José Donoso, The Garden Next Door - Essay Example

In his book The Garden Next Door Jose Donoso describes the events of a summer experienced by a couple who have been married for over twenty years. His characters are a complex montage of the poor, the working class, and the wealthy who have various relationships within a population of South American exiles who have fled to Spain. The exiles are from many countries and have been displaced due to political turmoil. This transition to new lives in new countries left many with their identities in a state of flux.

Most of them had to discover new friends, new places and new vocations. Some took the opportunity to recreate themselves; others became lost. Donoso explores the themes of exile and identity through these characters, particularly Julio and Gloria Mendez, and their struggles physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Exile in a literal sense is experienced as a physical location. As refugees fled persecution from political opponents in South America, they relocated to unfamiliar places. Julio and Gloria Mendez, along with their son Patricio, moved to the small town of Sitges in Spain.

They moved from a nice house with a garden of trees to a small, dirty apartment in a run-down little town. A resulting change in social status brought about a disruption of their identities as they were forced to move from a comfortable lifestyle to that of paupers. Patricio, who was young when his family relocated to Europe, grew into the identity of a European teenager and moved to Marrakech, far away from his parents and their friends who tried to hold on to their past and their culture. The stress imposed by living in a country not one’s own manifested itself emotionally and psychologically in the lives of Julio and Gloria.

The two became alienated from each other as their marriage grew tired and their bickering led to alcohol and drug abuse. For Julio, this emotional exile manifests in that enables him to escape his dreary life, if only as a fantasy. One evening, early in the summer (which they are spending in Madrid at the apartment of a wealthy friend), Julio looks out the window into the neighbor’s lush garden. He is fascinated by the beautiful neighbor, and on this evening she is entertaining a few friends.

As he watches, Julio is entranced by the palatial setting – the pool, the crystal, the candles, and the beautiful young couples drinking and dancing. “Suddenly the radiant magic spell of the world outside subdues and replaces my poor reality,”is how Julio describes his fixation as he watches their activities and imagines himself (hesitantly) in a similar life of sexual freedom. Julio, the author of two books and a few journal articles of note in Chile, has been working on a novel describing the political turmoil that made him flee his country and the six days he spent as a political prisoner.

This novel was already by a popular publisher, leaving Julio to think of himself as a “writer in a minor key condemned never to cross over to the majority of today’s great novel.” During the summer in Madrid, Julio plans to work on his novel, improving it so that the world will acknowledge his talent. Metaphorically Julio is the novel and, pending its completion, will remain in exile not only from his country, but from his own existence. When Julio does finally complete his novel at the end of the summer, it is again rejected.

Not able to tell Gloria, who has been struggling with her own existence and has recently begun to emerge from a severe depression, of his failure Julio steals a painting from the apartment and sells it. He uses the money to take Gloria to Marrakech, where Patricio is presenting an art show. He tells her that the money is from an advance on the book, which the reader of Garden later learns she knows is not true. They leave Madrid and embark upon their journey across Europe, only to discover they are not through with their inner journeys.

Julio wishes to escape to another identity – that of a poor beggar, putting himself in yet another kind of exile. He attempts to act upon this desire but is unable, and he finally tells Gloria about stealing the painting. At last able to admit his failure he regains his identity as a professor and gifted translator. As Gloria comments in the last pages of the book, his new job teaching at the University of Barcelona “has made him himself again.” Julio may still be in voluntary exile from Chile, but he is no longer in exile from himself.