mind becomes something else: the dream about his transformation (a common existential theme?), the seemingly endless exchange of trivialities between Hunter and Mimi that bear only the slightest connection to the events, the farcical episode at the post office when he tries to retrieve a letter he's just posted. He turns from a calculating person into an impulsive one, shows what resembles self-pity and regret at his terrible deed, talks of sensuality and love, at times even becoming gushing. In my opinion, this just doesn't square with the person who was established in the first chapter, even though the killer with his twisted sense of logic and driven by his obsession is still visible underneath. And what are we to make of Maria, when Juan stabs her in an absolute frenzy, yet she doesn't scream or even attempt to defend herself, just accepting her fate as if she deserved it? Described as an existentialist classic by the New York Times Book Review, the main ideas of this school of thought are in evidence: life without meaning, despair, angst, individuals taking responsibility for their own actions; maybe the existentialists amongst the readers will find no fault with this book, but I'm afraid that after a promising start it descended into something altogether mediocre.(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.)
    • 5/5
      Ok I am a bit biased here as this book was one of my first loves but just rereading it again as reaffirmed this. The prose flows so well ad the descriptions and metaphors are always satisfying. Sabato really gets into the lover's mind here and we are treated to that painful process of going through absolutely everything your lover says and those around you both to find some sort of hidden meaning. Castel gradually drives himself mad through this process and we can see this coming but it is griping stuff nonetheless. If you can't see parts of your own personality in Castel then either you are lieing or you really have never loved!
    • 4/5
      Ernesto Sabato died recently, just two months short of his one hundredth birthday. He was regarded as one of the greats of Argentinian literature, having written three novels and many more essays. A physicist, he worked at the Curie Institute in Paris where he met the Surrealists, then MIT, before having an existential crisis and abandoning science for writing. The Tunnel was his first novel, published in Spanish in 1948 and becoming a big hit in France – Albert Camus was a fan. I knew none of the above before reading this short novel which has recently been given the new Penguin Modern Classics treatment, I was attracted to the story of a murderer telling how he met and killed his victim.Juan Pablo Castel is an artist, convicted for the murder of Maria Iribarne. He decides to tell the story of exactly what happened between them – not to offer explanations, but in telling the details of their relationship, that people could understand him. He claims it is not out of vanity, but it is clear from the start that the man has a monstrous ego, and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Castel appears to hate everyone. He allows his psychoanalyst to take him to a meeting…"Some I knew by name, like Dr Goldenberg, who had recently made quite a name for himself in the course of treating a female patient, they had both ended up in a mental institution. He had just been released. … The way he praised my paintings, I knew that he despised them.More than any other, however, I detest groups of painters. Partly, of course because painting is what I know best, and we all know that we have greater reason to detest the tings we know well. But I have still another reason: THE CRITICS. They are a plague I have never understood. … There might be some excuse for listening to the opinions of a critic who onced painted, even if only mediocre works. But that is just as absurd; because what could be reasonable about a mediocre painter giving advice to a good one."He first sees Maria at a gallery. She is staring at his painting, but at a small detail rather than the main picture. Castel has distilled all the meaning of the painting into this little area, and she appears to have understood that unlike everyone else. Her fate is sealed.Castel stalks her, contrives meetings, and eventually confronts her before forcing her into an affair with him, but the more he finds out about her life, the more he begins to get jealous. Each time she appears to break it off, he persuades her to come back, but he can’t cope with her having her own life too, and one day he can’t stand it any more.Castel is vile and nasty, an egotist and an utter snob. He is also totally unreliable. He doesn’t set out to make us like him at all; my loathing of him grew page by page. Maria is harder to understand – why did she let him force her into an unsuitable relationship? I could only assume it was the attraction of a bit of rough, but she was stupid not to break it off properly at the first sign of trouble.The grimness of Castel’s obsession is leavened by occasional glimpses of black humour. In one scene, which would be Pythonesque if it hadn’t preceded them, he tries to retrieve a letter to Maria back from the postmistress with whom he has recently left it. But these scenes don’t make up for his virtual lack of redeeming features. I didn’t like Maria either – but then we only heard Castel’s side of the story. Frankly, by the end of this short novel, I didn’t really care much. This novel has a certain power and grip, but by wallowing in Castel’s miseries so much it lost its drive for me. At 140 pages it was too much of a bad, good thing. (6.5/10)
    • 3/5
      Obsession, neurosis, compulsion, irrationality, unreliable narrators... all things I usually love, but for some reason I couldn't really get into it here. Maybe because the main character didn't seem real for me. It seemed a bit exaggerated. Or maybe because Thomas Bernhard does it better, with more humor, and about more trivial subject matters. It also kind of reminded me of Knut Hamsun's Hunger, but Hunger was funnier, more random, even more irrational, etc. Still, there were definitely some good parts, some funny spots, and some interesting insights.
