Débora

[2] The plot of the book follows Teniente [a]—a character who's only referred to by that name and who is never fully defined—[3] during a walk through the streets of Quito in search of a love conquest or any event of importance,[4] which ultimately never comes.

[11] According to literary critic and essayist Wilfrido H. Corral [es] and professor Teresita Mauro Castellarín, the beginning of the novella suggests that the character of Teniente is a schizophrenic split of the narrator himself.

This back cover, illustrated by cartoonist Kanela [es], depicts a puppet dressed as a military man, pulled by strings that go up to a curtain on which the word Guiñol [d] is written.

In this interpretation, the character of Débora would symbolize the literary ideal that is impossible to achieve, and the insults aimed at the protagonist would stem from the author's inner conflict regarding his work.

[16] The end of the novel shows Teniente dying in an absurd manner just when Débora, the imaginary muse for which the novella is named, enters the scene.

[20] In the case of romanticism, Teniente is reviled several times by the narrator for expecting to be saved from monotony and vulgarity by some love affair, like those that take place in books or films.

[21] In the same vein, numerous passages speak sarcastically of the typical events that would happen in a romance novel, as opposed to the almost complete lack of action in Débora.

[22] In the case of realism, Palacio's criticism focuses on what the author perceives as the falseness of his postulates, assumptions, and narrative techniques, especially his principle of describing reality as it occurs.

In his prologue to the 2005 edition of Palacio's collected works, author Raúl Vallejo Corral [es] points out that in 1927, poet Gonzalo Escudero said about the novel:[27] (…) we thought we were walking through the hermetic cells of a house of lunatics.

[s]A review published in 1928 in Loja newspaper Renacimiento was also positive, stating that it was superior to Un hombre muerto a puntapiés [es] and that reading the novella was akin to:[28] Hearing the ghastly mincing of the scalpel raging against tissues and nerves, and the dull gush of blood from torn arteries.

[t]That same year, journalist Xavier Icaza [es] referred to Débora as follows:[29] (A) novel for sleepless nerves, a gut-wrenching [book to be] read by the flame of insomnia[u]Moreover, Vallejo also points out that in January 1929, Chilean newspaper Reflector published a review praising the novel's "successful reflection of the intimacy of human beings"[v] and referred to it as "experimental psychological foundation.

Journalist Patricio Lennard, writing for newspaper Página 12, said that the book was "deliciously arbitrary"[x] and that it exposed "a joy for the artificial, for incongruity, for digression.

"[y][4] Furthermore, when referring to the book in his Diccionario de autores latinoamericanos, Argentine writer and translator César Aira said it was like "Nausea as written by Macedonio Fernández.