power exercised by the novels
of Vicente Blasco Ibá?ez is that they are literary projections of his dynamic personality. Not only the style, but the book, is here the man. This is especially true of those of his works in which the thesis element predominates, and in which the famous author of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appears as a novelist of ideas-in-action. It is, of course, possible to divide his works into the "manners" or "periods" so dear to the literary cataloguers, and it may thus be indicated that there are such fairly distinct genres as the regional novel, the sociological tale and the psychological study; a convenient classification of this sort would place among the regional novels such masterpieces as La Barraca and Ca?as y Barro,—among the novels of purpose such powerful writings as La Catedral, La Bodega and Sangre y Arena,—among the psychological studies the introspective La Maja Desnuda. The war novels, including The Four Horsemen and the epic Mare Nostrum, would seem to form another group. Such non-literary diversions as grouping and regrouping, however, had perhaps best be left to those who relish the task. It is for the present more important to note that the passionate flame of a deeply human purpose welds the man's literary labors into a larger unity. His pen, as his person, has been given over to humanity. He is as fearless in his denunciation of evil as he is powerful in his description of it; he has lived his ideas as well as fashioned them into enduring documents; he reveals not only a new Spain, but a new world.While Blasco Ibá?ez does not desire to be known as regional novelist—nor does a complete view of his numerous works justify such a narrow description—he[Pg vi] has nevertheless in his earlier books made such effective and artistic use of regional backgrounds that some critics have found this part of his production best. Speaking from the standpoint of durable literary art, I am inclined to such a view. Yet is there less humanitarian impulse in The Four Horsemen than in these earlier masterpieces? Whether Blasco Ibá?ez's background is a corner in Valencia, a spot on the island of Majorca, a battlefield in France, or Our Sea the Mediterranean,—the cradle of civilization,—his real stage is the human heart and his real actor, man [url=http://embodiment.over-blog.com/2017/02/cf.html][color=#0F0F0F]The Prince was[/color][/url][url=http://henmn.pixnet.net/blog/post/299666077-frewhy][color=#0F0F0F]very much alarmed[/color][/url][url=http://www.dk101.com/?uid-737210-action-viewspace-itemid-482215][color=#0F0F0F]when he perceived[/color][/url][url=http://www.anyway.com.tw/members/TravelBlog.aspx?uid=shuaigeqw&aid=435255][color=#0F0F0F] that Selbst[/color][/url][url=http://revenge.citylife-new.com/e126073.html][color=#0F0F0F]was growing so[/color][/url][url=http://blogg.improveme.se/meeting/2017/02/24/vgtrdyjhuyt/][color=#0F0F0F]rapidly.[/color][/url].
Upon his election to the Cortes,—Spain's national parliamentary assembly,—Blasco Ibá?ez naturally turned, in his novels, to a consideration of political and social themes. Beginning with La Catedral (The Shadow of the Cathedral), one of the most powerful modern documents of its kind, he took up in successive novels the treatment of such vital subjects as the relation of Church to State, the degrading and backward influence of drunkenness, the problem of the Jesuits, the brutality and psychology of the bull-fight. In all of these works the writer is characterized by fearlessness, passion and even vehemence; yet his ardor is not so strong as to lead him into conscious unfairness. A fiery advocate of the lowly, he yet can cast their shortcomings into their teeth; they, in their ignorance, are accomplices in their own degradation, partners in the crimes that oppress them. They slay the leaders whom they misunderstand; they are slow to organize for the purpose of bursting their shackles. This appears in La Barraca (one of the so-called regional novels) no less than in La Catedral, La Bodega and other books of the more purely sociological series. In varying degree, applied to a nation rather than to a class, this fearless attitude is evident in Los Cuatros Jinetes del Apocalipsis and Mare Nostrum, in which is assailed the neutrality of Spain during the late and unlamented conflict. This unflinching determination to see the truth and state it is also discernible in a most personal manner; the sad inability of such noble spirits[Pg vii] as Gabriel Luna (La Catedral) or Fernando Salvatierra (La Bodega) to solace themselves with a belief in future life is perhaps an exteriorization of the author's own views, even as these revolutionary spirits are, in part, embodiments of himself.
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