331
In Notas de un novelista, p. 11, Mallea writes that art is movement and only movement, and that disequilibrium in movement destroys art.
332
Mallea has written that in some of his novels, e. g., La bahía de silencio, he has exceeded the limits of the genre, forcing his works to burst with «hartazgos temáticos». Notas de un novelista, p. 103.
333
Mallea's version of the country in La torre is equal, if not superior, to any other I have found in Argentine novels. The sights, sounds, and smells of the land as Mallea presents them obviously derive from his own experience. A certain amount of abstraction lends a poetic quality which is lacking in La bahía de silencio. For me, the image of the country is more memorable than the portrayal of Roberto -and has more vitality.
334
By «position» is meant here not social or economic position, but outlook on life, or planteamiento in life. The process differs from the quest of Roberto Ricarte or Tregua in being essentially passive, not projected inward and forward.
335
Notas de un novelista, pp. 99, 103.
336
Los enemigos del alma, p. [9] (italicized in the text).
337
This incident, supposedly occurring on November 30, has been interpreted as representing the murder of Federico García Lorca, who is believed to have been killed on that date. See Patrick Dudgeon, Eduardo Mallea: A Personal Study of His Work (Buenos Aires: Agonía, 1949), pp. 24, 28; José Manuel Topete, «Eduardo Mallea y el laberinto de la agonía: Historia de una pasión argentina», Revista Iberoamericana, XX (March, 1955), 134. Topete, however, states that the assassination takes place «en otra parte de la ciudad», which nothing in the novel permits us to assume. On the contrary, page 161 refers to the scene as a «tierra europea». Both Topete and Dudgeon mention that Lintas is an architect, though he is clearly a painter; the former's article contains other errors of fact. See my «Acotaciones a un artículo sobre Eduardo Mallea», Revista Iberoamericana, XXII (January-June, 1957), 133-134.
338
Equally significant contrasts are found in some of Mallea's other works. In La torre, pp. 258-259, a poet who has become a prey to terror in a troubled country commits suicide. In Los enemigos del alma, p. 283, the emotional storms at Villa Rita are contrasted with the quiet death of an old peasant, Juan Zona, as a theatrical company arrives.
339
Romans 12:5. This is the epigraph of El retorno.
340
See El retorno, pp. 11, 149; Rodeada está de sueño, pp. 38, 39.