Gaurav's Reviews > The Tunnel

It was just about the stroke of dawn, lilacs started to bloom, the birds were singing along, the orchestra was about to embark on, I got up early and decided to plunge myself in books, I'd a few options- The Tunnel, Beauty and Sadness, and Requiem: A hallucination, I chose The Tunnel, for from excerpts of the book, it occurred to be an existential tale of an account of relationship of an artist-Juan Pablo Castel- with Maria Iribarne whom he murdered, I was listening to Shine on your crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd, the starting lines-It should be sufficient to say that I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed Maria Iribarne. I imagine that the trial is still in everyone's mind and that no further information about myself is necessary with the music of Pink Floyd were creating enthralling atmosphere which caught me off guard to observe that how effortlessly the author has used simplicity to convey the most profound and honest conviction by narrator, that was the very first glimpse of finesse, of the author, which only gets amplified in subsequent pages. It's about recollection of actions of Castel from a prison cell, however it's neither an apology for the actions which his insanity caused him to do, nor is it a rational explanation of them.

Juan Pablo Castel, the first person narrator of the book, paints Motherhood which has a remote scene framed in a window in the upper let-corner of canvas: an empty beach and a solitary woman looking at the sea, gets preoccupied with a woman who seems to be interesting in this scene, of a window, which everyone ignores, the scene signifies absolute nostalgic loneliness, (which is profound than solitude, for solitude is often self- desired and rewarding at times as one gets chance to look aside form the distractions world offer us, to ponder upon your insignificant self and to nurture it with amusements you enjoy perhaps to refuel yourself, while the wistful loneliness is depressing as you feel isolated from the world and it seems to fall apart in front of your very eyes but all you could do is just to stare meekly at it) the narrator feels a profound bond with her, a woman who can see into his soul and capable of understanding the emotion behind his artistic creation, for she probably feels the same isolation from the world as the narrator does, since the people, who are waking by, seem to be non-existent to her; this realization thoroughly captures his mind and he becomes obsessed with her, the kind of realization which brings along a injuring fear and an anguish at the same time to feel that there are others like you as well- you're not absurd alone, a desire to meet those people and a trepidation to lose all your notions about your existence. The narrator stalks her and tries different probable combinations to bring his chances of meeting her from null to desirable outcome, he keeps on mediating about these combinations to insanity and always tries to comfort himself (when the fear of getting it altogether wrong strikes him) by carefully deliberating each of them. It isn't that I don't reason things. Just the opposite my mind never stops. But think of a captain who is constantly charting its position, meticulously following a course towards an objective. But also imagine that he does not know why is sailing toward it. Sabato captures the intensity of passions run into uncharted passages where love promises not tranquillity but danger, Juan Pablo manages to meet Maria, their relationship starts to bloom but it is not usual fairy types of bonds, for it is one of those crippling one which eventually turns out to be obsession wherein jealously gradually takes over infatuation as is the fate of love generally, for the dangers it holds only permeate with time. The inability to control human passion, precisely bounded, here comes across not as melodrama but as icy documentary: The more I thought about it, the more receptive I became to the idea of accepting her love without condition, and the more terrified I became of being left with nothing, absolutely nothing. From the terror was germinating and flowering the kind of humility possessed only by persons who have no choice.

This narrative of the book is meticulously condensed as the book is divided into small chapters which contain sparse and succinct sentences which makes them easy to decipher, at the same time the narrative doesn't leave its profoundness to captivate the reader about obsessions and struggles of the narrator. The nightmares of Juan Pablo, in which he turns to a man-size bird, reflects the deep scuffles in consciousness to ascertain existence of a man. Sabato mocks about idiosyncrasies of life using satirical elements, the deadpan description of a cocktail party filled with psychoanalysts, the portrayal of life of elites wherein redundant conversations fill the intellectual circles, are absolutely bang on, his commentary over vanity is honest and chilling, for human nature is corrupted and man always delude himself: I do not comment on vanity. As far as I know, no human is devoid of this formidable motivation for Human Progress. People make me laugh when they talk about the modesty of an Einstein, or someone of his kind. My answer to them is that it is easy to be modest when you are famous. That is appear to me modest.

This compelling book drills deeper into the dark abyss of human soul like The Outsider by Albert Camus, the dark canvas of tortured human soul sketched by Sabato wherein the rules governing despair are so closely examined that the entire enterprise of living or thinking seems deeply absurd, wherein man constantly sees faults in the people he meets or observes walking along the streets of the city, whose distrust of human nature is evident in the jealousy and insecurity towards seemingly most profound relationships; according to Albert Camus, the only philosophical problem in the life was suicide, for its the greatest choice for a man in this absurd world, to choose whether or not life is worth living is to answer the very question of existence, Camus sees this question of suicide as a natural response to an underlying premise, namely that life is absurd in its very nature, for it's absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none; Sábato’s narrator faces the existential dilemma with similar existential choices at his disposal, we don't see any sign of regret in Castel over his act of murder as he reflects on his actions in prison which clearly shows influence of Dostoevsky and Kafka as their characters, who create havoc, who helped society see the soul of man who carried vengeance in his heart, yet maintained a love for mankind, (or probably anti-heroes) never show any sign of remorse over their deeds since their acts are existential choices at their disposal; one could easily decipher that Juan Pablo is already a prisoner well before he is being put in prison, for he is captive of his wistful loneliness, of his delusions and paranoia which eventually leads him to murder Maria, who he thinks understands him best, out of utter jealously, which is the outcome of his interminable existential struggle.