In the shadow of war, a group of men gathers at the Mediterranean villa of Prince Michael Lubimoff for what begins as a luxurious luncheon. The thunder of a military train passing nearby, packed with soldiers heading to the front, sets the mood. Over wine and conversation, the prince makes a radical proposition: men would be better off without women, and the six guests, a colonel, a gambler, a professor, a pianist, and others, should abandon the sexes entirely, forming a quasi-monastic order of male camaraderie. They christen themselves "the enemies of women." But Blasco Ibáñez, the great Spanish realist, is too shrewd to let this premise rest. What begins as theatrical misogyny unravels into something far more complex: an examination of masculinity at war with itself, of men who profess to despise women yet cannot stop talking about them, cannot stop needing them. Written in 1918 or earlier, this is a fascinating period piece that captures an era's anxious negotiation between old gender roles and the upheaval of modernity.
