A prominent aspect of the contemporary Spanish novel is the heavy atmosphere of dispiritment concerning man's place in the world.* Speaking in broad terms, we may say that a favorite subject among the novelists is man's lostness and his separation from the familiar associations and values in which he once had anchorage. In this respect, Spanish writers reflect the dejection in philosophical outlook which characterizes the contemporary novel in general. But they have made less progress than others in developing new techniques with which to interpret the disintegrative influences of the present age. Preoccupied with thoughts of man's unhappy, if not meaningless, role in the total scheme of things, they have allowed the disillusive nature of their subject to overbalance their acquirements in novelistic form. This is a plausible explanation for the poor literary quality of the novel in Spain today. In any event, consciousness of the individual's loneliness and his loose affiliation with his surroundings hangs like a dark cloud over a good number of very ordinary novels which have come from the Spanish press in recent years. Against this background of comparative mediocrity,1 Nada (1945) by Carmen Laforet is currently regarded as being a rather conspicuous exception. Nada is both an exception and an example of a general trend. It is typical in that it pictures lonely individuals estranged from their fellowmen and seemingly moved about by cruel forces beyond their control. It is unique in its decisiveness of technique and its concentration of artistic energy toward a novelistic goal. The individual's hapless drifting, moodily summarized by other writers,2 becomes in this case an accelerated movement coolly and sharply defined. In brief, Carmen Laforet has blended one version of nihilistic outlook with a distinctive literary form. Her accomplishment has the appearance of an enthusiastic experimentation in reproducing a vision of "mechanistic dynamics." By the latter term I mean the motion of human bodies in an area of relationships dominated by physical forces. The word "dynamic" can also aptly be applied to the author's style, but my interpretation is directed primarily to an analysis of structural technique in combination with the predominantly physical reactions of the characters. The narrative is constructed around a central personage, Andrea, an orphan girl eighteen years of age who comes to Barcelona to live with her grandmother while attending the University. As Andrea enters "la casa en la calle de Aribau," she is confronted with a stark picture of ruin in physical objects and of psychological disturbances in her aunt (Angustias) and her two uncles (Juan and RomAn). She finds an avenue of relief from family disharmony by way of friendship with a schoolmate (Ena), who eventually enables her to escape to a new environment by offering her the prospect of a peaceful episode of work and friendship in Madrid. What takes place meanwhile may be described as a nightmare comprising the agitated movement of distressed personalities in continuous collision with each other. It is our task now to examine the texture of the nightmare. * A paper read at the Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of the AATSP, Chicago, December 26-27, 1951.