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Lagartija sin cola
Una fábula sobre la desvalorización del arte y la identidad, a las que el éxito transforma en residuales. Lagartija sin cola recupera para los lectores la prosa nítida y distintiva de José Donoso, así como también algunas de sus obsesiones, a través de una historia tan irónica como melancólica sobre la pérdida de España bajo las hordas del turismo, paralela a la de un artista que renuncia al arte, decepcionado por su mercantilización. Derrotado y escondido en su departamento de Barcelona, el protagonista de esta novela, el pintor Armando Muñoz-Roa, narra la historia de la fuga que emprendió en compañía de Luisa, su prima, amante y benefactora, tras abandonar con escándalo el movimiento informalista, al que perteneció con cierto éxito. Solo, viejo y frustrado, el artista recuerda sus años en el pueblo de Dors, al que infructuosamente intentó rescatar del avance de la modernidad, y la decadencia de su propia familia, amenazada también por el cambio de los tiempos. Esta novela, que José Donoso empezó a escribir en 1973 y que abandonó por razones desconocidas, fue descubierta por su hija, Pilar, entre los papeles que su padre vendió a la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Princeton. El manuscrito original, que incluye las correcciones del autor, fue revisado por el crítico Julio Ortega, quien afirma haberse limitado a facilitar el acceso al texto
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
About the author
José Donoso
89 books472 followersFrom Wikipedia: José Manuel Donoso Yáñez (5 October 1924 – 7 December 1996), known as José Donoso, was a Chilean writer, journalist and professor. He lived most of his life in Chile, although he spent many years in self-imposed exile in Mexico, the United States and Spain. Although he had left his country in the sixties for personal reasons, after 1973 he said his exile was also a form of protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He returned to Chile in 1981 and lived there until his death.
Donoso is the author of a number of short stories and novels, which contributed greatly to the Latin American literary boom. His best known works include the novels Coronación (Coronation), El lugar sin límites (Hell Has No Limits) and El obsceno pájaro de la noche (The Obscene Bird of Night). His works deal with a number of themes, including sexuality, the duplicity of identity, psychology, and a sense of dark humor.
Donoso is the author of a number of short stories and novels, which contributed greatly to the Latin American literary boom. His best known works include the novels Coronación (Coronation), El lugar sin límites (Hell Has No Limits) and El obsceno pájaro de la noche (The Obscene Bird of Night). His works deal with a number of themes, including sexuality, the duplicity of identity, psychology, and a sense of dark humor.
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February 12, 2012For an unfinished novel, José Donoso’s The Lizard’s Tale is surprisingly polished and well structured. Credit should be given to the editor, Julio Ortega, and the translator, Suzanne Jill Levine. I haven’t read the Spanish, but a glimpse at the title in Spanish is enough to give one an idea of the translator’s ingenuity. The title means, literally, “lizard without a tail,” but the translator and the book designer have created a word play in English that doesn’t exist in the original. The book cover features a lizard whose cut tail is replaced by the words “The Lizard’s Tale.” This is an example of “unfaithfulness” in translation that not only doesn’t contradict the spirit of the novel, but it complements it. It also shows that a book’s meaning comes not merely from its “content,” but from everything, including the cover.
The novel’s protagonist, Antonio, is a Spanish painter who abandons art and Barcelona’s bohemian world, “as a lizard sheds its tail,” and retires to the isolated village of Dors, a place of untouched architectural beauty, whose many old houses go back hundreds of years. The flashbacks of Antonio’s previous life with their focus on the “informalists” are reminiscent of scenes from Cortazar’s Hopscotch, or Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives and its “visceral realists.” The latter, however, was first published in 1998, while Donoso’s novel, written in 1973, was set aside and published for the first time in 2007.
