Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (prensa, política, novela de tesis) (review)

Abstract

LoPEZ, IGNACIO JAVIER. Pedro Antonio de Alarcon (prensa, politica, novela de tesis). Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 2008. 349 pp.Poor Alarcoa Once wildly popular, even critically esteemed, he is now largely ignored. When measured against such giants as Galdos, Pardo Bazan, and Clarin, he falls short. The well-regarded El sombrero de tres picos is still read, but notable efforts like El escandalo and El Nino de la Bola are not. Ignacio Javier Lopez's book endeavors to turn this rising tide of literary history and popular judgment, and for this he is to be heartily commended.Lopez approaches Alarcon by planting him deeply in the political and cultural landscape of his time. Alarcon's move from liberalism to conservatism has to be analyzed as a product of the period starting with the Revolution of 1854 and culminating in the Revolution of 1868. Relying in part on Paul Benichou's brilliant book, Le saae de l'ecrivain (trans, as The Conseaation of the Writer, 1750-1830 [Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1999]), Lopez usefully chronicles the changing position of the writer in mid-nineteenth-century Spain, arguing that the case of Alarcon is representative and even symptomatic of a large number of writers who were so in bed with politics they were in service to it and, at times, even to specific politicians.Indeed, as Lopez remarks, Alarcon's conservative, Catholic ideology continues to be a stumbling block to current- day understanding of his work. The critic is to be applauded for taking on such a challenge. But he also says that Alarcon is one of the most complex and enigmatic figures of nineteenth-century Spanish novelists. Clearly, Lopez's goal is to illuminate that complexity and enigma, thus bringing Alarcon back into the fold of the Spanish canon. He rightfully asserts that novels like El Nino de la Bola and El escandalo are worth reading, but there is a basic flaw to his approach that becomes increasingly apparent the more deeply one reads. One simply cannot argue that Alarcon is both representative and exceptional at the same time.The contradiction is especially apparent in the analysis of Diario de un testigo de la Guerra de Africa. Alarcon's book, Lopez maintains, is a piece of propaganda, written to support a politics of national prestige as incarnated in the figure of O'Donnell. I think this is a valid and even enlightening argument, but how does this reading convince us of Alarcon's literary, or aesthetic, value? The short answer is, it doesn't.Lopez doesn't help his case by continually undercutting his own argument, with remarks like this: the Diario presenta grandes dificultades para el analisis, y de no haber sido por su importancia coyuntural hoy resultaria banal o, peor incluso, un tanto servil (74). …