A Brief Life

By Juan Carlos Onetti

Book Overview

First published in 1950, this is a brilliant novel by one of the greats of Latin American literature "Onetti's novels ar ethe corner stones of our modernity."--Carlos Fuentes "The Graham Greene of Uruguay...foreshadowing the work of Beckett and Camus."-- Sunday Telegraph "When you see that someone can write so well, it makes you want to believe that things can't be so bad in this world."-- Mario Vargas Llosa "Latin American literature has few secrets to divulge to the English-speaking world; but one of them is the Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti."-- The Guardian (UK) In A Brief Life , Juan Carlos Onetti's protagonist, Brausen, is caring for his wife after a long illness. To compensate for the physical void which temporarily stalls their caresses, Brausen eavesdrops on the conversation of his neighbors, a husband and wife, imagining their gestures and their expressions. But he not only wishes to imagine himself as someone else, he also seeks release from the world he knows. He leads many lives, some real and some fantastic, in order to experience a moment of psychic weightlessness--a "brief life." Juan Carlos Onetti is acknowledged as one of the great Latin American writers of the twentieth century. His best-known work is The Shipyard . He died in 1994.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 185242978X
• ISBN13: 9781852429782
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

remains relevant

In Santa Rose, Brausen has mixed feelings about being the caretaker of his wife who has been ill for a long time. On the one hand he misses their caresses and kisses while on the other he feels guilt for being increasingly non-understanding and empathetic towards her. To mentally survive, he has become a listening voyeur as he listens through the wall to the married couple next door making love. He fantasizes that it is he kissing the breasts, scar and long legs of Gertrudis. Over time that becomes not been enough; so in between the neighbors' sexual trysts, he fills the void by creating the adventures of Dr. Diaz Grey in the make believe town of Santa Maria. Tired, Brausen seeks emotional escape from his all too lonely "brief life". This is a reprint translation of a super 1950 tale that remains relevant even more so today than when the late great Uruguayan author Juan Carlos Onetti wrote it. The story line is filtered through the battered mind of Brausen who emotionally, mentally, and physically is feeling the toll of his wife's illness and has turned to neighbors serendipitously and his imagination for escape from reality. Readers will appreciate this cautionary tale in which Mr. Onetti almost six decades ago warned society to not ignore the plight of a family caretaker who will feel immense stroke level pressure; as it is easy to sympathize with the sick person but not the seemingly healthy individual caring for the long term ill loved one. Harriet Klausner

The creation of a new territory in literature

This book was fist published in 1950 (yes, 50 years ago!) and although it has not achieved the "fame" as others latin american books that later exploded in the so called boom, ABL was the first in many things:1) It created the concept of a new way to write. The mixture of reality and fiction and then this two again (but is this not magical realism?) permits the reader to ellaborate many a book within the book, as then a lot of writers did2) Onetti is usually "benchmarked" with Faulkner. Yes, they both created their own space (Santa Maria) but there is where the similarities stop. Santa Maria is the first Macondo, the newest, paradoxically, way to be at leisure in its own territory.3)Onetti's book was not an instant hit, but in certain circles , and thru viral marketing, ABL virtually dissappeared. The same happened later with other books, especially with the first edition of 100 years of Solitude.Finally, ABL created the first step in the ladder of extraordinary works of art that came out of Latin America in the 50/60s, that, again, was badly depicted as a boom. It was more the creation of a new current, and a new way to say, new, and old things.This book will allow you to fully understand this period, and it will open and broaden the way you read