The Works of Pío Baroja
Pío Baroja, recognized by the best critics as the foremost living Spanish novelist, is without doubt the chief exponent of that ferment of political and social thought in Spain which had its inception in the cataclysm of 1898, and which gave rise to the new movement in Spanish literature.
Of course this “modern movement” was not actually born in 1898. It dates back as far as Galdós, who is in spirit a modern. But it marked the turning point. Benavente the dramatist, Azorín the critic, Rubén Darío the poet, Pío Baroja the novelist, all date from this period, belonging to and of the new generation, and, together with the Valencian Blasco Ibáñez, form the A B C of modern Spanish culture.
“Baroja stands for the modern Spanish mind at its most enlightened,” says H. L. Mencken. “He is the Spaniard of education and worldly wisdom, detached from the mediaeval imbecilities of the old regime and yet aloof from the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country … the Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure of society upon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in the peninsular.”
Pío Baroja was born in 1872 at San Sebastian, the most fashionable summer resort of Spain, the Spanish “Summer Capital.” Baroja’s father was a noted mining engineer, and while without reputation as a man of letters he was an occasional contributor to various periodicals and dailies. He had destined his son for the medical profession, and Pío studied at Valencia and Madrid, where he received his degree. He started practice in the small town of Cestona, the type of town which figures largely in his novels.
But the young doctor soon wearied of his profession, and laying aside his stethoscope forever, he returned to Madrid, where, in partnership with an older brother, he opened a bakery. However he was no more destined to be a cook than a doctor, so, encouraged by interested friends, he succeeded in getting a few articles and stories accepted by various Madrid papers. It was not long before he won distinction as a journalist, and he presently abandoned baking entirely, devoting all his energies to writing.
His first novel, Camino de Perfección, published in 1902, was received with but little enthusiasm. However he closely followed it with several others, and Spain soon realized that she had a new writer of unusual merit. Today he is pre-eminent among contemporary Spanish authors. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian and English.