The Decomposition of Language and the Extinction of Literature in José María Merino’s Short Narrative

Abstract

José María Merino’s fantastic tales deal with themes related to the lack of meaning, identity, and social disintegration. To expose them in his narrative, he resorts to fantastic facts such as metamorphoses, the splitting of personality, and corporeal disintegration, among others. In this work, we approach three stories (“Las palabras del mundo,” “Los libros vacíos,” and “El viaje inexplicable”) where the author’s main concerns are the decomposition of language and the end of fiction and reading.