Novel
Misterio
Not translated into English
Manuel Argüello Mora · 1888
Synopsis
Educated in the schools of Paris, Delfina Rosales returns to San José and finds nothing in her country to make her forget the boulevards. She falls in love with Julio Espinoza, whom the forbidden charms of the young companion of don Roque, a man of fifty, draw elsewhere. Elena Escoto loves the young Roberto Delgado, but Andrés Cordón, a fine dancer and a schemer, draws Roberto away from Elena and has two of her friends, believed to be revolutionaries, arrested. The narrative passes through the receptions of the capital's society, a ball at the National Palace and an excursion to the Irazú volcano.
Context
The novel first appeared as a serial in 1888 in the magazine Costa Rica Ilustrada under the title Risas y llanto, then in 1890; under the title Misterio and the subtitle Escenas de la vida en Costa Rica, it closes the volume Costa Rica pintoresca, in 1899. It borrows from the serial its missing children, its exchanged identities and its family secrets, partly in the form of letters. Deborah Singer reads the patriarchal family in it as an image of the nation, at the moment when the liberal state was consolidating. It was reissued in 1963 and in 2004.
Who it is for
A short novel, in Spanish, in the manner of the serial novel, which reads today as a portrait of the manners of the capital.
Prizes and reception
Held by the National Library to be “no doubt the first novela, truly a novela” published by an author of the country.