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A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.
Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women by Benito Pérez Galdós, Agnes Moncy Gullón
bookshelves: published-1884, spain, group-read, winter-20142015, tbr-busting-2015, classic, lit-richer, under-500-ratings, epic-proportions, paper-read, families, women, madrid, roman-catholic, period-piece, victorian, historical-fiction, cousin-love
Recommended to ☯Bettie☯ by: Wanda
Read from November 23, 2014 to February 02, 2015
The Yahoo group is reading this in December - always love their choices so I've ordered a good secondhand copy for £3 so I can read alongside. The ladies know that I am crap at bookclub reads so I shall fly in tandem - separate but together.Brazilliant has found the Project Gutenberg link for the Spanish version: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17013
Description: Galdos's four-part Fortunata and Jacinta, the masterpiece among his almost 80 novels, tells the turbulent story of two women, their husbands and their lovers, set against the intricate web of dynastic alliances and class contrasts of Madrid in the 1870s.
Opening: Juanito Santa Cruz: The Oldest information I have on the person who bears this name comes from my friend Jacinto Villalonga, and it dates back to the time when he and other friends (among them Zalamero, Joaquinito Pez and Alejandro Miquis) were at the university. They weren't all in the same class, and although they did study under Camús together, they split up in Roman Law: the Santa Cruz studied under Novar, and Villalonga under Coronado.
page 16 of 818
Was it Barbarita's love for those mannequins when she was a child that made her dote on her son as if he was a doll? Child worship only encourages self-serving monsters to spring forth from the crib.
page 28 of 818
'Madrid was a metropolis in name only. It was a bumpkin in a gentleman's coat buttoned over a torn, dirty shirt.'
Love all the textile metaphors and similes.
page 45 of 818
'One of the men Plácido admired least was Gutenberg. But the boredom of his illness had made him wish for the company of some of those mute speakers we call books.'
page 62 of 818'Jacquard's, with their imcomprehensible sets of punched cardboards, absorbed Jacinta's imagination and kept here in suspense; the miracle was right before her eyes, yet she still couldn't believe it.'
page 159 of 818'They were like the eyes of Murillo's Baby Jesus.'
Page 177 of 818'The Lottery! What a way for a country to stay retarded! It's one of the things that should be repressed: it discourages saving; it's a way out for good-for-nothings.'
Such wisdom on the page from 1884."
818 pages of tiny print.And a list of characters will be useful in this brick of a book:
Fortunata- Young woman of the lower class, she essentially illiterate and ignorant.
Juanito Santa Cruz- Pampered only-child of a wealthy bourgeois Madrid family
Jacinta- Wife and cousin of Juanito Santa Cruz. Barren and obsessed with having children.
Maximiliano "Maxi" Rubín- Sickly youth of the lower middle class who is studying pharmaceuticals; husband of Fortunata
Characters associated with Fortunata
Juárez el Negro- Man with whom Fortunata has a brief relationship after her first affair with Juanito Santa Cruz
Camps- Another one of Fortunata's lovers between her first and second affair with Santa Cruz
Evaristo Feijoo- Retired colonel who takes in Fortunata for a time
Ido del Sagrario- Mad novelist on hard times and neighbor of Izquierdo
Nicanora- Wife of Ido del Sagrario
José Izquierdo- Uncle of Fortunata and brother of Segunda
Rosita- Housekeeper bribed by Santa Cruz to sabotage the marriage of Fortunata and Maxi
Mauricia "la dura"- A friend that Fortunata makes during her time in the Las Micaelas convent. She is an alcoholic with an illegitimate daughter.
Juan Evaristo Segismundo- Second child of Fortunata
Segunda Izquierdo- Aunt of Fortunata
Aurora Samaniego- the widow of a Frenchman, is a close friend of Fortunata until she begins an affair with Juanito Santa Cruz
Characters associated with Maximiliano "Maxi" Rubín
Olmedo- School friend of Maxi
Feliciana- Olmedo's lover and acquaintance of Fortunata
Juan Pablo Rubín- Oldest of the Rubín brothers, initially a carlist
Refugio- Juan Pablo Rubín's lover
Doña Lupe- Aunt of Maxi, a usurer and liberal
Nicolás Rubín- Middle Rubín brother, a priest
Segismundo Ballester- Manager of the pharmacy where Maxi works; falls in love with Fortunata
Torquemada- Userer and friend of Doña Lupe
Papitos- young girl whom Doña Lupe has taken in as her maid
Characters associated with Jacinta
Manuel Moreno Isla- Nephew of Guillermina Pacheco and family friend of the Santa Cruz, secretly in love with Jacinta
Isabel Cordero- Mother of Jacinta
Gumersindo Arnáiz- Father of Jacinta and brother of Barbarita Arnáiz
Guillermina Pacheco- Old friend of the Santa Cruz. Runs an orphanage and does charitable works in the lower-class neighborhoods.
Characters associated with Juanito Santa Cruz
Don Baldomero Santa Cruz- Father of Juanito Santa Cruz. Successful retired merchant
Doña Barbarita Arnáiz- Extremely dotting mother of Juanito Santa Cruz
Estupiñá- Elderly friend and employee of the Santa Cruz family
Jacinto Villalonga- Old University pal of Juanito and often his partner in crime. Involved in politics.
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