His Only Son

Description

One of the most celebrated writers of criticism in nineteenth-century Spain, Leopoldo Alas, known by his pseudonym Clarin, employed his satirical talent to powerful and humorous effect in fiction as well. In one of his best-known novels His Only Son, Bonifacio Reyes, a romantic and flautist by vocation - and a failed clerk and kept husband by necessity - dreams of a novelesque life. Tied to his shrill and sickly wife by her purse strings, he enters, timidly, into a love affair with Serafina, a seductive second-rate opera singer, encouraged by her manager who mistakes Bonifacio for a potential patron. Meanwhile Emma, Bonifacio's wife, experiences a parallel awakening and in the midst of a long-barren marriage, surprises them both with a son - but is it truly Bonifacio's? In the accompanying novella Dona Berta, the heroine of the title, an aged, poor but well-born woman forfeits her beloved estate in search of a portrait that may be all that remains of the secret love of her life. More sensitive than scathing in his social satire, Alas is a writer of great humor, naturalistic detail, descriptive beauty, and moral complexity. His frail and pitiful characters - irrational, emotional actors drawn inexorably toward their foolish fates - are yet multidimensional individuals, often conscious of their own weaknesses and stymied by their very yearnings to be more than the parts they find themselves playing.

Leopoldo Alas (1852 - 1901) was a novelist, journalist, and literary critic. Known for his biting and often-bellicose articles, he was considered one of Spain's most influential and feared critics. He wrote some of the greatest Spanish novels of the 19th century, including La Regenta and His Only Son, and is considered the father of the modern Spanish short story. He died in Oviedo.

"His Only Son is the most intense, the most refined, the most intellectual, and the most sensual novel that nineteenth-century Spanish literature has produced." -Azorin "When I read His Only Son and Dona Berta, I was bowled over by the audacity of the plots, by the diverse cast of characters, and by Alas's ability to be entirely engaged by his characters." -Margaret Jull costa, from the introduction "A delight to read." -A Common Reader blog "A Flaubert-type novel [that] displays the author's power of psychological analysis." -Harvey L. Johnson, The South Central Bulletin