SOURCE: “Juan José Arreola and the Twentieth Century Short Story,” in Hispania, Vol. 42, No. 3, September, 1959, pp. 295-308.

In the following essay, Menton discusses the wide range of literary styles and themes of the short stories in Varia invención and Confabulario, concluding that Arreola is Mexico's greatest short story writer.

The first half of the twentieth century has seen the emergence and triumph of the short story as a full-fledged literary genre.¹ Peculiarly adapted to our accelerated tempo of life and to our mass means of communication, the short story has intrigued and challenged the best writers of our times. In addition to its more varied and polished form, it has been the evolution of subject matter that has enabled the short story to attain its lofty status today. The anecdotal tale with its unexpected ending perfected by De Maupassant and the slow-moving character sketch of Chekhov have...