The Obsceno pájaro de la noche, the novel by José Donoso, completed half a century

Abstract

This is a critical tribute to El obsceno pájaro de la noche (1970), the novel by José Donoso, on the fiftieth anniversary of its first publication. It reflects on its creation and takes up the aesthetic category of the grotesque, considering that its use by Donoso was not only an act of solidarity with the narrators of the boom, but also a personal preference that can be traced back at least to Coronación (1957). On the other hand, through the analysis of the characters in the novel and their interactions (of the masculine with the feminine, of the high culture with the popular culture, etc.), here the grotesque is approached along with a socio-critical and psychoanalytical perspective. From the first of these two viewpoints, I argue that El obsceno pájaro echoes the oligarchic fear towards social change that the literary works of the so-called “Generation of Writers of the 1950s” represented in Chile. Psychoanalytically, I discover a displacement of childhood sexuality.