Novel
The Final Mist
La última niebla
María Luisa Bombal · 1934
Synopsis
A young woman marries her cousin Daniel, a widower, who takes her to his estate and expects her to imitate his first wife in everything; Ebsco speaks of a sterile marriage. One night, in town, she follows a stranger through the streets who leads her to a house, where she gives herself to him, and she can no longer forget it. The fog, which blurs angles and muffles sounds, envelops the city and the narrator's life, and the story leaves open, according to Ebsco, the doubt about the reality of this lover, whom she may have invented to bear her existence.
Context
The book appeared in Buenos Aires in 1934 from Colombo, with the support of Oliverio Girondo and Norah Lange, and was reissued in Chile in 1941 with a prologue by Amado Alonso, according to Memoria Chilena. It mixed realism with surrealist and fantastic elements, in contrast to a Chilean novel that had remained realist. The author produced a reworked English version of it in 1947, House of Mist; La Maison du brouillard, published by Gallimard, translates that version; The Final Mist opens the collection New Islands and Other Stories. The Chilean version received the municipal novel prize in 1942, according to Biografías y Vidas.
Who it is for
A short novel, in a dense, sensual prose; translated into English, and into French from the reworked English version.
Prizes and reception
A milestone of Chilean literature for Memoria Chilena; Borges and García Márquez admired its author, according to Lecturalia.
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