Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women

Fortunata and Jacinta is like a Spanish Les Mis. It is a huge, realistic, epic portrayal of lat 19th Century Madrid as experienced by a large number of bit players in the stories of title women. In many ways it was more enjoyable than Les Mis -- there were far fewer digressions into history lessons. The world seemed more coherent, as they was a slightly smaller cast of characters of which to keep track and the overall story is tighter. My main compliant is that, despite the title, this story is all Fortunata's. Even though the first section is (mostly) told through Jacinta's eyes, the rest is all Fortunata. I was disappointed that Galdós never saw fit to circle back to show Jacinta's perspective on cataclysmic events. I suppose it was show more necessary to the story arc for her to be the perfect "angel-face", but after a certain point the relentless wretchedness of Fortunata's world was overwhelming and a little bit of angelic goodness would have been refreshing. show less

Here's the review I posted on the English version of the book...Benito Pérez Galdós was Spain's greatest practitioner of the realist novel. Think of him this way: take a dollop of the charm of Dickens and combine with another of the sensuality and danger of Dostoevsky, sprinkled with the minutiae of what daily life was like in nineteenth-century Spain, and you have Benito Pérez Galdós. He is the greatest and most enjoyable nineteenth-century European novelist that readers of English have missed out on. Most of his novels are out of print in English translation. Fortunata y Jacinta is his longest work... and it proves why he is such a delight. I have some quibbles with the second half but I think every reader of nineteenth-century show more literature should experience what this magnificent writer has to offer. show less

This new translation of Spanish novelist Perez Galdos's 19th century tale depicting society during the Alfonsine restoration of 1875, a masterpiece patterned on Balzac and Dickens, provides a read that is startlingly fresh and immediate. Fortunata, a glorious woman of the people, struggles all her life against the angelic, bourgeois Jacinta; both adore Jacinta's charming, selfish husband, the sybarite Juanito. Perez Galdos (18431920) steeps his story in scenes of working- and middle-class Madrid that are panoramic and intimate: the streets and reeking tenements, shops and stalls that open like mouths, the fashion trades, cafes where idlers thrash out politics, the pharmacy where Fortunata's sickly husband Maxi goes mad with jealousy, show more the convent in which the passionate Fortunata is locked to repent her promiscuity, the twin beds where Juanito caresses Jacinta with lies. Gentle Jacinta buying a baby she thinks is Fortunata's is just one of the novel's shrewd, unforgettable characterizations that reveal the commercial nexus and often animal thirst for power infecting the populous Perez Galdos world. show less

Benito Pérez Galdós was Spain's greatest practitioner of the realist novel. Think of him this way: take a dollop of the charm of Dickens and combine with another of the sensuality and danger of Dostoevsky, sprinkled with the minutiae of what daily life was like in nineteenth-century Spain, and you have Benito Pérez Galdós. He is the greatest and most enjoyable nineteenth-century European novelist that readers of English have missed out on. Most of his novels are out of print in English translation. Fortunata y Jacinta is his longest work... and it proves why he is such a delight. I have some quibbles with the second half but I think every reader of nineteenth-century literature should experience what this magnificent writer has to show more offer. show less

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1162077...

It took me a long time to get around to reading it, and also a long time to read it - it is over 800 pages. But it is rather good.

Fortunata and Jacinta are two women in 1870s Madrid who both love Juanito Santa Cruz, the scion of a dynasty of clothing magnates; Fortunata is working class and bears him a child; Jacinta, his cousin, marries him by a family arrangement which becomes largely a love match. Most of the book is about Fortunata's ups and downs as she bounces from man to man, Santa Cruz always in the background, and Jacinta vaguely and uneasily aware of her rival.

Pérez Galdós is often compared with Dickens, but I think he's more in the line of the great Russian novelists - he is not show more trying to be even a little bit funny (none of the characters are simple caricatures - even his belching priest displays a deep insight in one important chapter). He is also very much engaged with both high and low politics - Spain in the early 1870s had a lot of regime changes (I had no idea!) and also Santa Cruz's exploitation of Fortunata is surely intended in part as metaphor for the class struggle. She is certainly the most interesting character in the book, but there are plenty of them.

Anyway, it is rather long, but I felt it worth making the effort in the end. show less

A long haul at a 1000 pages plus, but gets better the further into the story you get. The blurb on the back cover compares the author to Dickens and Tolstoy, high praise indeed. Judging by this book he's not in their lofty company, but he's not far off, I'd have to read more of his work to make a definitive judgment.

Benito Perez Galdos' "Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women" was a really difficult book for me to get into. I really struggled through the first 200 pages or so, but then the story really started clicking with me and I began to enjoy it more.

The novel follows the stories of two women are involved with a cad -- Jacinta is his wife, who struggles with childlessness, and the unfortunate Fortunata, a lower class woman who is his on-again, off-again mistress. I particularly liked Fortunata's story.

This was a hard book for me to rate because while I liked the story, I found something about the writing a bit off-putting. I disliked the way the author started each section -- with a story about a new character that later linked show more back in to the main story. Once I got used to the new person, I started to like the book again. I did enjoy the setting-- Galdos really evokes a mood of this particular period in Spain-- and the overall story.... though it's not a book I'd ever pick up again. show less