In “Something Unfulfilled,” an epilogue to The Man of Feeling, Javier Marías (1951–2022) compares the writing of fiction to a love’s invention, “discovering or stumbling upon something” where but an image existed before, “its first throb” (Nabokov’s phrase, appropriated by… Read More ›
Spanish Literature
Analysis of Camilo José Cela’s The Hive
The Hive was the second great success in the career of one of the most influential Spanish writers of the 20th century, Camilo José Cela (1916– 2002). Written in the bitter aftermath of the Spanish civil war (1936–39), the novel… Read More ›
Analysis of Camilo José Cela’s The Family of Pascual Duarte
The Spanish author Camilo José Cela (1916–2002) started his successful first novel in 1940 and finished it in 1942. After being rejected by several editors, the book was published in Burgos, Spain, in 1942, and it caused immediate opposing reactions…. Read More ›
Analysis of Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna
The majority of the characters drawn by the writer Isabel Allende (1942– ) possess some special talent or attribute. Eva Luna, the protagonist of the novel Eva Luna, is not an exception to that rule. In this novel, Allende experiments… Read More ›
Analysis of Martín Luis Guzmán’s The Eagle and the Serpent
Martín Luis Guzmán’s (1887– 1977) best-known novel owes much to the genre of historical fiction, but it is often described as a seminal novel of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. The Eagle and the Serpent, first published in Spain in 1928… Read More ›
Analysis of Carlos Fuentes’s The Campaign
Beginning in 1958 with Where the Air Is Clear, Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012) has written several major novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and numerous critical essays. With The Campaign, Fuentes recounts the history of the Americas and, more important, the origins… Read More ›
Analysis of Lope de Vega’s The Best Mayor, The King
Lope is like ten brilliant minds inhabiting one body. An attempt to enclose him in any formula is like trying to make one pair of boots to fit a centipede. —Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance Any gathering of the… Read More ›
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