Visor de obras.

  —205→     —206→  
  —207→  

Aunque una primera lectura del texto de Arnold M. Penuel nos podría dar la impresión que los temas seleccionados por él ya han sido bastante bregados por la crítica galdosiana, una lectura cuidadosa del mismo nos hace comprender la sutileza de su análisis. En este estudio Penuel se ha impuesto la compleja tarea de esclarecer la visión que Galdós mantiene sobre la condición humana, la religión, y la ética, y su manifestación en las Novelas contemporáneas. Para llevar a cabo su propósito, ha utilizado como base de su estudio las nociones expuestas sobre la psicología de la religión por el filósofo alemán, Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (1841). Aunque Penuel duda que Galdós hubiera leído directamente a Feuerbach, señala la inevitabilidad de haber estado familiarizado con sus ideas, ya que eran conocimiento común entre los intelectuales de la época.

Penuel explora el enorme respeto que el autor de Fortunata y Jacinta siente por la compleja condición humana. Unido al temperamento del novelista, su atención por los asuntos humanos hace que Galdós presente a su lector difíciles y complicadas propuestas morales. Por ejemplo, el crítico se refiere en repetidas ocasiones al profundo entendimiento que el novelista tenía de la psicología de sus compatriotas, aún mucho antes de que llegaran a su conocimiento los conceptos del psicoanalista austriaco. La creación de sus personajes estaba basada en la certidumbre que Galdós tenía de la dualidad de la personalidad, entre lo consciente y lo inconsciente. Él, por consiguiente, veía que una de sus funciones fundamentales como novelista era la de hacer consciente al lector español decimonónico de la inconciencia y de su contenido individual y colectivo. Al mismo tiempo, anhelaba demostrarle la manifestación de los procesos a través de los cuales ciertos pensamientos y sentimientos son marginados al nivel del inconsciente.

Para Benito Pérez Galdós, no habla otro factor que hubiera tenido mayor influencia en la formación, o deformación, del carácter español y la sociedad española en la segunda mitad del siglo diecinueve que la religión. En varias de sus novelas Galdós desarrolla abiertamente esta idea. En Doña Perfecta, por ejemplo, se entrega a la exploración de la conciencia responsable de la violenta oposición entre las baerzas religiosas ultraconservadoras de Orbajosa y el liberalismo y el cientifismo manifestado por Pepe Rey. Según Penuel, el miedo y la inseguridad son los dos factores que contribuyen a la apariencia de baerza y de superioridad que marcan a los orbajosenses, con la protagonista en el eje de poder. Su éxito, no obstante, así como el de sus conciudadanos, es sólo externo, ya que lo logran a expensas de su desarrollo moral y espiritual. Gloria, por otro lado, más que una manifestación de una posible actitud anti-religiosa por parte de Galdós, es una elaboración, un   —208→   cuestionamiento, de ciertos supuestos religiosos decimonónicos con el fin de desmitificarlos. En Casandra Galdós explora la austera y autoritaria noción que los españoles mantienen de la religión a través de la figura de doña Juana, en tanto que en la rebelión de Casandra, Penuel ve una rebeldía al estilo de Martín Lutero ante la inflexibilidad de la Iglesia. En La familia de León Roch Galdós continúa reflexionando sobre la intolerancia religiosa, al mismo tiempo que se detiene en la naturaleza y psicología de las decisiones morales, no sólo en lo que atañe a León, sino también a los otros personajes de la novela.

Aunque Miau no entra directamente en la meditación religiosa, Penuel señala que esta obra es más que un tratado sobre la injusticia burocrática y su efecto en el protagonista galdosiano. La novela es un estudio tanto de la injusticia como de la actitud que el personaje adopta como reacción ante el atropello de su persona. El mensaje que Galdós está transmitiendo en la caracterización de Villaamil es la obligación moral que todo hombre tiene de aprender a vivir con la injusticia y con la desigualdad, ya que ambas son partes inevitables de la condición humana. Sólo así puede éste dedicarse a cultivar su vida interior y a resistir las fuerzas del mal que le vienen de afuera.

Penuel apunta, asimismo, a la ambigüedad como uno de los puntos esenciales en la representación de los valores morales galdosianos. Dada la complejidad de los asuntos que preocupan a Pérez Galdós, más la estrategia narrativa de expresar sus ideas a través de una multitud de personajes, su propia voz o se pierde o se amortigua. Sugiere el crítico que por estas dos razones le es mucho más fácil al lector reconocer aquello que el autor rechaza que aquello en lo que él cree. La incógnita y Realidad representan ejemplos concretos de la ambivalencia galdosiana. En tanto que en la primera las situaciones éticas tienden a ser presentadas de una manera superficial y borrosa, en Realidad estas mismas consideraciones son representadas en toda su amplitud. Como resultado, la verdad de estas situaciones prueba ser muy difícil de ser proyectada sin un elemento de distorsión. Realidad confronta al lector con una conciencia profunda de la realidad, pero es una conciencia nutrida del conocimiento que uno sólo puede contentarse con una aproximación a la esencia de las cosas.

¿Cuáles son las implicaciones de la preocupación que Benito Pérez Galdós parece sentir por la condición humana, la religión y los valores éticos de sus conciudadanos españoles? La conclusión a la que llega Penuel es que, a pesar de la ambigüedad que parece rodear los criterios del novelista, éste condena los valores que rigen la España de la segunda mitad del siglo diecinueve. La manifestación externa del éxito y la apariencia de la virtud han llegado a predominar de tal manera que han logrado suplantar casi en su totalidad los atributos de autenticidad de la sociedad española.

Middlebury College

Those who praised Professor Urey's first book, Galdós and the Irony of Language (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982) as a landmark study of Galdós's contemporary social novels will surely hail her second as a worthy sequal: displaying all the scholarly virtues   —209→   of the first, it is a vibrant re-assessment, in separate chapters, of the last three series of Episodios nacionales.

Urey's premsie is that the Episodios have been unjustly neglected as literary creations, particularly when they repeatedly call attention to their fictionality and that of history itself, thereby calling «into question both the value of representation and the existence of historical truth in discourse and in the world» (10). To demonstrate her thesis, Urey traces the presentation through a number of episodios of such codes as food, rivers, journeys, sex, letter-writing, translation and nomenclatures, with not infrequent recourse to a number of theorists, in particular Niensche, Barthes, Frank and Hayden White.

A firmer and more general pattern of development emerges in the second chapter, where it is claimed that, as the male protagonists of the Fourth Series soon fade out of the picture, women and their sexual activities assume a more prominent role. Teresa Villaescusa is especially important because she illustrates the fundamental nature of the novels in this series: despite her generosity, which surpasses that of all the other characters, the ambivalence of her relationship to the sexual and political codes remains unresolved. She is the contradiction, the exception in the cast of characters, who illustrates the inherent contradiction, or in Hayden White's terms, the aporia that is at the heart of all language, and consequently, the genre of the novel. Urey is very categorical on this point: «Any meaning created in the Episodios nacionales is paradoxical, never unambiguously identifiable, because it can not fix or hold an inherently ambiguous, non-identifiable, unstable medium: language» (146).

In the Fifth Series of episodios Urey sees her argument carried to its logical conclusion: the progression of the characterization from realistic-symbolic to symbolic alone and then to allegorical suggests «a progressive self-consciousness of language's inability to be anything but an inhibiting union of words» (152). The Fifth Series questions both the reader's desire and ability to make sense of the world or, particularly, of Spain, through language. This series also seems to suggest that one can never get outside of the reading experience, or, indeed, outside of language itself. Within the parameters of her thesis, Urey's conclusion is logical enough: if history is writing and writing is metaphor (224), then the only escape from representation or the historical consciousness is a recognition that its bonds and limits (235) are products of the imagination and that one must retreat back into life.

