SOURCE: "Gaspard de la nuit: Crucial Breakthrough in the Growth of Personality," in Studies on the Works of José Donoso: An Anthology of Critical Essays, edited by Miriam Adelstein, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990, pp. 145-55.

In the following essay, which originally appeared in The Creative Process in the Works of José Donoso, edited by Guillermo I. Castillo-Feliú (1982), Callan analyzes the novella Gaspard de la nuit and emphasizes Donoso's use of Jungian language and symbolism to depict a teenage boy's psychological transformation.

Sylvia, the international fashion model, had expected her life to be disrupted when her 16-year old son came from Madrid to spend the summer with her. But far from being a lively teenager, Mauricio is withdrawn and has no normal interests. He likes to roam the streets of Barcelona by himself, whistling a certain music composed by Ravel, and Sylvia finds this behavior disturbing and sometimes exasperating...