Antonio—and through him, Donoso—laments the commercialization of tourism “which brings in foreign currency but destroys all identity,” and which is merely an extension of the prostitution that characterizes modern art in general, and the “informalist” movement in particular. Although most readers wouldn’t disagree, like me, they might find tiresome these repeated laments, which might have been more original in the early seventies when Donoso wrote them. I was afraid the novel might turn into some kind of homage to rustic, authentic life versus the corrupt life of the city—and I was wrong. Not only doesn’t Donoso idealize the former, but his description of the villagers is rather cynical (and, as such, is closer to reality than any kind of sugary idealization). As it happens, the villagers despise these old houses, and all they want is to sell them and move into modern, functional, interchangeable apartment buildings. While this desire might be justified by practical reasons, the villagers’ relationships among themselves and their status in the community are less justifiable: as in most communities, the big players in the village are the most ruthless and unscrupulous ones. As a consequence, as soon as he arrives in Dors, Antonio succeeds in making enemies, and it is by creating enemies that he becomes part of the community—an irony that is, certainly, not accidental.
When people from Antonio’s previous life begin to show up in the village—his latest lover, her daughter (who becomes his lover too), the lover’s doctor, Antonio’s former wife, their son, and the wife’s entourage, whose eccentricity brings to mind Fellini’s La Dolce Vita—a new air infuses the village. Antonio—and with him, the reader—is confronted with a paradox: the intruders will, no doubt, destroy the peaceful, traditional life of the village, for which he’d come there in the first place; at the same time, the intruders, whose tastes are similar to his, are the only ones who can help him preserve the old houses by buying and renovating them. The salvation and the destruction of the past seem to come from the same source.
This conflict is very much a reframing of The City and the Mountains by the Portuguese writer Eça de Queirós, in which the conflict is between technological progress or civilization, on the one hand, and nature, on the other. Eça de Queirós’s novel is, however, slightly less ambivalent, as the narrator’s preference goes definitely toward nature. The city—which happens to be Paris, where the writer wrote this novel in 1895—is described as an infinite source of pointless agitation, a place where one can find all the pleasures imaginable, but which in the end have one result: tedium. When the novel’s rich protagonist is called by a business emergency to his rural property in Portugal, the narrator describes his new life in the mountains as that of a “benefactor” who proceeds to remedy some of the local poverty by implementing urban technologies that would make the peasants’ lives better. Thus, the city finds its way into the mountains in the same way the attempt of Donoso’s protagonist to protect the village ends up opening it to the outside world.
Little by little, a story focused on an artist who runs away from one kind of community (that of Barcelona’s artistic bohemia) to a rural community that ends up rejecting and ostracizing him, turns into a philosophical reflection on the impossibility of any kind of community. As in a Greek tragedy, Antonio becomes the scapegoat the villagers feel they have to excommunicate in order for the village to return to its previous harmony. And when a young man dies, Antonio is declared guilty of a crime he hadn’t committed, and has to run away again. At the end of the novel—in the form given to us by its publisher—Antonio is hiding in an apartment in Barcelona, but we don’t know what the “real ending” is since the writer never finished it. In an interesting parallel, de Queirós never finished revising his novel either, and the ending to his novel—a little too naively enthusiastic for the “eternal” beauty of “gentle” nature—was chosen by another writer.
The novel’s protagonist, Antonio, is a Spanish painter who abandons art and Barcelona’s bohemian world, “as a lizard sheds its tail,” and retires to the isolated village of Dors, a place of untouched architectural beauty, whose many old houses go back hundreds of years. The flashbacks of Antonio’s previous life with their focus on the “informalists” are reminiscent of scenes from Cortazar’s Hopscotch, or Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives and its “visceral realists.” The latter, however, was first published in 1998, while Donoso’s novel, written in 1973, was set aside and published for the first time in 2007.
