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Reviewed by:
  • El Niño de la Bola by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
  • Michael Adam Carroll
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. El Niño de la Bola. Ed. Ignacio Javier López Madrid: Cátedra, 2014. 380 pp.

In his critical edition of El Niño de la Bola, Ignacio Javier López presents Pedro Antonio de Alarcón’s 1881 manuscript, a self-corrected version of the original that appeared in 1880. He also provides the reader with endnotes that clarify the etymology of key words and historical questions. López sets out to reintroduce and re-contextualize the novelist’s work, recognizing El Niño as a polarizing literary event in the history of nineteenth-century Spanish Letters. Alarcón remains a passion project for López, evidenced in his articles and especially in his recent book Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (Prensa, política, novela de tesis).

The introduction is organized into six sections. The reader can understand these installments as two major movements: the first half explores Alarcón’s journalistic and political experiences, while the second portion treats the novelist’s literary career and texts, though some themes and events naturally overlap along the way.

The first twenty-five years of Alarcón’s life read like an adventure novel in López’s first section. Alarcón’s family suffers economically under Fernando VII and loses its social position after opposing the French occupation of Spain in Guadix, the novelist’s hometown. Alarcón becomes the hero of his own story, enduring major financial and career setbacks, befriending military leaders, and surviving a strange duel. In all, he remains ever focused on attaining journalistic and literary glory. López develops Spain’s tumultuous military-political history with clarity here, comfortably moving in and out of Alarcón’s private and public life, and summarizing a broader scope of Spanish history.

Section Two, “Quince años de militancia en la Unión Liberal,” advances Alarcón’s paradoxical journalistic-political career. The novelist sheds his earlier radical leanings and joins the centrist Unión Liberal. López recognizes Alarcón’s opportunism in penning his Diario de un testigo de la Guerra de África: “obra de propaganda que supone una incesante loa de O’Donnell,” adding that around 1858 “los escritores se pusieron al servicio de los políticos” (25). This travel memoir gains Alarcón notoriety in Madrid and cements his literary career, but ultimately works against him as he becomes more conservative in the wake of the Revolution of 1868.

Section Three, “Revolución, Restauración y novela,” showcases some bright moments in López’s presentation. The critic carries out the daunting task of contextualizing and balancing the historical moment with literary polemics. His chronological observations organize well the succession of novelas de tesis that appear between 1874 and 1880. López rightly incorporates Alarcón in the discussion of Galdós, Juan Valera, and S. de Villarmino (33-42). The critic retraces the impact of contemporary literary critics Manuel de la Revilla and Leopoldo Alas “Clarín” in the careers of these authors. López also emphasizes their significance in Galdós’ rise to fame after the second tome of Gloria comes to light and in Alarcón’s decline after his infamously conservative Real Academia acceptance speech of 1877 and his melodramatic-romantic El Niño. [End Page 125]

The reader might find frustrating the transition between the third and fourth sections. López insists that Alarcón remains “al servicio del partido” in his work (41), but criticizes Revilla and Clarín for writing against the novelist for this same reason (48-49). The tone of the text shifts from energetic to ironic at times, especially when López reiterates these critics’ role in displacing Alarcón.

“El Niño de la Bola, novela de tesis,” the fifth section, investigates the personal and literary background to the novel. Alarcón edits the manuscript before its publication as a response to criticism of his Real Academia speech, a moment that causes readers to reevaluate his earlier work and unfortunately all but dismiss El Niño. López struggles to...

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