"Omul descompus", which focuses on Aurel's affair with a tuberculosis-stricken lady, is dismissed by Călinescu as "pale", and is seen by Ștefan Borbély as the "mimetic" sample of "approximate existentialism".Yet, as Crohmălniceanu writes, Aderca manages to avoid "lewdness", and instead carries out, "with deftness", a "plunge into the unconscious".