Antonio—and through him, Donoso—laments the commercialization of tourism “which brings in foreign currency but destroys all identity,” and which is merely an extension of the prostitution that characterizes modern art in general, and the “informalist” movement in particular. Although most readers wouldn’t disagree, like me, they might find tiresome these repeated laments, which might have been more original in the early seventies when Donoso wrote them. I was afraid the novel might turn into some kind of homage to rustic, authentic life versus the corrupt life of the city—and I was wrong. Not only doesn’t Donoso idealize the former, but his description of the villagers is rather cynical (and, as such, is closer to reality than any kind of sugary idealization). As it happens, the villagers despise these old houses, and all they want is to sell them and move into modern, functional, interchangeable apartment buildings. While this desire might be justified by practical reasons, the villagers’ relationships among themselves and their status in the community are less justifiable: as in most communities, the big players in the village are the most ruthless and unscrupulous ones. As a consequence, as soon as he arrives in Dors, Antonio succeeds in making enemies, and it is by creating enemies that he becomes part of the community—an irony that is, certainly, not accidental.
When people from Antonio’s previous life begin to show up in the village—his latest lover, her daughter (who becomes his lover too), the lover’s doctor, Antonio’s former wife, their son, and the wife’s entourage, whose eccentricity brings to mind Fellini’s La Dolce Vita—a new air infuses the village. Antonio—and with him, the reader—is confronted with a paradox: the intruders will, no doubt, destroy the peaceful, traditional life of the village, for which he’d come there in the first place; at the same time, the intruders, whose tastes are similar to his, are the only ones who can help him preserve the old houses by buying and renovating them. The salvation and the destruction of the past seem to come from the same source.
This conflict is very much a reframing of The City and the Mountains by the Portuguese writer Eça de Queirós, in which the conflict is between technological progress or civilization, on the one hand, and nature, on the other. Eça de Queirós’s novel is, however, slightly less ambivalent, as the narrator’s preference goes definitely toward nature. The city—which happens to be Paris, where the writer wrote this novel in 1895—is described as an infinite source of pointless agitation, a place where one can find all the pleasures imaginable, but which in the end have one result: tedium. When the novel’s rich protagonist is called by a business emergency to his rural property in Portugal, the narrator describes his new life in the mountains as that of a “benefactor” who proceeds to remedy some of the local poverty by implementing urban technologies that would make the peasants’ lives better. Thus, the city finds its way into the mountains in the same way the attempt of Donoso’s protagonist to protect the village ends up opening it to the outside world.
Little by little, a story focused on an artist who runs away from one kind of community (that of Barcelona’s artistic bohemia) to a rural community that ends up rejecting and ostracizing him, turns into a philosophical reflection on the impossibility of any kind of community. As in a Greek tragedy, Antonio becomes the scapegoat the villagers feel they have to excommunicate in order for the village to return to its previous harmony. And when a young man dies, Antonio is declared guilty of a crime he hadn’t committed, and has to run away again. At the end of the novel—in the form given to us by its publisher—Antonio is hiding in an apartment in Barcelona, but we don’t know what the “real ending” is since the writer never finished it. In an interesting parallel, de Queirós never finished revising his novel either, and the ending to his novel—a little too naively enthusiastic for the “eternal” beauty of “gentle” nature—was chosen by another writer.
November 18, 2024
Lo mejor es sin duda el epílogo
November 2, 2025
La escritura es confusa por el manejo de la cronología, además, hay serios problemas de edición que comprometen la coherencia del texto. La construcción de los personajes no convence y se agrava con los reiterativos discursos en contra de la comercialización del paisaje a través del turismo y de la explotación del arte como artículo de consumo. No es el texto a través del cual se debería llegar al escritor, pues sus herederos hacen un flaco favor (¿mercantilista?) al publicar, de forma póstuma, obras inconclusas o desechadas por él mismo.
January 3, 2022
This, apparently, was an unfinished manuscript that was discovered after Donoso's death and later published. It's about an artist, who painted in the informalist style but has given up on painting because of the commercialization of art. He moves to a small rustic village called Dors to live a simpler life but eventually becomes disillusioned with this because of the increasing tourism that is coming to the village. It was a very well written story that, in spite of being unfinished, seemed to be complete except for the ending that I suspect hadn't been completely refined before Donoso's death.
