Doña Perfecta
1876
When Pepe Rey arrives in the provincial town of Orbajosa to claim his bride, he carries with him the ideals of progress and reason. But Orbajosa is a town where ancient prejudices wear the mask of holy tradition, and his aunt Doña Perfecta rules with an iron will wrapped in prayer. As Pepe's modern ideas begin to unsettle the town, the true nature of this insular world emerges: paranoid, superstitious, and violently opposed to anything that threatens its comfortable darkness. At the center stands Rosario, trapped between her love for her cousin and the absolute authority of a mother who would sooner see her daughter dead than allow her to marry a 'heretic.' Written in 1876, this is Galdós at his most incendiary - a scathing portrait of provincial Spain where faith has become a weapon and conformity a religion. The novel pulses with the tension of an age-old conflict: the individual against the mob, enlightenment against superstition, and the terrible price paid by those who dare to think differently.
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“Los ciegos serían felices en este país, que para la lengua es paraíso y para los ojos infierno.””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
“Spain, with 7324 inhabitants, a town-hall, an episcopal””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
“que en esa remota Orbajosa, donde, entre paréntesis, tienes fincas que puedes examinar ahora, se pasa la vida con la tranquilidad y dulzura de los idilios. ¡Qué patriarcales costumbres! ¡Qué nobleza en aquella sencillez! ¡Qué rústica paz virgiliana! Si en vez de ser matemático fueras latinista, repetirías al entrar allí el ergo tua rura manebunt. ¡Qué admirable lugar para dedicarse a la contemplación de nuestra propia alma y prepararse a las buenas obras! Allí todo es bondad, honradez; allí no se conocen la mentira y la farsa como en nuestras grandes ciudades; allí renacen las santas inclinaciones que el bullicio de la moderna vida ahoga; allí despierta la dormida fe, y se siente vivo impulso indefinible dentro del pecho, al modo de pueril impaciencia que en el fondo de nuestra alma grita: «quiero vivir».””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
“Leon Roch," and "Gloria." In still later novels, Emilia Pardo-Bazan thinks, he has comprehended that "the novel of to-day must take note of the ambient truth, and realize the beautiful with freedom and independence." This valiant lady, in the campaign for realism which she made under the title of "La Cuestion Palpitante"--one of the best and strongest books on the subject--counts him first””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
“Palabras hermosas realidad prosaica y miserable. Los ciegos serían felices en este país, que para la lengua es paraíso y para los ojos infierno.””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
“Verdad es; por eso se dijo que uno piensa el bayo y otro el que lo ensilla””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
“INTRODUCTION The very acute and lively Spanish critic who signs himself Clarin, and is known personally as Don Leopoldo Alas, says the present Spanish novel has no yesterday, but only a day-before-yesterday.””
— Benito Pérez Galdós
