Beyond objectivity: Onetti and the subtle art of implication

                                                  (Old piece of machinery, La Costanera, Asunción)

 Third entry:

So far, I have only spoken about the book's events and the character's reactions to them. I must admit, focusing solely on the book's events and character reactions falls short. Not only does it repeat the text, but it also contradicts the very nature of Onetti's literature. To try and make sense of what happens to us is a waste of time, to seek certainty in a life devoid of meaning is, at best, a futile exercise. Sometimes, what is important is not what happened but what it means to us. Therefore, speaking with the truth, for Onetti, is pointless. As expressed in his 1949 novel, The Well, "There are several ways to lie, but the most disgusting of all is to tell the truth, the whole truth, hiding the soul of the facts."

This approach to objectivity is central to understanding Onetti's work, including The Shipyard. He avoided following the realist tradition of his time while also regarding the magic realism's formulas as a lame experiment, and instead choosing to sustain all his narrations through an indirect point of view. And this reflects on the overall sense of incompleteness The Shipyard transmits, and which captivated me the first time I read it. The story does not lay on an onmiscient narrator but on a secondary witness, someone who elludes or ignores basic information. Sometimes, a whole chapter is based merely on a rumor or a thirdhand piece of gossip. But their interpretation is never exact nor reliable. The nameless narrator, another character within the novel, acts as an imprecise eye, wandering through the text, incapable of explaining its own bewilderment.

Besides, let's ask ourselves, when we tell something to someone, do we go through each exact detail, having a full comprehension of every single element, accounting for the big picture? Isn't our version inevitably subjective and shaped by our perspective? Onetti knows this all too well and, as a fervient admirer of Faulkner, he also is aware that the writer owes nothing to the reader. Nobody but the characters has a full comprehension of the story, so the writer's job only consists of sharing it in the best way he can. Literature isn't, and shouldn't be, a mirror or a photograph of the real world. Its domain is the unreal, which is not the same as fantasy. Fantasy combines the possible with the impossible, whereas the unreal is the product of a mind that dreams, reflexes, creates and omits. 

However, I believe this is the actual charm of this book, its essence. Instead of being a guided walk through the park, we are set to take an active role in the story by taking in the little pieces of information we are given and combining them together however we see best. The meaning we construct is our own, and ultimately the most valuable one to share. The real causes don't really matter, as they are subjected to ambiguity and arbitrariness. Just as in real life, the elements are there and we are free to make our own interpretation, for who is in possession of absolute truths? No one. Because facts are always empty, they are just vessels that will take the form of the feeling that fills them. Lying is always more ethical than pressuming certainties.