January 20, 2012
A damn shame that this was an unfinished, put-aside novel, as one can tell that the author could have done so much more with it, as it seems to be an unfinished masterpiece. Story takes place in catalonia during the huge development boom of the shores of that province and Valencia to the south where so so much of the nature of the area was completely destroyed by high rises, tourists, and the touristic trade. The protag and his cousin are artists and come to the realization that all they knew and all that was “spain” was quickly being demolished and subsumed by hyper-development of the shores, towns, and lifeways in pursuit of economic and tourist development. Ironically, the artist tries to move to an inland town not touched by this destruction and proceeds to gentrify an old house. The towns folk both resent him and try to capitalize on his naiveté. Meanwhile through his art too he tries to both be unique and traditional both, which causes more resentment and antipathy from the “art world” of catalonia. A fantastic novel that unfortunately was not finished and just perhaps would have garnered a nobel prize it has so much potential. But for the donoso we have I am thankful.
October 11, 2025
Me gustó. Creo que mi teoría de que toda cosa escrita por Donoso es buena o al menos vale la pena, se está cumpliendo. Este libro narra la historia de un artista que, tras una riña con otros pintores pertenecientes al movimiento pictórico que pertenecía, se va con una amante suya al pueblo español de Dors —ficticio, por lo demás—. Allí busca tranquilidad pero se encuentra con abandono y afanes de transformar toda esa historia y patrimonio en comercio y turismo.
Entiendo los temas que Pepe Donoso quiso tratar aquí, aunque reconozco que el libro en ocasiones se hace repetitivo porque se reiteran cosas dichas al inicio. Pero siento que a medida que pasan las páginas, y cuando se va avanzando en la eterna segunda parte de la novela, las cosas se van poniendo cada vez mejores.
Y sí, como alguien dijo por aquí, el epílogo es una de las mejores cosas de este libro. Te explica muchas cosas y le da un giro impresionante a todo lo que se leyó antes.
Entiendo los temas que Pepe Donoso quiso tratar aquí, aunque reconozco que el libro en ocasiones se hace repetitivo porque se reiteran cosas dichas al inicio. Pero siento que a medida que pasan las páginas, y cuando se va avanzando en la eterna segunda parte de la novela, las cosas se van poniendo cada vez mejores.
Y sí, como alguien dijo por aquí, el epílogo es una de las mejores cosas de este libro. Te explica muchas cosas y le da un giro impresionante a todo lo que se leyó antes.
July 24, 2013
Primer acercamiento a José Donoso y con un libro que nunca fue pensado en publicar, me encanto y ya espero volvér a leer mas de este gran autor
September 18, 2022
Es un libro distinto a lo que había leído de Donoso; qué bueno que Pilar, su hija, lo rescató y publicó. Es el primer libro que leo de este autor en donde los personajes no son chilenos y no sé si hay otro. Entiendo que quizás eso impidió que se atreviera a publicarlo, pero es una muy interesante novela sobre el patrimonio, el valor de lo antiguo versus lo moderno, lo artístico versus lo comercial, el arte versus la decoración, del turismo y sus consecuencias. Los personajes son principalmente españoles, aunque hay un grupo de ingleses que son muy divertidos. La novela está narrada en primera persona, y sin alcanzar el nivel de profundidad de los personajes que en otras, hay personajes que apenas se dibujan, es una historia donde hay mucho humor, mucha ironía y reírse de uno mismo, aunque amargamente, por creerse superior al resto por su supuesta alta cultura o sentido estético.
July 29, 2024
Започнах тази книга по време на един полет, на връщане от Испания, съвсем тематично.
Бях я оставил и я завърших към месец по-късно. И беше като да се върна в малкото средновековно, испанско, каменно село, с църквата, замъка, страноприемницата и всичко друго, в което физически никой от нас не е бил, но в което душата ни някога, някъде е живяла.
Не знам дали авторът е имал идеята да добавя още, колко и какво към края на този ръкопис - поне така изглежда. Обаче мен ми харесва в този вид. Да, част от интригата остава на въображението и това не е задължително нещо лошо. Важното е казано, усетено, преживяно. Въображението и усета на един подготвен читател може спокойно да свърши работата за подробностите. Персонажите вече са заживяли своя живот и ние можем да го видим в пълнота, макар и да не го прочетем буквално.