To a certain extent, the previous incarnation of some of these pages as articles in journals determines the contents of this book: for example, not every episodio of every series is studied or even mentioned. Furthermore, dovetailing some of this previously published material does not always avoid unnecessary anticipation or repetition, particularly noticeable in Chapter 1 (cf. 73, 86 and 98). The chapter sub-divisions are not too helpful and at times the reader loses sight of the particular episodio under discussion. An occasional use of a heavy, tripartite, rhetorical sentence structure is not too effective when the claims being made are somewhat excessive, as when, for example, it is declared that each element of Bodas Reales «from its historical and fictional codes, political and temporal plots, to the very style of narration itself, is a retracing of the weave of its language» (75). But such stylistic quibbles pale into insignificance beside the very impressive analyses of the opening paragraphs of many episodios (e.g. 42) -Urey's forte- and the many insightful and thought-provoking observations to be found   —210→   throughout this important study. The reader looks forward with great eagerness to the 1995 publication by Duke Univ. Press of Urey's re-interpretation of the first two series of Episodios.

Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

In Gender and Representation Lou Charnon-Deutsch takes on the daunting task of critical engagement with the patriarchal values and discourse inherent in the canon of Spanish realist fiction. Drawing on an impressive array of resources ranging from periodicals of the 1880s to contemporary feminist theory, the author provides revisionist readings of representative works by Valera, Pereda, Clarín, and Galdós. Her examination of the structures of male power inscribed in fictional texts challenges preconceived notions about Spanish realism and contributes to the redress of a major omission in Spanish literary history.

Charnon-Deutsch articulates cogently the book's central thesis in the «Introduction». She argues that the pervasive, larger-than-life heroines of realist fiction are the result of ideological mediation by a male reader/spectator. Woman is portrayed as the «other», an alternate voice that must be silenced or acculturated through the inculcation of established social roles, predicated on bourgeois moral values. The author brings the perspective of such critics as Cixous, Foucault, and Irigaray to bear on the peculiar female icons that populate both the illustrations and literature of the epoch, concluding that the dominant male ideology distances and distorts woman in order to neutralize her threat of alterity. Verbal and visual images of women from that time convey a polarized concept of femininity, a product of male cathexis that transforms the female into predatory seductress or domestic ideal. Charrion-Deutsch's skilful application of literary theory and careful analysis of period materials render the thesis especially illuminating and persuasive.

Chapter 1 contends that Valera's Pepita Jiménez is a novel encoded with normative patterns of socialization that uphold traditional, gender-specific roles. The heroine is a malleable, protean being, an object of desire whose identity changes with the concept of femininity transferred to her by each male narrator. Pepita is all things in the eyes of all men, and yet, in her relationship with Luis de Vargas she moves ever closer to the fixed role of submissive, adoring wife. Charnon-Deutsch interprets the narrative as an initiation rite in which the protagonist abandons deviant behaviour (excessive religious fervor, wilfulness, mild agression), perceived as alarmingly masculine in nature, to become a true woman with the correct attitude of humble devotion to an idolized male. Pepita's feminization precipitates Luis's masculinization and brings about the apotheosis   —211→   of the perfect marriage between male and female paragons. Valeta's novel reinforces the bourgeois domestic ideal and reveals how society rewards woman's assumption of the proper roles of wife and mother.

The fiction of Pereda, the focus of Chapter 2, displays a similar patriarchal bias. The novelist portrays women as remote, silent figures placed on a pedestal, lovely statues that inspire men to act. They remain monolithic constructs in which physical beauty indicates moral virtue. On the rare occasions when the heroines speak, they do so in a family context, fulfilling the role of helpmate who supports, soothes, and consoles. Charnon-Deutsch describes Pereda's feminine ideal as the «voided female», a nonthinking, non-confrontational woman, who celebrates the reassuring values of hearth and home (46).

Chapter 3 presents the most compelling case for the critical enrichment proferred by re-reading the realist canon from a feminist viewpoint. Charnon-Deutsch analyzes the fiction of Clarín as a conflictive universe in which men and women are embattled spirits perpetually warring with one another. Men, however, have a distinct advantage in this struggle, for they are the rulers who wield the ultimate instrument of power, language, and who possess an innate potential for growth. Bonifacio Reyes emerges at the end of Su único hijo as a hero of epic proportions who has conquered the monstrous, castrating female embodied by Emma and Serafina. Indeed, the negation of feminine domination is an essential part of the hero's ritual of maturation and socialization.

In her discussion of La Regenta, the author explores in greater depth the issue of speech as a structure of power. Charnon-Deutsch sees Ana Ozores as an outsider excluded from Vetusta's society of men and circle of women, and as a victim of her own linguistic inadequacy. Ana can master neither empowering male discourse nor the meaningless, repetitive, gesticulatory discourse of females. Guilty of subconscious complicity with traditional social values, the protagonist contributes to her own downward movement from object of desire to nonentity. Charnon-Deutsch provides penetrating insight into the complex gender-determined forces at work in La Regenta, but at times zealous overstatement mars her observations. While her comparison of Ana Ozores and Emma Bovary aptly underscores the protagonist's progressively compromising behaviour, the parallel she draws between the masochism implicit in the novel's final scene and that of the conclusion of The Story of O subverts the effectiveness of the former comparison (103-04).

Finally, Charnon-Deutsch rightly emphasizes the role of voyeurism in La Regenta as a fundamental aspect of the narrator's voice and as a central source of power originating in the confessional and permeating every level of Vetustan society. But to construe voyeurism in the novel as a function exclusively of gender seems to me to impoverish our understanding of Clarín's indictment of an entire society shot through with moral corruption.

The female characters of Galdós pose the greatest challenge to the accepted norms of feminine conduct and identity. As Charnon-Deutsch explains in the final chapter, Galdosian heroines are often rebels whose inward probing leads them on a quest for power, pitting them against the constraints of kinship and situational roles. Her critical re-evaluation of La de Bringas and La familia de León Roch as negative models of rites of initiation are subtle and convincing. But her analysis of Fortunata y Jacinta tends to   —212→   oversimplify Galdós's complex process of characterization. She reduces Fortunata to a woman whose inner conflict between instinctual desire and a wish for bourgeois respectability ends with submissive self-abnegation and death. This reading ignores the ironic light Galdós casts on Guillermina Pacheco's praise of martyr-like sacrifices and selfdenial, and more importantly, the spiritual merging of Fortunata and Jacinta at the end of the novel.

Charnon-Deutsch's study concludes on a note of aperture in which her original thesis is recontextualized. Recognizing that the male psyche is also mediated by the dominant ideologies of the historical moment, Charnon-Deutsch suggests that the representation of women in Spanish realist fiction is actually a non-gender-specific narrative of repressed desire for alterity. This provocative critical position transforms realist texts into a venue of wish fulfilment and potential self-realization. In Gender and Representation the voiceless «other» of Spanish realist fiction speaks at last.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

While Don Benito's substantial novelistic production has been the focus of sustained literary criticism for many years, it is only in the last decade that «galdosistas» have begun to explore the artistry of his twenty-two plays. More limited in scope than Stanley Finkenthal's El teatro de Galdós (Madrid, 1980) or Carmen Menéndez Onrubia's Introducción al teatro de Benito Pérez Galdós (Madrid, 1983), Lisa Pauline Condé's latest monograph studies women's roles in the six plays written between 1892 and 1895.

In her «Introduction» Condé offers a concise review of existing criticism concerned with Galdós's theatre, including papers given at the 1985 Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos in Las Palmas, as well as longer works not solely devoted to his plays. Explaining the methodology she will use in the present volume, the author states: «Through a fuller utilisation of the manuscripts available than has to date been afforded, it is hoped that this study will go some way towards the illumination both of Galdós' creative process and of his original intentions, facilitated by a closer analysis of the published text and the influence of contemporary critical and biographical factors» (28). It is with this biographical criticism in mind that Condé devotes her first chapter to the «Women in Galdós' Life», Primarily drawing on correspondence between Don Benito and various paramours. This chapter, which can be considered a companion to Condé's earlier study, Stages in the Development of a Feminist Consciousness in Pérez Galdós (1843-1920): A Biographical Sketch (Lewiston, New York, 1990), centres on Galdós's wellknown relationships with Emilia Pardo Bazán and Concha-Ruth Morell. Chapter 2 deals with the «nueva dirección» taken by Galdós on the occasion of the première of Realidad   —213→   in 1892, citing reasons he gave for this development in his literary career. Though perhaps useful to new readers, seasoned «galdosistas» may find this review of the state of the contemporary Spanish stage superfluous.

