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Novella corta y muy bien escrita, pero sin dirección o conclusión definida. El lenguaje utilizado no es difícil de leer, pero a veces es muy abstracto.

Short, wonderfully-written literary novella about a very mismatched couple.

Blanca, the wife, is a woman with artistic aspirations, who chooses to be a starry-eyed serial groupie of haughty male "artists" rather than launch herself as an artist. Mario, her husband, is a low-level civil servant who loves Blanca to distraction, although he has no clue, and doesn't really care, about the art she lives for. He is terrified that art (or an artist) will steal her away physically, or rob her of her authentic humanity, thus leaving him loving a work of art that LOOKS like his wife, but is not really her.

This novella is more a character study with an unclear conclusion (or a "let the reader decide what all this is about" ending), than a traditionally structured narrative. Very little happens in real time and long swaths of the story are told to us, rather than shown with direct action. That's not bad, and Muñoz Molina certainly has control of his characters and language, but it can get a bit...literary...if you catch my drift.

I read this in the original, so for learners of Spanish, if you're on the B1-B2 cusp or beyond, you'll be able to handle "En ausencia de Blanca" just fine, but watch out for the abstract descriptions. Don't feel like you missed something when you don't get the end or what the whole enchilada is supposed to be about. It's not your Spanish, it's the novella!