Miaow [1888/2025] – ★★★★

This satirical novel introduces Ramón Villaamil, an honourable man and an ex-employee of the Ministry, who spends all his days petitioning hopelessly his previous employment and begging his friends for favours so he can get a job at the Ministry in any capacity. Living with him are his wife Doña Pura, her sister Milagros, his daughter Abelarda (the three cruelly nicknamed “Miaus” for their cat-like appearance), and his grandson Luis, the child of Luisa, Ramón and Doña Pura’s late daughter. As Ramón Villaamil doesn’t have a stable employment, the family is falling deeper and deeper into poverty and debt, especially since the women of the family are haughty, pretentious and do not manage their finances well. But then, on the scene comes the father of little Luis – the handsome, but wayward Victor Cadalso, and starts play-acting in pursuing Abelarda, while offering money to the family. That is trouble already, but then Villaamil also discovers that Victor is after a governmental post, too, and will exercise more ruthless methods to get what he wants. Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920) is considered the greatest Spanish author after Miguel de Cervantes, and seems to have had a real talent for ascertaining where dramatic interest may lie and going there in his narrative. This is a novel of hope and the absence of it, of “keeping up appearances”, of people living in denial, and of daily cruelties and societal indifference.