The following three chapters are dedicated to Realidad, clearly indicating the importance of this play both for Galdós's dramatic production and for the present work. «The Creation of Realidad, Drama (1892)» compares sections of four manuscript originals of Realidad housed in the Casa-Museo in Las Palmas. By tracing Galdós's revisions of the first version, Condé wishes to «shed light on both the artistic and the ideological developments and adjustments undergone by Galdós during this crucial turning point in his career, and consider the effects of external influences and pressures on the final version of the play which formed his dramatic début» (99). The following chapter, «The Complexity of Women's Roles in Realidad», forms the core of Condé's discussion of Realidad. It is here that she analyzes the plays female characters, again comparing the different manuscripts and at times returning to the novel version in order to show the evolution of Galdós's ideas. In «Contemporary Response to Galdós' Dramatic Debut», Condé draws on material from numerous reviews of the play, concentrating on passages which discuss the female characters. The final two chapters, which examine the other five plays (El sacrificio, La loca de la casa, La de San Quintin, Los condenados and Voluntad), follow the same methodology as that used for Realidad, though the treatment of these works is necessarily much less comprehensive.

The «Bibliography» is helpful for primary sources and contemporary and modern criticism on Galdós's theatre. However, the sections on literary theory and feminism fail to take into account recent developments in these areas (the most recent entry for the former is dated 1982). Condé closes her volume with twenty-one appendices which reproduce pages of several original manuscripts, or revisions, as well as some correspondence. While «galdosistas» always delight in seeing samples of Don Benito's originals, the quality of the reproductions makes the reading of some of the words quite difficult.

It is clear that Condd spent many hours at the Casa-Museo studying the manuscripts, and her efforts should certainly be praised. But this volume is only a beginning: Galdós's theatre and women's roles in nineteenth-century Spanish literature are two areas which have been overlooked for far too long and deserve further study.

Bowdoin College

This book, awarded, so we are informed, the Adèle Mellen Prize «for its distinguished contribution to scholarship», follows hot on the heels of Lisa Condé's Women in the Theatre of Galdós: From «Realidad» (1892) to «Voluntad» (1895), also   —214→   published in 1990 by the Mellen Press, whose Director Lisa Condé thanks for «proposing the writing of this book last summer». The haste with which the book seems to have been conceived and written no doubt accounts for its weaknesses. Condé's aim is to explore the evolution of what she describes as «Galdós' feminist consciousness» by focusing on «selected key roles of real and fictional women in the writer's life and worle» (4). Her approach, she candidly acknowledges, is «selective and to some degree speculative» (11). The notion of a biography devoted exclusively to the novelist's relationship with, and attitude towards, women is slightly bizarre. However, there are, as Condé puts it, many «shadows of mystery surrounding this enigmatic genius» (6) and any study which sheds new light on the facts of Galdós's life is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, this book does not fall into that category. Although Condé makes use of some archival material -letters and manuscripts- in the later chapters on the theatre, in part the subject of her earlier book, her account of Galdós's supposed evolution is notably short on original research. Having diligently combed existing biographical studies for their references to Galdós's relationships with women, Condé has turned to Galdós's fiction to supplement fact with hypothesis. Here too most of the material is familiar: old arguments about the relationship between Galdós's mother and Doña Perfecta, Juanita Lund and Irene, Galdós and Máximo Manso/Feijoo/Ángel Guerra, Concha Ruth Morell and Tristana and so on, are recycled. Biography and fiction are invoked indiscriminately without so much as a hint that the relationship between them might be problematic. Speculation links life and literature and the text is rife with expressions such as «it is possible that», «perhaps», «might», «arguably», «could well». A whole chapter, for example, is devoted to the proposition that Galdós's portrayal of the operation of the double standard of morality «could well» be an expression of his own sense of guilt. Apparently oblivious of Galdós's irony, Condé makes simplistic equations between the attitudes of the novelist and the cynical confessions of guilt made by such equivocal characters as Juanito Santa Cruz and José María Bueno de Guzmán. Needless to say, no independent evidence that Galdós even experienced remorse at his own sexual conduct is offered. Similarly, no factual support is provided for the gratuitous assertion that «one might well speculate that some of Galdós' own financial problems had been exacerbated by such 'pasión de lujo' [...] described so intimately and in such detail in these novels, an obsession perhaps shared by one or more of his female acquaintances» (127). The examples could be multiplied. Fancy reigns over fact and, appropriately enough, this tale of a closet feminist who eventually comes out is told in a series of chapters whose titles are distinctly reminiscent of the «folletín» -«Early Rebellion», «Hesitation and Confusion», «Guilt and Contradiction», «The Moment of Dilemma», «Final Surrender».

Although Condé pays tribute to the complexity of Galdós's artistic world, her banal and repetitious analyses do little to illuminate it. Novels and plays are raided for evidence of Galdós's supposed increasing sensitivity to feminist questions and much is made of recurring «feminist» imagery: tight corsets and clipped wings, the latter encapsulating, it is claimed, «the very roots of feminism» (351). Such images and the concepts explored through them, argues Condé, «are still highly significant today, despite the antiquity of their presentation» (323). The endeavour to show us a Galdós who eventually presented woman in society «in a manner which would not be inconsistent with modern feminist attitudes and aspirations» (227), -he is found to be in tune with Simone de Beauvoir,   —215→   Kate Millet, Toril Moi, Hélène Cixous and other contemporary feminist thinkers- is, at the very least, anachronistic. There is no doubt that Galdós's concept of woman's role did change over the years, becoming in some ways more progressive, though hardly feminist, but this evolution can be understood properly only when set in the historical and social context of the period. Unfortunately, the author's grasp of this is somewhat fragile: although the book spans practically the whole of Galdós's literary production from the late 1870s to the 1910s, there is little sense of the changing historical circumstances which favoured the emergence of a new ideal of womanhood.

In addition to being under-researched and poorly argued, this book is badly written. The following gem is not untypical: «Completely enmeshed in the superficiality of society's façade and dictates, it is essential that Rosalía should present herself at all times 'fuertemente oprimida dentro de un buen corsé'» (117). The scholarly apparatus is also unsatisfactory. The bibliography is inconsistent: Condé sometimes provides both the place of publication and the publisher, sometimes only the former and sometimes only the latter. Page references of articles in journals are not cited; editors of collective volumes are sometimes given and sometimes not; titles of books in English are capitalized but those of articles are not. Condé's lack of attention to detail is illustrated in the following reference: «Pardo Bazán, Emilia, La mujer española y otros artículos feministas (Madrid, 1976). (First published in La España Moderna, 17, 1890)» (334). There is no reference to the editor of the anthology, Leda Schiavo, or to the publisher, Editora Nacional; the correct title is simply La mujer española; only the first part of the first article was originally published in La España Moderna, año II, número 17 (mayo 1890), 101-13; the other three parts of that article appeared in later numbers of the same journal and the other nine articles reproduced in the anthology originally appeared in the Nuevo Teatro Crítico. Finally, there is an index, but this is of decidedly limited utility since, as the author wisely warns us, it «is a guide and not intended to he exhaustive» (351).

King's College, University of London.

The Episodios nacionales are perhaps the most difficult of all Galdós's works to render satisfactorily in English, which may perhaps explain, in part, why they are so rarely attempted. This is a pity, because good translations of them, which could be assigned to and read by history students, would be enormously helpful in spreading Galdós's reputation. His avowed purpose in penning the Episodios was to enable the Spaniard of his day to understand and come to grips with his own history. To carry that purpose through in a translation, a cultural ocean and temporal century away, requires a lot of homework on the part of the translator.

