"Tensions and Triangles in "Al Filo del Agua

IN THE QUARTER CENTURY since its publication in 1947, Agustin Yaifiez' novel, Al filo del agua, has come to be regarded by many critics as a landmark in the evolution of the Spanish American novel. It is a work whose theme looks backward from a generation's distance to a consideration of a particular but crucial moment in the formation of modern Mexican society, the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in an isolated rural community. In its technique, the novel looks forward, realizing the potentials of experimental structural and stylistic devices only partially explored before in Spanish America. This technical virtuosity in turn helped to prepare a significant portion of the reading public for the brilliant display of creative experimentation which has characterized Hispanic narrative in the past two decades and contributed to its present importance in Western literature. Al filo del agua is an exceptionally absorbing novel, in part because of the intrinsic interest of its subject, but also because technique multiplies the dimensions of that subject, enriching its evocation of the particular and extending its specific content on historical and psychological planes beyond the strictly local or national context. The following remarks seek to bring into focus certain abstract patterns of organization which, in combination with important features of pacing and character development, complicate and enrich the total effect of the novel and qualify its theme.'

Art · Humanities · Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism