The "cuaderno de las tapas azules", and the end of Adan's life, are a prize for a constant reader. I've never find another author who writes about love, friendship and tradition, in a comprehensible and beauty way, as Marechal does. The argentinian spirit, (represented by Adan and his friends) who realizes it's own death under the new behaviors that arrives with the inmigrants of the early 1900's, fights the most heroic battle that someone can: the battle when all is lost, when just your faith keeps you alive, watching how everything changes outside. At the same time is the personal struggle inside of Adan, the fight that every man have the chance to do, but the most don't want to face. The final battle, when good and evil tries to get him, shows that the struggle, doesn't exist only in a battlefield, but in our hearts. You feel how that battle, is inside of the author too, (and you confirm it in the "indispensable prologue"), and you can understand, why he says he writes this book, with a penitential purpose.