Бях я оставил и я завърших към месец по-късно. И беше като да се върна в малкото средновековно, испанско, каменно село, с църквата, замъка, страноприемницата и всичко друго, в което физически никой от нас не е бил, но в което душата ни някога, някъде е живяла.
Не знам дали авторът е имал идеята да добавя още, колко и какво към края на този ръкопис - поне така изглежда. Обаче мен ми харесва в този вид. Да, част от интригата остава на въображението и това не е задължително нещо лошо. Важното е казано, усетено, преживяно. Въображението и усета на един подготвен читател може спокойно да свърши работата за подробностите. Персонажите вече са заживяли своя живот и ние можем да го видим в пълнота, макар и да не го прочетем буквално.
December 21, 2024
Donoso en una alegoría desde la mirada de un pintor auto jubilado y depresivo nos presenta todo el drama del ser humano y de sus pecados frente a una sociedad superflua y vacía que por un instante encuentra la felicidad pero como en la vida real … le es efímera. Una alegoría de nuestra vida.
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May 17, 2024idk how i feel about this one…
February 10, 2025
while this was just lamentations of an artist gentrifier/cousin lover, i did enjoy the descriptions of a town in spain
December 16, 2016
Si consideramos la cronología de las obras de Donoso de acuerdo a su fecha de publicación, esta sería su última obra. Publicada póstumamente y encontrada por su hija en los archivos vendidos a Princeton, Lagartija sin cola cuestiona profundamente la comercialización del arte y, en consecuencia, la vida misma. Antonio, el protagonista de esta historia, es un famoso artista que, sin previos estudios, emerge en el mundo de la pintura informalista con gran pasión. Sin embargo, poco a poco se va desligando de este movimiento a medida que en este se incrustan los ideales pop y se profanan los conceptos esenciales de su planteamiento artístico. Más allá del arte profanado por la comercialización, la ciudad en la que reside Antonio también sufre de variaciones: Barcelona se transforma en un lugar de apertura al turismo, los ideales modernos, el comercio, etc., lo cual provoca que el protagonista deje este lugar y concurra a Dors; pueblo tradicional y de estética medieval que, a sus ojos es un lugar ideal.
La narración en primera persona que se hace en la segunda parte de la novela -que transcurre en este pueblo- es crucial para entender las reflexiones filosóficas que hace Antonio sobre su vida. Sobre la comercialización del arte señala: "Lo que quieren no es un revival, no es la convicción de un planteamiento que justifica una posición en la pintura: es algo artificial, fabricado por los marchantes, esos cerdos, sí, cerdos, que lo falsean todo por razones comerciales" (32-33). El protagonista de la novela se proclama como el gran enemigo de la nueva ciudad edificada, y es ante la necesidad de algunos habitantes de Dors por modernizar el pueblo con la fuerza que Antonio lucha: Dors se convierte en una parte de sí mismo, en una prolongación de su existencia que debe proteger.
Lo que más me sorprende de esta obra es su vigencia: fue escrita durante los años setenta, pero es fácilmente ubicable entre los grandes problemas que enfrenta la ciudad (pos)moderna. La novela se entendería ahora como un mensaje de apoyo a las consignas sociales anticapitalistas, observando el lado oscuro de la promesa comercial. Por otro lado, sorprende también que la historia esté tan bien desarrollada, considerando que Donoso solo revisó el primer capítulo. Su prosa se identifica sobre todo en las dos últimas partes de la novela, en donde se observa la decadencia del protagonista: característica observable en todas sus grandes obras.
