EL PRIMER EDWARDS BELLO O EL NOVELISTA ANTES DE EL ROTO

Abstract: Before El roto (1920) which gave its author a wide audience in South America and across the Hispanic world, Joaquin Edwards Bello wrote a number of texts which include his two earliest narratives, El monstruo and El inutil (not yet translated into English). Both novels were published by the Centennial; both keep a close connection between them, inviting useful comparisons. The theme of loss -lost ideals, lost illusions, lost faith in political values, etc.- allows an intensive exploration of the national character, dominated by the opression of family and social class. Monstrosity and idleness seem thus to be symptoms of a society that Edwards Bello begins to observe becoming an outstanding chronicler, witness, and critic of Chilean life.