"Wasabi", by Alan Pauls. An Allegoric Reading Using an Autofictional Key

Abstract

This essay proposes a reading of Wasabi (Alan Pauls, 1994, 2005) as a neofantastic novel that is linked to The Metamorphosis by Kafka as well as to certain short stories by Cortázar. It is argued that the novel can be considered as an allegory based on a series of metaphors –such as the cyst of the narrator, his “narcolepses” and the wasabi– which allude to the relationship between literature and life. In this sense, the novel is first read as an allegory of self-fiction and in the second place as an allegory of literary creation in general. This allegoric reading is supported by the frequency of the number seven in the text and by the intertextual relationship between the title Wasabi and Fils, a self-fictional novel published in 1977 by the French author Serge Doubrovsky.