“Does the Fog Move with Us?”: Character and Vanguard in Maria Luisa Bombal

Upon being asked to lengthen her novel la amortajada to at least two hundred pages, María Luisa Bombal opted not for a literal translation, but rather wrote The shrowded Woman (1947). This article looks at the additions to the novel in English in relation to the evolution of the main character both in this novel and in la amortajada, a novel written in Spanish and published by the prestigious Editorial Sur in Buenos Aires ten years earlier. Bombal's prose in English in the added chapters of the novel contrasts with her lyrical style in Spanish that skill–fully portrays both the desire and sense of lack suffered by the protagonist. As such, the English language novel is a more conventional work. Moreover, the new chapters of The shrowded Woman focus not on the protagonist but rather on secondary characters, rendering the romantic entanglements more com–plicated and verging on the melodramatic. The study of the new segments of the novel written in English proves them not only to be superfluous in terms of the development of the main character but in fact partly responsible for im–poverishing the novel. This same conclusion, nevertheless, suggests just how Bombal's prose in Spanish is poised on the avant–guard.

María Luisa Bombal, la amortajada, The shrowded Woman, character, avant–guard, desire, lack