IN San Sebastián, a beautiful watering place on the northern coast of Guipúzcoa, Spain, Don Pío Baroja y Nessi was born on the 28th day of December, 1872. There, wandering among the foothills of the Pyrenees, listening to the talk of the hardy Basque peasants, playing on the beautiful crescent of the playa, sailing about the pretty land-locked harbour, he spent his childhood. In those early days he became thoroughly conversant with the Basque tongue—that mysterious and impossibly difficult language of whose true origin students are still in doubt.

His father was Don Serafín Baroja. Born in San Sebastián in 1840, Don Serafín was a well known mining engineer, and enjoyed no small amount of fame as a writer. As far as literature is concerned, he is perhaps best known for his songs and ballads written in the Basque tongue. He composed the libretto of the first Basque opera ever produced, the music of which was by Santesteban. He is said to have been responsible for the libretto of one other opera—a Spanish one.

His son, Don Pío, decided to take up the study of medicine, and he went to Valencia for that purpose. He received his doctorate in 1893, when he was but twenty-one years of age.

He practised his profession in Cestona, in the Province of Guipúzcoa. Life in that small, provincial town proved[2] very dull indeed, and he decided that the medical profession was not his proper sphere. After two years in Cestona, he moved to Madrid. There he tried his hand at several kinds of business. He even set up a bakery in partnership with his brother Ricardo, a painter and engraver of no mean ability! We do not hear of his return to the practice of medicine. Evidently he had proved to his own satisfaction that he was not suited to it.

After he had failed in several attempts at business, he began writing for the newspapers. He succeeded in obtaining positions on El País, El Imparcial, and El Globo. His success in this line of work inspired him to further effort, and, from that time on (1900), he devoted himself entirely to literature.

His first published work was a collection of short stories, or sketches, entitled Vidas Sombrías. Among them are some exquisite pictures of Basque life. This volume was closely followed by a novel, La casa de Aizgorri. These two books scarcely caused a ripple in the literary circles of the Cortes. Certainly, Baroja cannot claim to have sprung into fame over night! His next attempt was a humorous novel which he called Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox. It was scarcely more successful than the first two.

His next book, Camino de perfección, was characterized as “a book of apparently sane tendencies”! From that time on, he became a recognized figure in the Spanish literature of the day. Idilios vascos appeared that same year, and in 1903 he produced El mayorazgo de Labraz, a novel that has been compared most favourably (by Spanish critics) with the best of contemporary novels both in Spain and abroad.[3]

In all lists of the works of Pío Baroja, most of his novels are divided into trilogies. For the sake of convenience, I shall follow the same plan, without any attempt at chronological order:

Tierra vasca (Basque Country): La casa de Aizgorri; El mayorazgo de Labraz; Zalacaín, el aventurero.

La vida fantastica (Life Fantastic): Camino de perfección; Inventos, aventuras y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox; Paradox, rey.

La Raza (Race): La dama errante; La ciudad de la niebla; El árbol de la ciencia.

La lucha por la vida (The Struggle for Life): La busca; Mala hierba; Aurora roja. (In this trilogy, Don Pío evinces a “spirit of opposition to the present social organization and the prejudices that embitter life and kill human spontaneity.”)

El pasado (The Past): La feria de los discretos; Los últimos romanticos; Las tragedias grotescas.

Las ciudades (Cities): César o nada, El mundo es así (incomplete).

El mar (The Sea): Las inquietudes de Shanti Andía (incomplete).

Besides these trilogies, Baroja has written several novels under the general title of Memorias de un hombre de acción (Memoirs of a Man of Action), long winded affairs in which any real action is sadly lacking.

In addition to his novels, he has published several volumes of essays, and not a little verse. Few of his works have been translated into other languages; none (except the present novel) into English.

Personally, Se?or Baroja is somewhat of an enigma, a mystery. He is extremely modest and retiring, and seldom appears prominently before the public. It has[4] been said of him that, although he apparently knows what every one else thinks and believes, there is no one who can say for sure just what his thoughts and beliefs are. He is an ardent, pious Catholic, with very advanced ideas. One is led to believe from some of his works that he is an ardent Republican. Some even go so far as to assert that he entertains strong anarchistic views. But, just as we have about made up our minds as to his political creed, along comes a novel like La feria de los discretos, in which he ridicules Republicans and Anarchists, and we are forced to reject our conception.

While his name is often coupled with that of V. Blasco Ibá?ez, there is more difference than similarity between the two, especially in their style. The Valencian spreads his canvas with the broad, brilliant, impressionistic strokes of a Sorolla, while Baroja employs the more subtle and delicate methods of a Zuloaga. He is a stylist. His vocabulary is remarkably extensive, and he employs it in a masterly fashion—not as one who would overwhelm his readers with a flood of ponderous verbiage, but rather as one who, knowing all the delicate shades and nuances of his language, employs words as an artist uses his colours—to produce the proper effects. His power of description is marvellous. In a sentence, sometimes in a single phrase, he brings a character or scene vividly before our mental vision. The chapter headed “Spring,” in The City of the Discreet, fairly aches with the drowsiness of an Andalusian Spring.

La feria de los discretos has been chosen for this series mainly on account of its Spanish atmosphere. Though not his best novel, it is perhaps the best one with which to introduce him to the English reading public. Above all else, it demonstrates his powers of description, and[5] his subtle, quaint humour. It is not my purpose in this paper to write a criticism of this novel. I shall leave that to abler pens. I might say, however, that in this work, Pío Baroja has no special message to convey, no propaganda. His purpose here is essentially to entertain, to amuse. One suspects that he derived no little pleasure himself from its creation. It is said that its appearance aroused a storm of protests from Republicans on account of the sorry light into which he put them. Be that as it may, the details of his description of Cordova and its environs are accurate in the extreme. The City of the Discreet might almost serve as a guide book to that ancient city. One can follow Quentin’s adventures on any accurate map of Cordova. Of his knowledge of Masonry, one cannot speak quite so highly!

J. S. F., Jr.

Cambridge, Mass.
October, 1917.