Ed's Reviews > The Tunnel

It looks like I'm in the minority on this one.

I suppose I'm going to have to compare this to The Stranger. While Meursault's character was of course a little unreal - exaggerated - it seemed to represent elements of something authentic, namely a profound and sympathetic apathy and isolation. Juan Pablo Castel (The Tunnel's narrator and protagonist), on the other hand, has very little that is human in him. And by that, I don't mean he's "inhuman" - unfeeling, psychopathic, or cold blooded - I mean that he is lacking identifiable human attributes. None of his motives seem sincere. None of his actions make sense. Of course, the mind of a deranged murderer may not appear normal or rational, but this goes beyond that. The characterisation of Castel was a simplistic, unsubtle caricature of a jealous and obsessive man. Neither he, nor anyone he interacts with ever behave like any actual human being would. I never felt like I was in the mind of an impassioned killer, but in an absurdist melodrama that lacked any connection to the real world.

Certainly there are elements that are effective - the way that Castel latches onto Maria's noticing of a detail in his painting - this is powerfully representative of a search to be understood, to connect, and it also demonstrates how obsession can build from a trivial thing, amplified to become the central feature of the obsession's target. But the rest of the novel does not follow from this insight.

Maybe the point here was to create something wholly absurd. Fine, The Tunnel works as a dark, absurdist piece. But I then I can't really take seriously what it appears to be saying in earnest, about obsession, and paranoia - these seem built upon an insecure foundation. I do understand that realism isn't the point here, but what seems to masquerade as "existentialism" seems to me mostly a poor representation of human motives and interactions.