Novel
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez · 1916
Synopsis
A Frenchman, Marcelo Desnoyers, leaves for Argentina in 1870 and marries the eldest daughter of Julio Madariaga, owner of an estancia; the younger daughter marries a German, Karl Hartrott. The two families later leave, one for Paris, the other for Germany. In Paris, the Desnoyers son, Julio, a spoilt and idle young man, keeps a painter's studio, shines in the tango salons and courts a married woman, Marguerite Laurier. In 1914, the two branches find themselves in opposing camps: the Hartrotts embrace the German cause, and Julio begins by taking no interest in the war.
Context
Settled in Paris since 1914, the author had travelled the front and the towns behind the lines with the authorisation of the French authorities; he wrote the novel in this context, drawing also on his memories of Argentina, and published it in 1916. Charlotte Brewster Jordan's English translation, which appeared in 1918, was in 1919 the best-selling novel in the country according to Publishers Weekly. Rex Ingram made a film of it in 1921, in which Rudolph Valentino played Julio and which made him a star; a second film followed in 1962. The newspaper El Mundo included it among the hundred best Spanish-language novels of the twentieth century.
Who it is for
A war novel that openly defends the Allied cause, with long scenes of Parisian life before 1914.
Prizes and reception
Its English version made the author famous in the United States and in the countries that won the war; adapted twice for the cinema.
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