Literatura y comercio en España: las tiendas (1868-1952) by Salvador Oropesa Márquez (review)

Salvador A. Oropesa Márquez’s monograph Literatura y comercio en España: las tiendas (1868-1952) is an interdisciplinary study that examines the representation of stores in modern Spanish cultural production. Oropesa’s monograph analyzes texts from different genres and ideological perspectives and presents the reader with an engaging history of Spanish literature and culture. His work emphasizes the inexorable links between shopping, modernity, and democracy–a connection that scholars have not always appreciated. As Oropesa explains in the introduction, shopping has an image problem. Long considered a frivolous, vacuous activity associated with pleasure and “feminine” spaces, shopping and stores have not always received serious critical attention. Oropesa’s book is strongly influenced by the work of José Antonio Maravall and his emphasis on interdisciplinary historical studies and quotidian cultural practices. While he acknowledges the Frankfurt School’s perspective of consumption as part of the manipulation of mass culture, Oropesa prefers the postmodern position that sees consumerism as a creative act. He cites Paco Underhill and James G. Carrier, who both view shopping as a manifestation of desire and identity. In the Spanish context, Maravall, Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, and Jaime Vicens Vives are among the few scholars to examine the history of shops in Spain, and their studies are limited to the Early Modern period. Thus Oropesa’s book fills a notable gap in the scholarship on Spanish consumerism.

The first chapter explores an important foundational text in the representation of shopping, Émile Zola’s 1883 Au bonheur des dames. This novel centers on a French department store, an emblematic commercial establishment that had not yet reached Spain. Department stores participate in the creation of a national “imagined community.” By selling the same products throughout the country, they unite the populace through consumer goods. Oropesa then examines Galdos’s Fortunata y Jacinta, which he claims is Spain’s foundational novel of shops. He analyzes each of the merchant families mentioned in the novel, and shows how the stores in Fortunata y Jacinta serve as landmarks for the characters and for Madrid.

The second chapter studies two more novels by Galdós: La desheredada (1881) y Lo prohibido (1884-85). La desheredada presents issues of gender and social class inherent to shopping. Isidora’s shopping habits are an essential component of her quest to establish her “true” identity. Oropesa also notes that La desheredada is the first Spanish novel that portrays a shopping spree. Lo prohibido presents the dangers of excessive consumption through José María’s seduction of his cousins. Eloísa’s fascination with luxury is tied to her forbidden passion for José María. Oropesa reads their incestuous relationship as a failure to participate in the open market.

Chapter three analyzes Las tiendas by Carlos Frontaura (1876) alongside Unamuno’s 1897 Paz en la guerra in the context of the Third Carlist War. Frontaura’s work is a costumbrista text that represents a myriad of stores, customers, and transactions in a realistic and often humorous fashion. For Oropesa, the importance of Las tiendas lies in the representation of the subtle, everyday changes in Spanish commerce and shopping habits. In Unamuno’s novel, the depiction of stores is a microcosm of the Carlist conflict. Carlist ideology supports an outdated style of commerce, and is thus not a sustainable political system for the modern age.

The fourth chapter examines the stores of the “teatro chico” of the early 1900s. First are two works by Carlos Arniches: La gentuza (1913) and El último mono (1926), which feature the ascendancy of the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat through shopkeeping. Next Oropesa analyzes three plays by Pilar Millán Astray: La Galana (1926), La casa de la bruja (1932), and La mercería de ‘La dalia roja’ (1932). Her works espouse Catholic dogma and nostalgia for the Antiguo Régimen in the face of changing social and political mores.

Chapter five features Madrid de corte a...