The Forbidden

Benito Pérez Galdós, considered Spain’s most important novelist after Cervantes, wrote 77 novels, several works of theater and a number of other tomes during his lifetime (1843–1920). His works have been translated into all major languages of the world, and many of his most highly regarded novels, those of the contemporary period, have been translated into English two, three and even four times over. Of the few “contemporary novels” of Galdós that until now have not come to light in English, The Forbidden is certainly among the most noteworthy. The story line concerns a wealthy philanderer, José María Bueno de Guzmán, who attempts to buy the favors of his three beautiful married cousins. He is successful with the first, Eloísa, a grasping materialist who falls deeply in love with him. Then he rejects her in order to attempt to seduce the youngest, Camila. Meanwhile, the third, the pseudo-intellectual María Juana, jealous, seduces José María. But it is Camila, healthy, impetuous and wild, who resists his temptations and holds our attention. The novelist and critic Leopoldo Alas, Galdós’s contemporary, calls her “the most feminine, graceful, lively female character that any modern novelist has painted.” As a naturalistic study, in the manner of Balzac in particular, principal characters of Galdós’s other novels (El doctor Centeno, La de Bringas, La familia de León Roch) become fleetingly visible in The Forbidden. In addition, the entire Bueno de Guzmán family gives evidence of the naturalistic emphasis on heredity: they all display certain physical or mental disorders. Eloísa has a morbid fear of feathers, María Juana often feels that she has a tiny piece of cloth caught in her teeth, José María suffers bouts of depression, an uncle is a kleptomaniac, one of the relatives writes letters to himself, etc. At the same time, this novel shows the foibles of Spanish society where status is determined by one’s associates, by the wearing of finery, and by living on borrowed money. In their history of Spanish literature, Chandler and Schwartz call Galdós “the greatest novelist of the nineteenth century and the only one who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with great novelists like Balzac, Dickens and Dostoievsky.” The Forbidden, written at the height of the author’s creative powers, is a major work and its publication for an English-speaking audience is long overdue.