A good translation of an episodio calls for more than a clear English rendering of the   —216→   language plus an occasional footnote for an obscure cultural aspect. It calls for an extremely clear explanation of the historical moment and the historical individuals being dealt with, for even those history scholars specializing in European history are apt to be regrettably ignorant when it comes to Spanish history, and to appear vaguely puzzled, as if trying to decide if the correct response is «gesundheit», when the world «Carlist» is uttered in their presence.

This historical background can be presented to the reader in a variety of ways: the «Introduction» may be very detailed, with only an occasional footnote in the text proper; or the «Introduction» may be rather general, with reliance on extensive footnotes in the text. A map showing the various locales would certainly be extremely helpful for readers unlikely to be able to locate even Madrid with any degree of accuracy. A descriptive cast of characters (separating the historical from the purely fictional) would not come at all amiss.

The Campaign of the Maestrazgo, alas, simply does not give the reader an adequate footing for entering into and understanding the text. The «Introduction» is rather briefthere are approximately two and a half pages (plus a listing of the Novelas) on Galdós himself, in which it is put forward as clear fact that he was educated in English schools in the Canaries and that he had several children to support. A page and a half, plus a listing of titles, is devoted to a discussion of the Episodios. A further two and a half pages treat the Carlist Wars and The Campaign of the Maestrazgo.

The brevity of the «Introduction» might well have been offset by good footnotes but it is not. And here the translator is, in all likelihood, more sinned against than sinning. There are footnote numbers scattered throughout the text, especially in the earlier pages (eight, indeed, within the first four). There are, alas, no notes to accompany these tantalizing numbers. The reviewer contacted the publisher, who determined that the notes had indeed been submitted with the rest of the text, but had somehow not been included in the final, printed volume. This is certainly not the translator's fault, but the result is a work which is factually and historically unintelligible -a situation made all the worse by the sight of those numbers dangling a promise of help which is not then forthcoming, and reducing the reader to a state of teeth-grinding apoplexy.

The translator's notes may or may not have been adequate to meet the needs of the text and the reader. There are a number of places where one would have expected to find a note, and there is no number, but these matters could conceivably have been dealt with in earlier, forward-projecting notes. It is simply impossible to make an educated guess under these circumstances.

Another problem which may also lie at the publisher's door is the omission of all diacritical marks, attributed in a prefatory statement to a desire to facilitate the reading; it has quite the opposite effect, and one suspects that software limitations are much more likely to have been the actual reason for their elimination. There are a fair number of typographical errors as well, occurring primarily in non-English words: «carinera» for «cariñena», «Caltelseras» for «Castelserás», «propose» for «propos».

The translation itself presents some problems. Vocabulary choices such as «cad» and «by jingles» are so outdated as to «antique» the entire text unnecessarily. English constructions themselves sometimes go slightly askew: «consolation 'for' the loss of freedom» becomes «consolation 'in' the loss of freedom», and so forth.

  —217→  

Idiom and usage fall victim on occasion to literalism: weavers «fabricate» cloth, rather than simply «making» or «producing» it; Don Beltrán announces that an innkeeper «doesn't want» to give him lodging, rather than that he has «refused»; «no sé a qué carta quedarme» is rendered as «I do not know which card to keep», rather than as the more readily intelligible «I don't know which way to jump». This kind of literalism results in a choppy text and leads now and again to an actual mistranslation: «Esta tarasca me ha perdido», for example, is given as «This old battleax has lost me», rather than «has been my downfall»; while «dormilón», used to modify «gato» in a description of Cabrera meant to indicate that appearances are deceiving, is given the reverse twist by a translation of «he is a sleepyhead».

Even so, over-literalism is not uncommon in a first translation, and is certainly to be preferred to the opposite extreme, in which a translator may reject sentences and whole paragraphs he/she doesn't particularly like and produce replacements which sound very well in English, but in fact bear little or no relationship, in content or in form, to those of the original. Guzman's translation is understandable, (and would be even more so were the notes to hand), if not particularly readable. However, some of its passages, gracefully and compellingly conveyed, are far better than others: the feast and massacre of Burjasot, for example, is utterly hair-raising, and the reader has a definite sense of being present as a witness to the whole horrifying scene.

Under the circumstances, the publisher would perhaps do well to recall the present volume, simply on the grounds of the missing footnotes. This would give the translator time both to add to the ancillary critical material, if the missing notes are not, in fact, very substantial, and to polish and smooth the English somewhat. The result might be a very good translation, and Galdós stands in great need of good, available translations.

University of Southern Mississippi

Much of modern and postmodern literature is written either implicitly or explicitly for a reader who actively participates in the production of textual meaning. Yet recent studies devoted to Galdós and Clarin have also highlighted the complexity of the interpretative act in nineteenth-century realist novels often considered semantically overdetermined and transparent by subsequent generations of writers and critics. To name but one example of this new trend, Diane Urey's Galdós and the Irony of Language (Cambridge Univ. Press. 1982), though not expressly devoted to a study of the reader, underscores the exegetical subtleties created by Don Benito's linguistic play and by his insistent subversion of the conventions that constitute a kind of literary shorthand for author and audience alike.

With Discurso y lector, Gabriela Pozzi offers both a brief summary of theoretical   —218→   formulations on the reader and a look at the role of the reader in four novels written prior to the culmination of the realist mode in Spain. Her introduction defines the implied reader (the focus of her investigation), whom she carefully distinguishes from the narratee and from real readers. Following Iser and Eco, Pozzi views the implied reader as a textual construct determined by the degree of literary competence and the reading repertoire required to process and interpret the text successfully. The first two chapters of Discurso y lector are devoted to novels written before 1850 -El doncel de don Enrique el Doliente (1834) and the Vida de Pedro Saputo (1844)- which she considers representative, respectively, of the historical novel and the fantastic novel. The final chapter, which proposes to outline differences between the role of the implied reader in the idealist and the realist novel, is a comparative study of two novels written after 1850: Pepita Jiménez (1874) and Doña Perfecta (1876). While clearly written, all of the central chapters are divided into numerically-headed subsections. The fragmentation created by this stylistic feature is compounded by a tendency to lose sight of the main topic (the implied reader), particularly in the discussion of internovel dialogue between Pepita Jiménez and Doña Perfecta.

Each of the chapters in Discurso y lector provides well-researched analyses of the novels under examination. Pozzi's discussion of El doncel enriches our understanding of the mechanics and conventions of the historical novel as it uncovers a «lector corto de memoria y de exigua capacidad inferencial» (142). Similarly, her study of Pedro Saputo brings critical attention to a novel frequently overlooked by scholars, and it incorporates valuable bibliography on the fantastic in literature, while tracing a process of readerly «desdoblamiento» and a reading experience somewhat more complex than that offered by El doncel. In the final chapter, Pozzi details descriptive parallels between Pepita Jiménez and Doña Perfecta, and elaborates on the inversion of the «locus amoenus» in Galdós's novel. Above all, however, this section purports to define the realist and idealist novel based on the role that each assigns to the reader.

Any definition of genres that is based on two texts is risky; and the use of an ideologically slanted novel from Galdós's early period as a model for realism is also questionable. While her overall impression of a more involved reader in Doña Perfecta may indeed be correct, a later Galdós work would have better illustrated her hypothesis of a chronological development by genre towards a greater interpretative sophistication. As it is, readers of Discurso y lector may wonder if Pozzi does not stretch her analyses of both Pepita Jiménez and Doña Perfecta to fit her conclusion. For example, while Pozzi downplays the narrative intricacies created by multiple and unreliable narrators in Valera's novel (93), she also assumes that a greater degree of descriptive detail in Doña Perfecta necessarily calls for a more active reader. One might also argue that a plethora of detail leaves less room for imaginative play between reader and text, and contributes to what Roland Barthes has called the readerly nature or limited plurality of the classical realist novel.

There is little question that the Novelas contemporáneas are, as a rule, more plural than Doña Perfecta and that their hermeneutical ambiguities arise, not so much from ever-increasing attention to detail, but from incessant experimentation with irony and parody, with narrative structure and technique. It is disappointing, then, that Pozzi has chosen to exclude them from her book, along with the works of other major Spanish   —219→   realist writers. Four novels constitute a sparse sample for an investigation that proposes to establish generic typologies, even for the period between 1834 and 1876. Discurso y lector would better fit its title and would be a richer study of the implied reader, were it to include other well-known novelists of the period (Fernán Caballero, Alarcón) and multiple examples of the genres under consideration. Instead, this book is a suggestive first look at the historical development of the implied reader in the nineteenth-century Spanish novel.

