The Works of Juan Carlos Onetti: Novels, Novellas, and Short Stories | Author Spotlight

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A journey through the works of Juan Carlos Onetti. I went by chronological order. What's your favorite Onetti book?
Can't get enough of Onetti? Here is my video on his short stories:
• Juan Carlos Onetti's S...
And a video I did in Spanish on his short story "Un sueño realizado" ("A Dream Come True"):
• "Un sueño realizado" (...
I also mention Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel (El túnel):
• Ernesto Sabato's The T...
Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea (La Nausée):
• Jean-Paul Sartre's Nau...
And Camilo José Cela's The Hive (La colmena):
• Camilo José Cela's The...
Contents:
[I have provided between parentheses the titles for those books that are available in English translation.]
00:00 - Introduction
01:16 - El pozo (The Pit)
02:48 - Tierra de nadie (No Man's Land)
03:50 - Para esta noche (Tonight)
05:05 - La vida breve (A Brief Life) [video coming up!]
06:20 - Los adioses (Goodbyes/Farewells)
07:42 - Para una tumba sin nombre (A Grave with No Name)
08:31 - El astillero (The Shipyard) [video coming up!]
10:11 - Juntacadáveres (Body Snatcher)
11:16 - Dejemos hablar al viento (Let the Wind Speak)
12:21 - Cuando entonces
13:21 - Cuando ya no importe (Past Caring)
14:15 - Cuentos completos (A Dream Come True: The Collected Stories)
15:43 - Mario Vargas Llosa's book on Onetti: El viaje a la ficción
17:01 - Conclusion
A couple of errors, because to err is human:
* Camilo José Cela's The Hive (La colmena) was not published in 1949, but in 1951.
* The events of Juntacadáveres take place before (not after) those of Para una tumba sin nombre. After all these years, the similarity between the words "after" and "antes" ("before" in Spanish) still gets me.

Опубликовано:

2 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 18

@marinellamaccagni6951 29 дней назад

Hola jorge! Onetti is one of my favourite latinoamerican author. I am reading all his works in spanish. Until now I have read el pozo, el astillero, los adioses and para una tumba sin nombre just in these days. I'm looking forward to reading la vida breve and to watching your videos on onetti's la vida breve and el astillero. Thanks for your amazing review. Have a great day, my friend. Bye!

@JorgesCorner 29 дней назад

Hola, Marinella! 😃 I'm so happy to hear about your enthusiasm for "the other Borges." You have read so much by him! I'd say La vida breve is the best of the ones you're missing. It's definitely the most "important." I believe I started with El pozo, which we read for a class on Latin American novellas. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, my friend! Have an excellent day, and happy reading!

@davanesnegron5775 29 дней назад

Jorge, muchas gracias por este vídeo! Aún cuando no he llegado a leer toda su obra, Onetti es, por mucho, uno de mis escritores favoritos!

@JorgesCorner 29 дней назад

¡Mil gracias a vos por la visita y el comentario! 😃 Soy fanático, diría devoto, de Onetti. Un maestro total. ¡Muchos saludos y feliz lectura!

@the3rdpillblog934 29 дней назад

Ooooonetttiiiii. 🙂

@JorgesCorner 29 дней назад

I thought you might enjoy this one, my friend! 😃 How wonderful that virtually all of his works are available in German, even Cuando entonces (Magda). Have a wonderful day, and talk to you soon!

@comedygeek1 29 дней назад

Good stuff, thanks for this. Definitely inspired me to check this author out as I've not heard of them before. Are there any English Translated works you'd recommend starting with?

@JorgesCorner 29 дней назад

Thank you so much, my friend! 😃 Absolutely: I would recommend starting with Los adioses, which has been translated as Goodbyes or Farewells. I believe the edition titled Goodbyes comes with some of Onetti's best short stories; the one titled Farewells includes the novella A Grave with No Name. Both options are great. Have a wonderful day, and happy reading!

@Paromita_M 29 дней назад

Thank you so much for this comprehensive video. Looking forward to the discussions on the individual books you mentioned. I wonder why Juan Carlos Onetti or even his predecessor Roberto Arlt did not receive the kind of global readership that other authors like Borges or Sabato did (Sabato is still less known compared to Borges and also it doesn't matter, greatness is greatness, mainly a curiosity question)? Is it mostly a matter of marketing/public relations because advocating for a work to be translated + foreign language rights is a whole project? I will try to search the works that are available in English, unfortunately even the Kindle versions are very expensive here. Let me see. Happy reading!

@JorgesCorner 29 дней назад

Thank you so much, Paromita! 😃 Onetti and Arlt definitely deserve more attention. I believe part of the reason why they are not as popular has to do with the marketing issue that you mention. Another factor (closely related) might be that they focused on what might be called "urban literature," and there's a certain homogeneity to that type of literature throughout the world. The "world literature" market tends to favor "local color," it seems. There is certainly an element of that in Onetti and Arlt, but one might change the names of the cities and the characters, set the novels in other places, and probably no one would notice. This is one of the reasons why Southern Cone authors may not be the first to come to mind when we think of Latin American literature. The market favors those authors who either correspond to the target audience's perception of a given region (Latin America or Spain as an "exotic" place, just to give an example that may be extended to many other regions), or who are aligned with the notion of that region the market seeks to create or promote. A third option would be "universal" authors, but these need to have really good ideas... like Borges. Anyway, those are just my thoughts! I hope you can find something by Onetti at a good price. Have a fantastic day, my friend, and happy reading!