    • 4/5
      So much content - within those few pages !A book on blinds, one of the favorite modern literature's topics. A lot to say on it... One of the references on this topic.Blinds and their visions, way of living; think of Borges case.
    • 5/5
      I just finished reading The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato. Sabato, now 97 years old and recently nominated for the Nobel Award in Literature, first published this short novel in 1948. It was well reviewed by Albert Camus who praised it and saw that it was quickly translated into French. Sabato had strong ties to Paris having worked at the Curie Institute as a PhD in physics. During WWII he spent some time at MIT working in atomic radiation but at some point during the war he experienced an existential crisis, rejected science, and turned his interest to literature. He got his start in literature reviewing books for the Argentine journal, SUR , a highly regarded publication started by the writer and philanthropist, Victoria Ocampo, and on whose Editorial Board Jorge Luis Borges was an influential figure.The Tunnel is a short novel, an anatomy of a crime of murder, narrated by the perpetrator-a well known Buenos Aires artist, Juan Pablo Castel. Castel becomes overwhelmingly obsessed with a mysterious 26 year old woman, Maria Iribarne, who visit’s a show of his paintings. Observed by Castel from a distant part of the gallery, Maria appears to be intently gazing at a small yet significant feature of one of Castel’s paintings: …“in the upper left-hand corner of the canvas was a remote scene framed in a tiny window: an empty beach and a solitary woman looking at the sea. She was staring into the distance as if expecting something, perhaps some faint and faraway summons. In my mind the scene suggested the most wistful and absolute loneliness…No one seemed to notice the scene; their eyes passed over it as if it were something trivial, mere embellishment. With the exception of a single person, no one seemed to comprehend that the scene was an essential component of the painting.”Maria disappears in the crowded gallery and Castel quickly becomes obsessed with finding the only person who truly understood the meaning of his artistic endeavor. In fact, obsession, is one of the major themes of this novel. Castel over analyzes his thoughts and observations of the world and people around him which he basically holds in disdain and is greatly disappointed by. In a way Maria becomes the light that shines through that small window Castel had painted in the corner of his canvas…she becomes the light and meaning of his life.The obsessive theme instills itself in the writing style of Sabato’s book which is comprised of brief staccato like chapters that move the interior action of his own thoughts from page to page. Pressured to first find Maria and, then once found, to possess her, his passion and fears push the tale forward.The imagery of “the tunnel” becomes clearer near the end of the book when he describes the tunnel as a passageway of time within which we all live our lives. Often the tunnels run parallel to one another and one catches glimpses of the other but we are stuck within our own walls. It is an image that strikes at the heart of alienation and it is this theme of the modern man, of the existential man, that Sabato seeks to depict in the only italicized passage that appears in the book.“and that after all there was only one tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel in which I had spent my childhood, my youth, my entire life” In the end this short novel carries a powerful punch. In a brief 137 pages it describes the angst of modern man.