El lado de la sombra / The Side of the Shadow
Short stories and novellas , 1962
Alfaguara
Pages: 232
In The Side of the Shadow, the author returns to past themes and opens up in his vein as a satirical writer. For example, in the stories The Side of the Shadow and “Longings”, the themes from Morel’s Invention are revisited from opposite perspectives. The first answers enigmatic questions such as: Is there one original person and then a succession of reiterations that get confused? Or: Can that one original person, once dead, reappear in a far corner of the world? In the second, the invention of Eladio Heller replaces the invention of Morel. It is no longer a replacement and perfect reiteration of the original, but a much more precarious eternity: a soul trapped in the wings of a theatre. The remaining stories, organised by the author between these two, also acquire a new resonance over time, like The Squid Opts for His Ink, a satire of village life and science fiction, or in Digging a Pit, a stark, realistic chronicle of a murder.