Brown University

Una vez más Brian J. Dendle nos ofrece el fruto de sus investigaciones sobre Benito Pérez Galdós. Ahora se trata de una recopilación de diez artículos de Galdós, una carta suya y diez más referentes a él, todos publicados en La Esfera, revista de arte editada desde 1914 hasta 1930. Se reconoce la participación de Galdós en La Esfera sobre todo porque es ésta la revista que publicó en trece entregas Memorias de un desmemoriado durante la primavera y el verano de 1916. Pero Galdós también contribuyó otros textos, menos conocidos o por no haber sido reeditados hasta el momento o por ser casi inasequibles. Así es que el presente libro de Dendle nos llena una pequeña laguna en la bibliografía galdosiana.

Dividido en cinco partes (un prólogo, tres capítulos y un apéndice), Galdós y «La Esfera» comienza con un breve estudio en el que Dendle sitúa La Esfera en el ámbito cultural de la época y resume tanto la participación de Galdós en las páginas de la revista como el contenido de los diez artículos aquí reunidos. Se dedica el segundo capítulo a los mismos escritos galdosianos, y el tercero a semblanzas y necrologías referentes a Galdós, entre otros textos. En el apéndice se enumeran breves menciones y los varios retratos de Galdós que aparecen en la revista a lo largo de sus dieciséis años de publicación.

Sin lugar a dudas, los textos más interesantes son los de Galdós, que se pueden agrupar según su carácter anecdótico y literario, o su índole marcadamente histórica. El primer grupo comprende el discurso pronunciado por Galdós en homenaje a los directores de la revista, publicado en 1915 (31-34), una reflexión sobre aspectos del Quijote de 1915 (42-49; 49-53), y un retrato de José María Carretero, «El Caballero Audaz», a modo de prólogo al libro Lo que sé por mí, de éste, de 1916 (65-69). Los artículos más o menos históricos incluyen una consideración sumamente personal de las relaciones entre España y las Américas de 1914 (29-30), en el que Galdós concluye que «es América, la civilización conquistada con sangre y laureles de guerra, que ahora, con filial generosidad, a su vez nos conquista trayéndonos laureles más preciosos: el bienestar, la cultura y la paz» (30); el recuerdo también personal de la reina Isabel II, de 1920 (70-71) y la carta que le mandó Galdós a Francisco Verdugo, director de La Esfera, con un retrato de la Reina, que   —220→   lleva una dedicación al escritor, de 1920 (71). Sobre todo se destacan los artículos dedicados a la primera Guerra Mundial, a saber, «Pesadilla sin fin» de 1915 (34-38), su continuación (38-42) y la también bipartita «La guerra europea. Pesadilla sin fin» del mismo año (54-60; 60-65). En estos artículos Galdós pasa revista a la historia contemporánea con observaciones específicas a varios países implicados en el conflicto internacional. En cuanto a su patria, escribe en el primer apartado de la necesaria neutralidad y luego de la situación política actual:

Por la fuerza de la realidad, España tiene que mantenerse en una neutralidad exquisitamente observada. Llevando nuestro país en su seno la dolencia de que hemos hablado, no puede ofrecer a ninguno de los beligerantes un apoyo militar. Los que sentimos ardiente simpatía por los aliados hemos de declararlo así. Carecemos de unidad en el sentimiento que mueve a los hombres a toda empresa heroica. Si nos propusiéramos intervenir, los áspides que llevamos en nuestro organismo nos quitarían la buena intención. Alguien ha dicho que para destruir tales áspides o privarles de su malicia, sería necesaria una revolución. No me atrevo a desear una revolución más, porque desde que nacimos a la vida constitucional hemos tenido algunas, y todas han pasado sin dar cuenta de las molestas alimañas que se alojan en todas las cavidades del cuerpo nacional. A las revoluciones preferiríamos la labor medicatriz de un gobierno tan liberal como enérgico, cualquiera que fuera su nombre o apodo, gobierno que se aplicara con patriótica valentía a combatir y desarraigar los males que nos hacen caducos cuando queremos rejuvenecernos.

(36-37)

Dado el conservadurismo de La Esfera y su apoyo posterior a la dictadura de Miguel Primo de Rivera, dos cosas mencionadas por Dendle en su introducción (13; 15), no podemos por menos de pensar en cuál hubiera sido la reacción de Galdós a los acontecimientos históricos de los 20 y su colaboración continuada en la revista. Sin poder hacer más que imaginar dicha reacción, tendremos que reflexionar sobre los textos existentes, a los cuales podemos agregar los aquí reunidos por Dendle, a quien agradecemos tanto el hallazgo como su diseminación.

Brandeis University

Akiko Tsuchiya presents an intelligent and convincing demonstration of how Galdós's novels display their function as linguistic signs. She offers detailed examinations of several novels, Fortunata y Jacinta, Tristana, La incógnita, El doctor Centeno, and parts of the First Series of the Episodios nacionales, proposing, through an «eclectic use of general semiotic theory [...] to articulate the theory of the sign that is embodied in Galdós's texts» (3). In pursuing this theory Tsuchiya sees no conflict in the novels' dual aspects of realism and self-referentiality. Instead, she claims that this «tension between two opposing visions of the sign» (8), the one referential or mimetic,   —221→   and the other self-referential or metafictional, forms the «basic paradigm that underlies all of the novels under discussion» (9). The novels she studies include a variety of narrative forms -omniscient narration, pseudo-autobiography, epistolary, dialogue, and combinations of these. They all depict the struggles of the characters to resolve the tensions between «two theories of the sign», struggles which mirror the novelistic process «which seeks to create the illusion of reality at the same time as it reveals itself to be an autonomous fiction» (8).

Tsuchiya's interpretations provide fresh insights into even some of the best-studied of Galdós's novels. In Fortunata y Jacinta she finds that Maxi, as a reader and creator of signs, reflects the «madness of literature», as Shoshana Felman calls it. Maxi's madness is a result of his efforts to belong to society, expressed by his acceptance of a referential relationship between language and society, and his view of himself as an autonomous entity apart from wholly arbitrary connections between words and reality. Maxi's first signs of madness can be seen early in Part 2 of the novel, where he questions established meanings of words like «dormir», «despertar», and «levantarse»; this moment of «semiotic disjunction» is also the first instance where the reader enters directly into the character's thoughts (13-14). Tsuchiya attaches great importance to Maxi's shifting perspective on language, since his «interpretation and creation of signs call attention to the semiotic process of the novel, and by doing so, invite a reading of the text as an implicit theory of language» (15-16). The novel contains many «semiotic systems», like the hypocritical society whose signs do not correspond to reality (16). Maxi's course in Fortunata y Jacinta proceeds from his rejection of conventional relationships between words and things, a temporary acceptance of society's codes of expression and behaviour, the use of words as weapons, i.e. against Fortunata, and his literal loss of words. Finally, he «transcends» both language and society, becoming completely indifferent to them, as shown in his closing sentence, «Pongan al llamado Maximiliano Rubín en un palacio o en un muladar... lo mismo da». Maxi's changing attitudes to language self-consciously reflect the contradictory aspects of the narrative process and «reveal the basic linguistic paradigm behind Galdós's discourse» (35).