La narración en primera persona que se hace en la segunda parte de la novela -que transcurre en este pueblo- es crucial para entender las reflexiones filosóficas que hace Antonio sobre su vida. Sobre la comercialización del arte señala: "Lo que quieren no es un revival, no es la convicción de un planteamiento que justifica una posición en la pintura: es algo artificial, fabricado por los marchantes, esos cerdos, sí, cerdos, que lo falsean todo por razones comerciales" (32-33). El protagonista de la novela se proclama como el gran enemigo de la nueva ciudad edificada, y es ante la necesidad de algunos habitantes de Dors por modernizar el pueblo con la fuerza que Antonio lucha: Dors se convierte en una parte de sí mismo, en una prolongación de su existencia que debe proteger.
Lo que más me sorprende de esta obra es su vigencia: fue escrita durante los años setenta, pero es fácilmente ubicable entre los grandes problemas que enfrenta la ciudad (pos)moderna. La novela se entendería ahora como un mensaje de apoyo a las consignas sociales anticapitalistas, observando el lado oscuro de la promesa comercial. Por otro lado, sorprende también que la historia esté tan bien desarrollada, considerando que Donoso solo revisó el primer capítulo. Su prosa se identifica sobre todo en las dos últimas partes de la novela, en donde se observa la decadencia del protagonista: característica observable en todas sus grandes obras.
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September 16, 2013Lagartija sin cola recupera para los lectores la prosa n�tida y definitiva de Jos� Donoso, as� como tambi�n algunas de sus obsesiones, a trav�s de una historia tan ir�nica como melanc�lica sobre la p�rdida de Espa�a bajo las hordas del turismo, paralela a la de un artista que renuncia al arte, decepcionado por su mercantilizaci�n. Derrotado y escondido en Barcelona, el protagonista de esta novela, el pintor Armando Mu�oz-Roa, narra la historia de la fuga que emprendi� en compa��a de Luisa, su prima, amante y benefactora, tras abandonar con esc�ndalo el movimiento informalista, al que perteneci� con cierto �xito. Solo, viejo y frustrado, el artista recuerda sus a�os en el pueblo de Dors, al que intent� rescatar del avance de la modernidad, y la decadencia de su propia familia, amenazada tambi�n por el cambio de los tiempos. Esta novela, que Jos� Donoso empez� a escribir en 1973 y que abandon� por razones desconocidas, fue descubierta por su hija, Pilar, entre los papeles que su padre vendi� a la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Princeton. El manuscrito original, que incluye las correcciones del autor, fue revisado por el cr�tico Julio Ortega, quien afirma haberse limitado a facilitar el acceso al texto.
November 24, 2011
Once o doce años me habían separado de José Donoso, durante un tiempo conseguí y leí todo lo que pude encontrar de este autor, en realidad lo leí todo... ahora, en una librería encontré este libro y otros más de Donoso a un precio irrisorio, los adquirí y opté por comenzar mi reencuentro con este libro, inédito hasta el 2007, por lo que no lo había leido, y debo decir que me agrado el reencuentro, puede ser que haya sido un libro dejado de lado, y por ende descastado, pero hay un José Donoso reconocible en sus escasas páginas. Lo disfruté bastante, a pesar que sea un trabajo revisado por otra persona por el echo de encontrarse inacabado, creo que hay que leerlo por lo que es, sin hacerse mayores espectativas, darle una oportunidad sin miramientos a este trocito de Donoso, tantos años oculto a los ojos del posible lector.
April 23, 2015
An intriguing novel of a well-regarded Spanish artist who renounces his art and moves to a remote mountain village, where he works to keep the town pure and resistant to the ravages of tourism. It is well-written, and the artist is a complex creation, maintaining close relationships with his wife, sons, mistress and mistress' daughter, but I didn't feel as uplifted or moved by the resolution as I was expecting.
January 31, 2012
Незавършен роман (повест, ако се съди по информацията, че желанието на Доносо е било произведението да е част от сборника с повести Tres novelitas burguesas), в който най-важното не е нито недовършено, нито неизказано. Сигурно само Доносо може да е толкова интензивен дори когато просто щрихира.
October 25, 2014
no soy nada, no soy m��s que un hombre que est�� cansado con la vida moderna y que busca un refugio de paz en un sitio en que no todo est�� a la venta.
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