Salvador Elizondo: El hipogeo secreto (The Secret Crypt)

The latest addition to my website is Salvador Elizondo‘s El hipogeo secreto (The Secret Crypt). The novel is about a writer called Salvador Elizondo who is writing a book called The Secret Crypt. We start with a disparate group called Urkreis and we gradually learn that they are, possibly, the characters of this novel. Gradually, Elizondo, the real author but also the author who is the subject of the book, who may or may not be the same person and may or may not exist, tries to come to terms with his characters (and they with him), himself as both author and subject, the reader, who is reading the book in which she is one of the subjects and where the book has not actually been written yet, as we are reading it as it is being written. If you are lost, you will be further lost as all these conundrums get more and more complicated as the book progresses. It is very clever, very original and fun to read if you are not looking for a clear outcome.

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