In contrast to Maxi, who seeks mainly to separate language from reality, Felipe, in El doctor Centeno, believes in a «natural language» that will disclose not only reality but «truth». Tsuchiya uncovers the «semiotic message» of this relatively unexplored novel, showing how Felipe's entrance into society and the novel, «takes a specifically linguistic form». In his first verbal exchange upon entering the city, he literally deconstructs language by adding the prefix 'des-' to certain words. The distortion of language symbolically marks his introduction into a deceptive world where signs never mean what they seem to say» (39). While seeking to become part of bourgeois society, Felipe «unintentionally lays bare the duplicity of the social sign» (40). His own discourse parodies his native realism, his belief in the fundamental referentiality of language. Moreover, his conception of the relationship between language and world is contrary to that held by his two masters, Pedro Polo and Alejandro Miquis. Polo manipulates the signs of society and tries to conceal the gap between sign and referent in order to appear successful and achieve upward mobility; he thus represents the deceptive system of society as a whole. Miquis, on the other hand, «acknowledges this gap through his   —222→   creative activity», construing a world of fiction that rejects its connection to reality (51). Felipe passes through both of these systems in his search for a «natural sign»; yet it is through his efforts to understand his two masters and the semiotic systems they embody that the novel reveals his conception to be a myth. Again, as with Maxi, Felipe's trajectory «exposes the tension in the text between two opposing theories of the sign» (54).

The chapter on Tristana is a successful reconciliation of semiotic and feminist concerns of the novel. Tsuchiya shows how, through Tristana's evolution from blank page, creator and self-creation, to silence and withdrawal from the world, the novel is a «self-conscious meditation on the sign through Tristana's struggle for autonomy, both as a woman and as a linguistic construct of her own invention» (57). Tristana not only invents herself, but also a language which would «engender new realities for womed through terms like «médicas», «abogadas», and «boticarias». Her function as a creator of self and others -particularly Horacio- reverses conventional roles of male author and female text (64). Her «defense of feminist principles is directly related to her creative role; she seeks to impose her own text on the male subject, rather than conforming to the role of the woman as the text to be written» (67). However, Tristana's idealized creations of self and Horacio cannot exist outside of language: «By thus transporting herself onto a metalinguistic plane, she sets herself at twice remove from the referential world» (73). With her progressive incapacity to control her identity through words, symbolized most poignantly in the amputation of her leg and in her relinquishment of her letter-writing to Don Lope, Tristana also loses her self-created feminist identity. The complete absence of her voice in the last part of the novel reflects her withdrawal from and indifference to the world. Tsuchiya sees this withdrawall however, as Tristana's ultimate triumph over reality, since she rejects «any link to it, an act that represents a logical culmination of her trajectory in the novel as creator of signs» (78). Like Maxi, Tristana rejects the world as her novel comes to an end.

Manuel Infante of La incógnita is also both an interpreter and a creator of signs. And as a letter-writer his «meditation on language» is even more explicit than that of the other characters. In well-chosen examples Tsuchiya demonstrates that Infante's «search for truth through the act of writing presupposes a belief in the referentiality of language; at the same time, a belief in the autonomy of language underlies the artistic transformation of his letters into serial novel form' (93). Infante thus exemplifies, again, two contradictory attitudes toward the sign, «which form the basic semiotic paradigm of all the works examined (83). The transformation of this epistolary novel into the dialoguenovel of Realidad reveals more mysteries and ambiguities, not the truth that Infante has sought. In fact, this «magical transformation [...] symbolizes the autonomy of the language of fiction rather than its enslavement to truth» (104). Realidad fails to answer the many «incógnitas» of the novel, about Viera's death or Augusta's honour, that Infante has tried to decipher in his letters to Equis. Instead, this novel launches «the reader upon yet another interpretive journey». Echoing Todorov's commentary about Henry James's story «The Figure in the Carpet», Tsuchiya writes that «The solution to the enigma of writing is infinitely deferred, for the ultimate meaning of the quest is to be found in the quest itself» (105).

  —223→  

The last chapter of this study, «History as Language in the First Series of the Episodios nacionales», is perhaps the most provocative. Here Tsuchiya examines the «literary self-creation» of the narrator and protagonist, Gabriel Araceli, through his history of himself between 1805 and 1813. She describes Gabriel's «apprenticeship to the sign» and the progressive transformation beginning in the second volume of the series, La corte de Carlos IV (109), although there is much evidence that it already begins in Trafalgar. While she offers incisive commentary on several of the episodios, most of the chapter deals with La corte de Carlos IV. In this novel Gabriel meets, and literally «invents», the Countess Amaranta, an expert «decoder» and «encoder» of signs (113), and her daughter, his beloved Inés. Amaranta's chief importance lies in her demonstration of the deceptive nature of social and linguistic signs, a lesson which Gabriel learns well enough by the fifth episodio, Napoleón en Chamartín, to rival her «in the art of fiction-making», and by the eighth episodio, Cádiz, in the «art of role-playing» (120). Tsuchiya reads the First Series as a depiction of Gabriel's gradual loss of his nalve view of referentiality. The tension between the adult narrator, aware of the arbitrary and independent nature of language, and the adolescent protagonist, who gradually loses his innocence, illustrates the tension between two views of language, as in the other novels examined. By the final volume of the series, La batalla de los Arapiles, Gabriel completely «reinvents» himself with the urgings of the romanticizing Englishwoman, Miss Fly. Gabriel plays the hero in her story, aware that he is a «text to be read by others», anticipating his «textual self-transformation through the writing of his memoirs» (123). In the process of creating himself as a literary sign, Gabriel also exposes the «linguistic nature of his historical writing», which, like all «history», is «a rewriting of another text» (125). Through numerous textual examples, Tsuchiya demonstrates well how the First Series «lays bare the fictional nature of history-making by dramatizing the awakening of the narrator's consciousness of the linguistic sign» (127). She convincingly argues that the Episodios nacionales, just like the Novelas contemporáneas, «dramatize the tension between historical representation and fictional creation, between mimesis and metafiction» (128). Her analyses of these «historical novels» as linguistic artifacts, like Galdós's «fictional novels», thus constitute a welcome addition to the scholarly re-examination of the episodios, texts which have been largely marginalized in Galdós studies, and whose recognition as significant works of art is still in embryonic form.

Images of the Sign is an illuminating and careful study of some of the more problematic aspects of Galdós's novels, and a valuable contribution to the reconsideration of Galdosian texts in light of recent theoretical perspectives. Tsuchiya reminds us of Galdós's essential role both as an exemplary «realist» and as a figure, who, because of his overt self-consciousness, also occupies a key place in the transition from the «pure realism» she sees in authors like Clarin and Flaubert (133) to twentieth-century avantgarde fiction. Far from being redundant, Tsuchiya' study testifies to the vast territory yet to be explored and discovered in Galdós. Her analyses of both well-known and lesserknown novels provide still more evidence of the importance of understanding the semiotic consciousness of Galdós's novels and readers alike.

Illinois State University

  —224→  

La mera existencia de una traducción de Ángel Guerra al inglés marca un hito en la trabajosa peregrinación de las novelas de Galdós hacia el público anglohablante. El que la versión que acabamos de leer haya salido de las hábiles manos de Karen Austin, tras años de intensa labor, representa un acierto como hay pocos.

Novela es ésta de las más complejas y difíciles del maestro. Una prosa densa y variopinta, con más alardes que las habituales de valores simbólicos y metafóricos. De todas las novelas de Galdós escritas después de Fortunata y Jacinta, Ángel Guerra es, sin duda, la que trata más rigurosa y atormentadamente de «la cuestión espiritual». Para este lector siempre fue el más difícil y el menos ameno de todos los escritos de don Benito.

De manera que nos parecía que el cometido que, años ha, emprendiera Karen Austin, había de ser a la vez dura y complicadísima. La brillantez de su anterior traducción de La sombra iba a ser puesta a prueba en una empresa de vastas e insospechadas dimensiones. Al mismo tiempo, era más que evidente que de los «traductores al uso» Austin era la única que se iba a atrever a «procesar» ese denso y larguísimo texto. Para retos, Karen Austin.

Lo que hay que decir en el primer momento es que aquí el lector encuentra una prosa inglesa que no sabe a traducción. Se podría decir -¡cosa curiosa!- que la lectura de la traducción de K. Austin resulta tal vez un poco más placentera que la del texto original. Esto se debe en gran parte a un procedimiento de la traductora, una técnica que encuentro genial: la constante aclaración de la sintaxis del original, conseguida por re-arreglos, divisiones de frases, y el constante empleo de una puntuación racional y clara. Es genial la división de los larguísimos párrafos del original en otros mucho más cortos. El libro se lee sin nudos, y sin necesidad de volver sobre lo ya leído.