@Paromita_M 26 дней назад

@@JorgesCorner Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. We face many of these features in India as well. For example, I am from West Bengal. We have a rich body of Bengali literature but very little is translated and even what is, sometimes misses the mark e.g. Tagore's poetry. I read the English translations of some of Gitanjali (for which he won the Nobel) and honestly wanted to cry. Now because of the colonisation, we also have many authors writing in English and some of them are great and universal (Borges analogy), others bring the flavour of the soil and visceral truth to their work, yet others fall under this "exoticisation" umbrella (you can tell its not for me hehe). I love stories of the soil, where one can feel the sense of place keenly. Or as you said, like Borges, where it transcends boundaries. I will keep searching for Onetti's works but right now I am towards the end of a huge Salman Rushdie binge reading project! Apart from 3-4 works, I completed reading most of his oeuvre and my oh my, it clicked so beautifully for me. Rushdie has such mastery of the language. Offbeat suggestion: either The Ground Beneath Her Feet or Two Years Eight Months Twenty-Eight Nights or Quichotte. So lovely to read his novels and see the amalgation of story, myth, history, culture, sense of place, wordplay, memorable characters - complete experience. And not just Indian subcontinent, Persian and Arabic influences like Rumi and the 1001 Nights plus many others. Am I gushing? Maybe a little. Happy reading!

@JorgesCorner 26 дней назад

I'm so glad you mentioned the issue with Tagore's poetry in translation! I'm planning to look at it for my Nobel Prize series, especially Gitanjali, and I feel that I should include a disclaimer saying that I am looking at the English versions. As you know, Tagore translated them (or maybe "rendered" would be a more appropriate verb here; maybe we should speak of "versions" or even "adaptations" instead of "translations") into English himself, but they are in the form of prose poems. The translations into Spanish are the same, as they were translated not from the original but from the English version. I love the poems, but I know the whole process is problematic, to say the least. There is a Penguin volume of Tagore's Selected Poems presented in lyrical form, but it is ridiculously brief: about 100 pages long. Thank you so much for your thoughts on Rushdie too, and for the recommendations! The only book of his that I own is The Ground Beneath Her Feet, as a matter of fact. Years ago, I found it in a box outside a professor's office, for anyone who wanted it. I have found quite a few great books that way, haha. The good old college days... Have an amazing day, Paromita, and thank you once again for stopping by. Happy reading, my friend! 😃

@Paromita_M 24 дня назад

@@JorgesCorner Thank you for the reply. None of the translations of Gitanjali I have come across are good so far. 😬 Tagore was translating at a time when we were still under British rule, so the English is very oddly formal and stilted I feel, we hadn't found our own voice in English yet, we were writing like how the British wrote which is fine for official communication, less so for literature, especially poetry. The lyricism specially for a poet like Tagore gets lost completely. With authors like RK Narayan, Indian writing in English found its own voice. Rushdie really managed that imo, he managed to make the language his own and then brought it to life in a different way in fiction. I read a comparison post somewhere mentioning how Nabokov did the same thing despite it not being his native language and would agree - whereas Nabokov is more about the literary games, metaphors, allusions, play on words, Rushdie uses this to incorporate myth, history, culture not just from Indian subcontinent but also poets like Rumi (Persian) and Arabian Nights. I think these authors are of the world. Like you have the Nobel project ongoing, I too have a Nobel project - to read from potential winners and try and predict the winner (just for fun) 😁. I also read works from authors who have already won the Prize. Some authors I have found while searching like this are Adonis (poet) and Ngugi wa Thiong'o (novelist). Other candidates I have read from - Margaret Atwood, Anne Carson, Rushdie, Mircea Cartarescu. Sadly my attempts to read Can Xue and Lazlo Krasznahorkai have not gone well. But I keep exploring. Happy reading!

@JorgesCorner 22 дня назад

Thank you so much, Paromita, for your wonderful comments on these authors! 😃 I went to a bookstore today and saw a volume 1 of an "omnibus" edition of works by Tagore. It included Gitanjali, but it was the usual prose translation. Gora was also included, but I have a copy of it in Spanish. Completely different topic: I saw a little book titled My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose. Have you read this author? Those are great Nobel candidates, and I also think it's fun to predict the winners! I remember reading that in one of his books Carlos Fuentes predicted César Aira. I hope he was wrong, haha. The thing is, Aira is often mentioned, and at this point not much surprises me... I must read Ngugi wa Thiong'o. By Krasznahorkai I've read only Sátántangó, because I wanted to watch the film (which I still haven't done). It was not a good experience, but I believe it might have been my fault. Happy reading, my friend!