Es una pesadilla, un laberinto, una confusion real e imaginaria que es capaz de describirnos a todos. El "Informe Sobre Ciegos" es brutal. Leanlo, es una orden.

Fascinante y conmovedora la forma en que Sabato indaga acerca de los instintos y miedos que habitan en cada uno de los personajes. Una novela urbana que indefectiblemente logra la identificación del lector en algun momento de su trama. Una obra maestra.

Sabato corre el riesgo, y tiene la valentía de construir esta historia desde lo + profundo de su ser. El resultado es genial. Un viaje apasionante por el inconciente, privado y colectivo. Mente, alma y cuerpo de la humanidad materializados de manera escalofriante. EXPRESIÓN LOGRADA. Recomiendo el último libro de Ernesto, Antes del fin. Como siempre, el autor se brinda por entero.

Una historia sumamente enredada y al parecer inconclusa ya que forma parte de un libro y ha sido adaptadqa por el autor para esa edicion, los personajes del libro, Alejandra y Martin son seres marginales que viven en un mundo atormentado, especialmente alejandra que sufre de ataques y esta atormentada por sus pensamientos y su dualidad de ser una princesa y un dragon, un ser angelical y un demonio, con una intensa vida interior que la desgarra y que al final termina por destruirla. esta novela es extrana, como en el tunel tambien los personajes estan dominados por fuerzas mas alla de ellos mismos, que al final terminan por aniquilarlos...

Luis Mendez

Ernesto Sabato is, without any doubt, one of the best writers of our time. Although he's in touch with 2000, he's still holding that "pacefullness" that we are have lost. This book, as all other Sabato works, is another ironic look to what's happening inside him and the world in general. Always, in a way, he's ironic. All his books reflec something deep inside him, and this one, this one is not the exception to the rule.

Here it is again. Ernesto Sabato with an outstanding work that takes the reader to the deepest side of the human mind. Read it.

As typical as it is to enclose the best literary masterpieces in centuries rather than in periods, I believe this powerful novel deserves its place amongst the best of Latin America and the world during the past century. Sabato is not your common author; his few works portray, more than anything, the internal anguish suffered due to the solitude and terror of the soul. This novel in particular is some sort of literary behemoth or leviathan. It possesses continuous signals of being a creature of its own, mythical and monstrous at times. But it also deals with commonplace situations, excellent dark humour and devastating poetic narration. If you like novels with experimenting in prose (diversity of narration) this novel does it without a flaw. Few authors have used such an agile and fresh 'editing' of their work. The novel is composed of nearly a hundred and more sections which are like individual impressions of the circumstances around a particular date. However, and despite the plethora of characters, the novel keeps its unity. Sabato himself is one of the characters, in a challenging exposure of his innermost fears and dysfunctionalities. Much of the fiction is probably a simple recolection of his true situation in reality. There isn't a specific plot but a compendium of interrelated people in Buenos Aires, before the armageddon of their lives. Full of symbolisms, Abaddon (an apocalyptic angel of destruction) repeatedly deals with the forces of evil and the malignant spirits that govern the world of shadows inside oneself. I hardly give 5 stars to a book, but this is a special one; I am fully convinced this is one of the best novels ever written and definately underrated by history. This work deserves the merit of being read by anyone ready to enter that sordid world of Sabato, that is so majestic and intimidating.

This book will take you to another world. Ernesto's literature is not for everyone, it's a little hard to take its real meaning, but it worth to be read!

Nunca lei un libro que me conmocionara tanto como este. Creo que es una de las pocas joyas literarias que nos muestran nuestros mas profundos miedos, que nos hacen mirar dentro nuestro y buscar una respuesta, que nos arrastra en un laberinto infernal del cual nunca saldremos sin haber cambiado. No solo recomiendo su lectura sino su analisis y la relectura, ya que esta nos ofrece mas y mas mapas de la condicion humana que tanto nos tocan.

Como una escala cromática nos muestra todos los colores ; Sábato nos muestra, a través del hombre total un espejo de nosotros mismos. Todos tenemos algo de Fernando, de Martín y de Bruno; no hay escapatoria, no hay individuo que no pueda ser representado con algo de estos personajes, de no ser así aseguro que no es humano, ¿Acaso un robot ?

Ernesto Sábato is one of the best argentinian writers. I have read many books of him and eventhough they are all very different, they all have that special something that makes you feel good after reading them. Particulary this one, is an excellent book, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read something of him.

Here you'll find everything you want to find about Ernesto. A great part of his writings are here, so it's a good idea for all these people who want to read Ernesto and haven't any book yet

Esta es una de las mejores novelas argentinas de todos los tiempos.Sábato describe la atormentada vida , la personalidad y los sentimientos del pintor Juan Pablo Castel , el protagonista.

Ernesto talks, this time, about all the things a writer has to go thru. I recall someday telling him "I'd love to be a famous writer like you" and he replied "Do you wanna be famous or writer?. Being famous is something... But, being writer has a lot of bad things" Those are the things he gives out here...