La cuestión de la postura narrativa, de la voz que narra, es la más difícil de resolver, en cualquier traducción de Galdós. La problemática relación entre la postura del narrador y el sentido moral de la novela (de fundamental importancia en una novela como La de Bringas, p. ej.) es aquí tratada en una manera campechana y tal vez un poco simplista, pero sin hacer mayor daño. Hay que hacer constar que en Ángel Guerra Galdós no se ha metido en muchas honduras de perspectiva, que hay una sorprendente constancia de punto de vista. A la vez, nos habría gustado ver en la traducción un poco menos de narración incolora y «matter-of-fact».

El tono de los pasajes de conversación, y la reproducción de los «estilos» personales de los personajes, notablemente en el caso de Leré, representan un acierto notable. Es aquí donde casi no sospechamos la existencia de un texto en otro idioma. Rara vez encontramos algo que desentona, algo que nos impele a consultar el texto de Galdós con el solo propósito de buscar una palabra más perfecta. Me refiero a muy contados pasajes: por ejemplo, aquello de que «Doña Catalina put her rwo cents worth in immediately» (427). En la página 371, la expresión «fish or cut bait» es al mismo tiempo una brillante solución de «o herrar o quitar el banco» y también una salida de tono. Habría sido más armónica una expresión menos específicamente piscatorial, quizás «put up or shut up» o algo   —225→   por el estilo. Pero me hago cargo de que son pequeñeces; la inmensa mayoría de la expresión familiar sale en un inglés que no es ni regional ni soso.

El impresionante tomo que es esta traducción ha de ocupar un espacio privilegiado en las bibliotecas públicas y universitarias. Y al igual que otros muchos galdosistas, yo espero que, al lado de otras versiones en inglés, Ángel Guerra vaya abriendo paso al debido conocimiento de la obra de Galdós en el mundo de habla inglesa.

Dartmouth College

Although the Casa-Museo Pérez Galdós is the storehouse for a wealth of Galdosian materials, the full extent of its holdings has long remained something of a mystery to all but the few scholars who have travelled to examine its collections. Thanks, finally, to the considerable efforts of Sebastián de la Nuez and his collaborator Marcos G. Martínez, a single-volume catalogue listing the entire contents of the Casa-Museo's archives is now available.

The catalogue is divided into three major sections: the first and largest, dealing with Galdós's personal library, serves as an updated version of H. Chonon Berkowins La biblioteca de Benito Pérez Galdós (Las Palmas: El Museo Canario, 1951), which was published before the Santander and Madrid collections were purchased by the Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria and installed in the Casa-Museo. Since a small number of books were never moved to Las Palmas, and others have been added over the course of the last forty years, Berkowitis study no longer is an accurate reflection of the current library holdings. The usefulness of this early catalogue is further diminished by its outdated identification numbers: they no longer correpond to the classification system now in practice at the Casa-Museo. In order to facilitate matters for scholars, De La Nuez provides a cross-reference to Berkowitz's numerical system for each entry in his own catalogue. Therefore, each item has two identification numbers: the one found in Berkowitz and the one currently used by the Casa-Museo. This feature will be especially helpful for scholars who wish to verify the status of individual books listed in Berkowitz's catalogue. In addition, De la Nuez indicates the condition of each book. Unfortunately, the key to the descriptions (on pages 6 and 31) is in error on an important point. The abbreviations «A» and «AN» are both listed as indicating books that are «anotados». In reality, «AN» is the only designation for «anotado». The staff at the Casa-Museo, after consultation with De la Nuez, informed me that «A» indicates «abierto» and refers to books that have been opened but are without markings. Other descriptive abbreviations are «AC» («acotado»), «AP» («apuntes»), «C» («cerrado»), «D» («dedicado»), and «S» («subrayado»). The collection is broken down into well-organized and clearly defined topics, and statistical data is provided concerning the number of books in each area.   —226→   Nevertheless, because of the absence of page references in the index, the task of finding a specific book in this catalogue becomes unduly cumbersome. This section of the catalogue is marred also by numerous typographical errors, especially in the listing of foreign titles. The English literature section, for example, has several misspellings per page. Also, there is a lack of consistency in both the capitalization and spacing of the abbreviations, resulting in some confusion between the «AC», «A», and «C» designations. Furthermore, in leafing through a random sampling of books on the Casa-Museo shelves, I found some discrepancies between the abbreviated description of certain books and their actual condition. A more careful proofreading of the text before publication could have avoided these errors which, when found in a bibliographical study such as this, undermine its reliability as an authoritative reference work.

The real strength of De la Nuez's catalogue lies in its remaining sections. Although the second section is only ten pages long, it is a comprehensive guide to Galdós's original manuscripts and galley proofs. Rather than limiting himself to the Casa-Museo's holdings, De la Nuez includes information concerning other collections as well. He cites the identification numbers for the manuscripts and galleys kept in the Biblioteca Nacional and states the location of those housed elsewhere. This multiple-collection listing win act as a handy reference tool for ascertaining the existence and whereabouts of individual manuscripts. For more information on the Biblioteca Nacional's holdings, scholars can then consult Alan Smith's extensive description of those documents (Anales Galdosianos 20.2 [1985]: 143-56). Indeed, Smith's study is an excellent companion piece to De la Nuez's full treatment of the manuscripts and galleys in the Casa-Museo. Unlike previous studies by Karen Austin (Boletín de la Asociación Internacional de Galdosistas 11.1 [1990]: 4-6) and myself (Anales Galdosianos 21 [1986]: 246-29), which list only the most basic of information, De la Nuez mentions all pertinent details for each document: its identification number, its date, the number of pages, the extent of its corrections, its state of completion, whether it is an original or a photocopy, and any distinguishing features it may have. De la Nuez is to be commended for the painstaking care with which he amassed this information.

The third major section of the catalogue deals with the Casa-Museo's large collection of letters and cards. Here De la Nuez presents a reorganized version of the listing he included as an appendix to an earlier book he co-authored with José Schraibman (Cartas del archivo de Pérez Galdós [Madrid: 1967]). Those familiar with this older listing will find the more simplified structure of the new catalogue considerably easier to use. Cards and letters sent to Galdós are listed now under their country of origin and alphabetized by author. Correspondence penned by Galdós is organized alphabetically by the name of its recipient. Scholars interested in studying cards and letters from specific time periods also will appreciate that each entry is now dated. When several items to or from the same person are listed, however, only the range of dates for the entire body of correpondence is indicated, rather than the dates of the individual pieces. Helpful footnotes referring to the numerous scholarly studies on this epistolary material also are included.

There are two appendices: the first is a listing of miscellaneous Galdosian documents and «memorabilia» (invitations, menus, contracts, letters of credit, bills, programmes, travel information). Each entry is dated, when possible, and includes a brief description. In general, these objects pertain to the middle and later years of Galdós's life. However, materials from his days as a student in Madrid are also represented. When using this   —227→   appendix, readers should keep in mind that De la Nuez only treats items foundin the Casa-Museo's archives. The museum portion of the building also contains a collection of articles belonging to Galdós and his family (furniture, personal effects, Photographs, sketches), which are not mentioned in this catalogue. The second appendix identifies people associated with Galdós's publications (collaborators, translators, editors) and, where appropriate, lists their pseudonyms or titles of nobility.

De la Nuez has performed a great service for his fellow «galdosistas» in providing a guide to the largely unexplored treasures of the Casa-Museo archives. Scholars can now enjoy the convenience of consulting this single volume, rather than having to piece together information from a variety of sources. Such a catalogue was long overdue and will prove to be invaluable for anyone planning a research trip to Las Palmas.

