42
PARTISAN REVIEW
novel-writing will probably end pretty soon. We have certain
rumblings in that direction from, let's say, Vargas Llosa in
Cap–
tain Pantoja and the Special Service,
which is not a
huge,
ambitious
novel, but a relatively modest, very intelligent, beautifully done
novel. It's not an easily repeated novel. Whereas most of the big
novels of the Boom are, in effect, big, encyclopedic.
One Hundred
Years of Solitude,
and all of Carlos Fuentes's novels are encyclope–
dic. Most of Vargas Llosa's, all of Cortazar's. Now the newer
writers are giving us shorter books, almost in reaction to those
huge encyclopedias. I'm thinking of Puig, of Sarduy.
Christ:
What is the direction of this newer prose?
Donoso:
One direction is that of the novel as poetry, novel as words
- the direction, say, of Sarduy. The other would be in the direc–
tion of the novel as detachment, of pure story, which would be the
novels of Puig and the novels of Vargas Llosa.
Christ:
This relates to your distinction between an
idioma personal
or
Urico
and an
idioma general
or
generico
as the two basic rhetorical
strategies in the novel.
Donoso:
That's what I'm trying to get at. Let's say the
idiomas,
the
languages, are going to be wholly different. One is going to be the
idioma personal,
the lyrical language of Sarduy. The other is going
to be the generic language and generic thinking of the wholly–
detached story ofVargas Llosa or Puig- using a language which is
not essentially theirs - documents, journalism, for example - but
belonging to a certain section of the culture, which they are rescu–
ing and making alive.
Christ:
Where do you put yourself?
Donoso:
I have no idea . Certainly, as we talked about earlier, I have
no feelings for words as such and their beauty and sensuality. I
can't manage that. So I have to put myself in the second category:
this recuperation of ancient, of sort of dead languages, which I
think I'm doing in the novel I'm writing now,
Casa de Campo.
It's a
symbolic novel. When one comes down to what it is, it's an alle–
gory: family , predictably; servants, predictably - it's the world I
generally deal with. But it's blown up into fantasy by quantity . It's
a fantastic family , with thirty-five cousins, ages five to fifteen, who
are left alone in a big country house . And the parents go away and
forget to come back.
Christ:
What was the point of origin for this novel?
Donoso:
Oh, it comes from memories too, from seeing my daughter
Pilarcita playing with Vargas Llosa's children. It's quite a happy
