Disrupting the Divide: Construction and Rupture in José Donoso's A House in the Country
Abstract
The walled residence in A House in the Country, for me, brings to mind walled haciendas in Puerto Rico, decorated in colorful tile, topped with jagged potshards and shattered glass that glints in the sun. My friends, my Latin instructor, lived behind such walls. I drank my first cafe con crema behind such walls. Such memories can produce a sense of longing. Indeed, as critics have noted, Donoso fixes "nostalgia in the domestic structure of the house" (Gonzalez Mandri 13). A House in the Country initially is imbued with a sense of nostalgia for vanishing gentility, for safety and apparent permanence, the reassurance of such things as walls and coffee and a sense ofplace. But I do not think of the houses without the walls, nor do I think such houses can exist without walls.
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