Novel
La Regenta
Leopoldo Alas "Clarín" · 1884
Opening lines
La heroica ciudad dormía la siesta. El viento Sur, caliente y perezoso, empujaba las nubes blanquecinas que se rasgaban al correr hacia el Norte.
The heroic city was taking its siesta. The south wind, hot and lazy, pushed along the whitish clouds that tore apart as they ran northward.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Vetusta, an old provincial city. Ana Ozores, from a fallen nobility, has married out of convenience don Víctor Quintanar, a former regent of the Audiencia, much older than she, a good but fussy man, who sees her as a friend rather than a wife and prefers hunting. She is called the Regenta. Alone, childless, she is bored and longs for something higher. Two men take an interest in her: her confessor, the canon don Fermín de Pas, and don Álvaro Mesía, the town's seducer.
Context
The book appeared in Barcelona in two volumes, in 1884 then in 1885. Vetusta barely masks Oviedo, and the novel caused a scandal: the city's bishop published a pastoral letter against it, and critics judged it obscene, irreligious, and accused it of plagiarising Madame Bovary. Long neglected, it was recognised as a classic of Spanish literature only in the last decades of the twentieth century. Gonzalo Suárez brought it to the screen, and a television series was made from it in 1995.
Who it is for
A long novel in two parts: the first fifteen chapters cover three days, the last fifteen three years.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's masterpiece and as one of the great Spanish novels of the nineteenth century; translated into English by John Rutherford.