El Tunel

I ordered this book in Spanish version and it´s coming in English, I don´t who made the change, but it´s not what I wanted...

juan pablo castel is the mind of men who strive to find a meaning to their existence. juan pablo's mind is a world of fanatasies that puts him on the verge of reality. here we have to examine the labyrinth of his mind and find that all he was searching for is merely the return to his infancy. we shouldnt be surprised that every men with an extraordinary intelligence, finds himself trapped in this purposeless universe. when men discover that they're left alone responsible for their actions, they seek nourishment from an idealized concept. in this case, this concept is maria iribarne. knowing that god doesn't exist (at least in the way we wish to beleive) juan pablo travels backwards in time to the origin with the hope of understanding his chaotic existence. this is where juan pablo becomes an existentialistic individual who simply wishes to be non-existential. the tunnel here refers simply to his mind. castel finds himself in the middle of nowhere, with no purpose at all. the paint refers to the door that will open his mind to maria that represents an illogical mind. though from the surface, we might think that it is castel's mind that's twisted, unpredictable and perhaps deviant, i must say that there exist order, pattern, and lucidity. it is maria's mind that is illogical with a lack of sense of the world that surrounds her. castel is the only victim of a cruel and insensible game that leads him to the deepest state of mind that could be nearly impossible to recover from.

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.

Juan Pablo Castel is an intelligent man; a painter whose work is praised by the critics. That doesn't stop him from detesting them though, because they fail to grasp the true meaning of his work. Castel is a loner, strong willed and opinionated, he is compulsively trying to explain and rationalize everything, including emotions and psychological states.When he meets Maria, a woman able to understand his work, Castel is devastated by his desperate need to establish absolute emotional and intellectual rapport with her. His fitful attempts lead him step by step to the inevitable final act: the only way to have Maria is by killing her. Castel is a tragic symbol of unanswered calls, misused intelligence, and ultimate isolation: he is condemned to live by himself in his own tunnel.Written in an unrelenting first-person narrative, "El Tunel" is a stunning existential tour-de-force, by a masterful author.

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.

Esta es una de las mejores novelas argentinas de todos los tiempos.Sábato describe la atormentada vida , la personalidad y los sentimientos del pintor Juan Pablo Castel , el protagonista.