Nice job, Ernesto!

Juan Pablo Castel is a tormented and insane painter who falls for Maria, a woman he meets at an art exhibition. She is married to a blind man -the subject of Sabato and Saramago's obsession- and has a house in the countryside. She is also the mistress of her own cousin. Castel discovers this and goes mad with jealousy. We have no way to know the truth, because everything in the novel happens inside Castel's mind.

When I first read the novel, in 1989, I thought it was a great psychological thriller, a true gem of existentialism. My praise for it has diminished, though, as I have come to dislike the guy. On a superficial level, it's just about the mad obsession of a lonely and depressive loser who is unable to cope with his passion and that leads him to commit a crime. If you find it profound and revealing, then enjoy it.

juan pablo castel is the mind of men who strive to find a meaning to their existence. juan pablo's mind is a world of fanatasies that puts him on the verge of reality. here we have to examine the labyrinth of his mind and find that all he was searching for is merely the return to his infancy. we shouldnt be surprised that every men with an extraordinary intelligence, finds himself trapped in this purposeless universe. when men discover that they're left alone responsible for their actions, they seek nourishment from an idealized concept. in this case, this concept is maria iribarne. knowing that god doesn't exist (at least in the way we wish to beleive) juan pablo travels backwards in time to the origin with the hope of understanding his chaotic existence. this is where juan pablo becomes an existentialistic individual who simply wishes to be non-existential. the tunnel here refers simply to his mind. castel finds himself in the middle of nowhere, with no purpose at all. the paint refers to the door that will open his mind to maria that represents an illogical mind. though from the surface, we might think that it is castel's mind that's twisted, unpredictable and perhaps deviant, i must say that there exist order, pattern, and lucidity. it is maria's mind that is illogical with a lack of sense of the world that surrounds her. castel is the only victim of a cruel and insensible game that leads him to the deepest state of mind that could be nearly impossible to recover from.

Ernesto Sabato is best known for the second of his three novels, ''On Heroes and Tombs,'' a massive, intricate chronicle of murder and passion set in the Argentina of the 1950's. In his 1948 debut novel, ''The Tunnel,'' these themes are already on display, but in a simplified, almost fabulistic form. Mr. Sabato's narrator introduces himself, his crime and the object of his passion in the very first sentence: ''It should be sufficient to say that I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed Maria Iribarne.'' He then launches into an account of his affair with Maria, a married woman who first draws his attention at an art exhibit. Once their affair begins, however, her elusiveness provokes his jealousy, plunging him into a ''personal hell of analyzing and imagining.'' Does she see other men? Does she actually love her frail, blind husband? Does she love Castel himself? His attempts to answer these questions grow increasingly contorted and obsessive; finally, his crazed solipsism displaces romantic passion as the real subject of the novel. While Castel crouches, knife in hand, in the shrubbery outside Maria's weekend retreat, he makes his condition explicit: ''After all there was only one tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel in which I had spent my childhood, my youth, my entire life.'' When it was first published in Spanish, ''The Tunnel'' won the applause of Thomas Mann and Albert Camus and was described as an existentialist classic. Still, in this fine new translation by Margaret Sayers Peden, Mr. Sabato's novel retains a chilling, memorable power.

It is amazing how the aothor make you keep on reading inspit of telling you the end of the book in the first line. You have to read it!!

Sábato, a través de Juan Pablo Castel, nos atrapa en la desesperación de encontrarle un significado a la vida. Muchos lectores hablan de la sicología del personaje principal pero olvidan que la novela demuestra los fines absurdos donde llegan los que se guían exclusivamente por la lógica--esa gran herramienta creada por el hombre que suele confundirse con la verdad (absoluto que buscamos sin éxito). Castel proporciona inferencias insólitas que poco a poco lo van ahogando, escondiéndole cada vez más la posibilidad de su amor ideal y revelándole una melancolía inevitable. Sus grandes razonamientos solo logran incrementar el misterio. Esta obra brilla precisamente porque Castel sufre la gran soledad de la condición humana. María Iribarne--bella, triste, indefinible, misteriosa e inalcanzable--es la víctima del trágico Castel--el que búsca estancarla en su esquema de la vida. Aunque comete un acto atroz, el lector se encuentra compadeciendo al protagonista por sus semejantes locuras--ya que todas son extremadamente humanas. Hay algo de Castel en todos. Este es un libro dimensional que se debe de leer varias veces para aprender de sus dolorosas sutilezas. Esto resulta placentero, ya que la narración de Sábato es sumamente accesible y seductora.

This is the only piece of fiction I have read that has grabbed me to the point that 'I could not put it down'. Juan Pablo Castel is obviously insane ---- but then why do I keep reading his confession? This is 115 pages and it just does not stop. Don't bother trying to categorize this work. It is one of a kind.