Butler University

El primer día de marzo de 1906 fallecía en Santander don José María Pereda. A los dos meses justos, el 1º de mayo, El Diario Montañés de Santander publicaba como número extraordinario un cuaderno titulado Apuntes para la biografía de Pereda que mantiene aún hoy buena parte de su vigencia, entre otras razones porque sus autores -un grupo de fieles amigos suyos lo confeccionaron a la vista de los papeles del propio escritor y con los recuerdos de un antiguo y entrañable afecto; pero también cabe atribuir a esa cercanía cronológica y cordial algunas de las notorias deficiencias de aquella biografía.

En todo caso, si recuerdo aquí aquel lejano precedente del libro que nos ocupa es porque, hechas todas las salvedades que procedan, encuentro más de un vínculo común entre ellos; y no me refiero tanto a los resultados (obviamente muy diferentes, pues la investigación de Madariaga tiene el rigor metodológico que no encontraremos en aquella benemérita aproximación periodística) como a la actitud y presupuestos de partida: a pesar de la distancia -cronológica, estética e ideológica- con que ha emprendido este trabajo, creo que su autor lo ha asumido como una autoexigencia ante la deficiencia que alguien debería colmar: resultaba de todo punto escandaloso que la principal figura literaria de Cantabria no contase aún con una biografía «definitiva»; que, en estos tiempos de renovado interés crítico y lector por la obra perediana, no tuviésemos otra cosa que los viejos Apuntes de 1906, o los libros de Montero (1919), Cossío (1934), Camp (1937) y Gullón (1944), tan valiosos en su momento como insuficientes hoy. El autor de Pérez Galdós. Biografía santanderina (1979) era, sin duda, quien mejor podría llevar a cabo esa tan esperada tarea; aquí está el fruto de bastantes años de investigación y, a mi juicio, el resultado satisface plenamente las expectativas suscitadas, aunque puedan plantearse algunas objeciones.

La principal viene apuntada ya en ese subtítulo, Biografía de un novelista, que parece indicar cuál es el objetivo preferente de la investigación: no tanto el hombre como el   —228→   escritor y sus novelas. Pese a que en la «Nota preliminar» advierte el autor que «sin marginar algunos aspectos críticos de la obra, hemos dado preferencia al estudio del ambiente y a la reconstrucción histórica de la época santanderina en que transcurre la acción de sus obras por considerar que eran necesarios al tratar su biografía» (22), lo cierto es que acierta más -y acierta mucho- cuando hace investigación histórica sobre Pereda y su tiempo que cuando se ocupa de cuestiones específicamente literarias (para las que, por otra parte, ha demostrado su competencia en algunos notables estudios, bien conocidos y valorados en la bibliografía sobre Galdós o Pereda). Pero en esta ocasión su afán por elucidar todos los problemas planteados en la literatura perediana, le ha arrastrado a tropezar innecesariamente en escollos (por ejemplo, su análisis del carácter de la protagonista de Sotileza [274-77], o sus discutibles juicios sobre La Montálvez [311-15]), que habría podido soslayar, remitiéndose a la ya abundante bibliografía crítica perediana (en cuyo manejo se aprecian, además, ciertas lagunas). Al lado de tan leves deficiencias, es de justicia ponderar cuántas veces logra superar lo estrictamente biográfico con notables aportaciones al estudio de la literatura perediana; así, la noticia y cotejo de algunos textos olvidados (v. gr. «La emigración», publicado en La Abeja Montañesa en 1859) con otros más conocidos («A las Indias», de Escenas montañesas) de tema o asunto coincidentes, y los comentarios sobre un temprano inédito del autor, su «Discurso de Apertura» en la solemne inauguración del Ateneo santanderino en 1865.

Otra objeción de índole metodológica afecta a uno de los objetivos más insistentemente buscados por el autor de esta investigación: su intención de reconstruir todos los aspectos de la vida y personalidad del autor, que en ocasiones tropieza con la falta de noticias o testimonios fiables, puede llevarle a propuestas e interpretaciones discutibles o escasamente convincentes, en especial cuando, a causa de una peligrosa confusión entre literatura y realidad, se toman los textos de ficción de Pereda como apoyo documental para la investigación, lo que puede llevar a conclusiones engañosas: por ejemplo, si de la gira electoral y posterior aventura parlamentaria del novelista en 1871 «sabemos más a través de los elementos autobiográficos que aparecen en sus escritos que por la documentación que se conserva» (138), sería arriesgado -aunque más de un crítico lo haya hecho- tomar como suya la experiencia del Simón Cerojo de Los hombres de pro.

Una confusión parecida, aunque de otra índole, es la que a veces se produce por el afán, no siempre necesario, de identificar las correspondencias y «modelos» (sucesos, lugares, personas) de los relatos del polanquino. Olvidando el estatuto y derechos de la imaginación -vigentes también en la literatura «realista» y «naturalista»- el biógrafo parece empeñado en que todo en la ficción perediana ha de tener su referente real. Acaso la muestra más significativa de ello sea la confusión -entre geografía real y ficticia que se advierte en determinados textos puestos al pie de algunas de las fotografías que ilustran el libro: «Casa de don Sotero en Valdecines», «Bolera de Resquemín en Cumbrales», «Taberna de Resquemín, escenario de la riña en El sabor de la tierruca», «El puente de Tablanca y el río Nansa» (241, 254-55 y 391, respectivamente).

Naturalmente, hay ocasiones en que aquel empeño identificador está plenamente justificado, y cuando así sucede, las pesquisas de Madariaga nos proporcionan datos sumamente valiosos y no siempre conocidos: como los abundantes que expone a propósito de esa «novela de clave» que es Nubes de estío (340-44); su minuciosa investigación acerca de Fray Apolinar Gómez, retratado en el «Pae» Apolinar de Sotileza (278-82); o sobre la   —229→   galerna del 25 de abril -Sábado de Gloria- de 1878, episodio crucial en esa misma novela y en el relato «El fin de una raza»; el caso real que, según sugiere, pudo inspirar el asunto de Pachín González (412); los abundantes datos que aporta a lo largo del extenso capítulo XV sobre la historicidad de Peñas arriba y su precisa reconstrucción de los itinerarios del protagonista (381-86).

Como principal mérito del libro, hay que ponderar, en suma, su riguroso esfuerzo de investigación, cuyo fruto más notorio son los abundantísimos y nuevos datos -algunos fundamentales- que proporciona. Además de los textos y documentos que rescata (a los arriba mencionados añadiré la carta del novelista al doctor Madrazo en 1903, citada ampliamente en la página 43, así como la importante documentación reunida en el Apéndice), es digno de mención todo lo que en el capítulo II se refiere a la genealogía y familia del escritor; las páginas que en el VI dedica a explicar su ideología y pensamiento político, o a un aspecto menos conocido pero fundamental en su biografía -sus actividades empresariales y financieras (171-76); el sugestivo retrato físico y psicológico del novelista que diseña en el capítulo VIII, apoyándose para lo primero en una rica iconografía y para lo segundo en un brillante análisis que atiende a factores de temperamento, carácter, salud, educación, familia y ambiente.

Es usual en las reseñas dedicar algún comentario a cuestiones de índole tipográfica; en este caso resulta especialmente obligado, y no porque el libro esté afectado por esa epidemia común en estos tiempos, la «erratitis»: las que aquí puedan advertirse no logran empañar las muchas excelencias de la edición. Además de la calidad de su papel y encuadernación, o la cómoda y grata lectura de su tipografía, hay que elogiar las ilustraciones, no sólo abundantes, excelentes y bien reproducidas, sino oportunas y pertinentemente seleccionadas, de modo que superan la mera función decorativa para convertirse en parte sustancial del estudio, cuyas informaciones y datos completan o matizan: retratos, grabados, paisajes, mapas, manuscritos, documentos, recortes de prensa, ilustraciones y portadas de ediciones de época.

En definitiva, y equilibrando aquellas leves objeciones con sus abundantes y notabilísimos méritos, no dudo en considerar este libro como una aportación fundamental en la bibliografía perediana, no sólo recomendable sino de consulta insustituible para cuantos (desde el simple lector aficionado hasta el especialista en su literatura) se interesan por la vida y la obra del autor de Pedro Sánchez.

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela