- I have recently noticed how little I read from Spain, and I don’t mean Spanish-language authors, such as from Latin America, but just Spain. This year I read Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós, but I feel like I barely scratched the surface with this author, and such lists as this one – The Greatest Spanish Literature of All Time – certainly inspire me to read more Spanish authors. Perhaps some of my readers are very versed in this, but I have only recently discovered that there are many great books and hidden gems. There are novels The Hive (La Colmena) and The Family of Pascual Duarte (La familia de Pascual Duarte) by Nobel Laureate Camilo José Cela, and The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán is also highly praised. When it comes to Javier Marías, I am now less convinced. Though I still want to read his novel A Heart So White, I found myself almost DNFing his book Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me. Though it is beautifully written, I found the story lacking in logic and believability. The situation there was really too preposterous, and I was not at all convinced that the main character was really “trapped” in an impossible situation.
Then, there is Time of Silence by Luis Martín-Santos Ribera. It is said to be “one most important Spanish novels of the twentieth century”, and I have also recently put into my TBR list Eduardo Mendoza’s The City of Marvels, which is “a novel describing the rise of the unspeakable Onofre Bouvila, an honestly self-seeking mafioso who starts in the gutters of Barcelona and leaves a trail of broken egos as he climbs up to his place in the sun” (goodreads). Perhaps I should do a Spanish Literature Challenge, similar to the one I did for Italy. Would you be interested to participate? 🇪🇸
Tag: Spanish literature
Mini-Review: Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós
Tristana [1892/2014] – ★★★★1/2
“…the young woman had
her own ideas, hurling herself into the empty spaces of thought and
displaying the boldest of aspirations…” [Benito Pérez Galdós, Margaret Jull Costa, NYRB Classics, 1892/2014].
Don Lope Garrido was a man already past a certain age when he took under his wing the daughter of his friend, who died in bankruptcy. The girl, Tristana, found herself orphaned, penniless and facing a sorrowful fate – but she did not realise it back then. Don Lope took advantage of pristine, innocent Tristana and started living with her as his wife, without marrying the girl, of course, and Tristana’s gradual re-awakening to her plight forms part of this Madrid tale, which at first looks like a simple tale of female emancipation, but soon transforms into something more thought-provoking – a “circular” story of rising hopes and dreams, and the final resignation.
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Thoughts on Papyrus 