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Our Friend Manso Benito Pérez Galdós Translation by Robert Russell Columbia University Press, 1987 ISBN 0-231-0604-7Previous posts on Our Friend Manso: I do not exist: on Manso’s special status The education novel: from a “simple and pleasant story” to instruction Female characters and the education of women: searching for the golden mean The same perverse […]
All quotes are from the 1987 Columbia University Press edition, translation by Robert Russell. The author of Our Friend Manso told his character Manso that he wanted to write a novel “dealing with the great subject matter of Education.” There is a lot of education and teaching that goes on in the novel, both formally […]
All quotes are from the 1987 Columbia University Press edition, translation by Robert Russell. So how does an author approach writing a novel “dealing with the great subject matter of Education”? One of the reasons the author chose Máximo Manso’s “simple and pleasant story” to buy involves Manso’s role as a professor who studies and […]
Following up on the legal papers that were served me earlier this year by Richard (see the comments in this post), I thought I would provide a separate post for linking to my posts on the novels translated into English by Benito Pérez Galdós. I had no plans to go this far on his works […]
Our Friend Manso Benito Pérez Galdós Translation by Robert Russell Columbia University Press, 1987 ISBN 0-231-0604-7 I do not exist. And just in case some untrusting, stubborn, ill-meaning person should refuse to believe what I say so plainly, or should demand some sort of sworn testimony before believing it—I swear, I solemnly swear that I […]
I’m glad to see other bloggers are reading/have read Fortunata and Jacinta and that others have expressed interest in tackling the book. I wanted to include a list of additional posts on the novel tied (however loosely) to the read-along. Scott G. F. Bailey’s old blog and Amateur Reader’s Wuthering Expectations had many posts on the […]
What a long strange year in reading it has been. I hadn’t planned on reading Fortunata and Jacinta again or delving into more Galdós but I’m glad I did. I plan on reading a few more of his books that have been translated into English over the next few months, so you will be hearing […]
I found several (what I call) unasked questions in the novel but I believe there was one that Galdós wanted the reader to consider—what is in store for little Juan (Juan Evaristo Segismundo)? The novel ends on a melancholy buoyant note, which is the best Galdós could do given the body count and other damage […]
I mentioned some strong women in the novel in an earlier post and I want to ramble about a similar topic here. In Volume Four we meet Aurora, another clever and apparently strong woman character (I mention in this post how Galdós initially introduces her via a portrait in Doña Lupe’s parlor). Aurora pretends to […]
In a novel layered in meaning the character Segismundo Ballester helps tie together many of the themes. As the pharmacist that employs Maxi, he embodies a balance in life lacking in most other characters. His profession represents this mixture as he regularly talks about the blending of medicinal compounds. At the end of the novel […]