Pio Baroja, and "The Tree of Knowledge"

Vida San Sebastian was born in 1872. He studied medicine but soon served as a doctor. His contacts with writers led him to indulge his literary vocation. 1900 he published first books. 1911 the tree of knowledge, articles and essays, 17 novels. 1935 consolidated fame, joins civil war SAR surprises in the Basque country and goes to France. 1940 back to Madrid, creative capacity is exhausted, he died in 1956. Personality lonely and bitter mood, sincere, more sensitivity is necessary, shy spirit of independence and opted for self-reflection to which it attributed to an imbalance and a spirit of mad man. Pessimistic about the man and the world, felt tenderness for helpless beings, not whether the world would be happy for it to mourn a child. In many of his characters projecting an ideal man of action he would have liked to be and that both contrasts with his life.
Ideology and existential pessimism
Skepticism: no political and social truth, truth itself scientific, mathematical, is questionable. Spiritual distress that the crisis of the early century had taken on many minds. The world is meaningless, the vidaes absurd harbors no confidence in man. How are you This explains the behavior of many characters. The root of this conception of the philosopher Schopenhauer admired him. He defined life as something dark and powerful and robust blind without justice. Ideology: Anarchist and marked by skepticism, is considered a radical liberal and individualist anarchist. Abhorred communism, socialism and democracy. Hence, their favorite characters are the mavericks, and the aforementioned action man stands against society but rarely with success.
His conception of the novel little interest in the aesthetic theories. The novel is a genre for him multiforme protein that encompasses everything. Recklessness by the composition, was against the novelists of the argument definitively closed. His novels have a way that allows many changes, but did not care argument episodes, anecdotes, digressions ... thought that a long novel would be a succession of short novels. The invention, imagination, were supreme qualities as a novelist and observation. His novels give a sense of lived experience. In his books one can see a lot of technique. New in the way of counting.
Style
perfectly consistent with his ideal of spontaneity narrative. The trend goes to the extreme rhetoric of the 98 anti ists. Clarity, precision, speed.
The result: a quick prose, nervous, lively and novelty.
Sourly is particularly evident in strong expressions as often fierce blow, but as a counterpoint to the unexpected appearance of a modest tenderness that separate us your pages.
Preferences for short sentence and paragraph brief, the most natural form of expression.
Viveza and amenity of the story and the special importance of their descriptions: impressionist technique quite different from that seen in the lengthy descriptions of nineteenth-century realists.
Natural, authentic conversational dialogues.
His work. Novels
60:34 spend his novels of trilogies, the most important Basque country: Zalacaín: the more neat and beautiful account of her novels the adventures of a typical man of action amid unforgettable character the last Carlist War.
Between 1913 and 1935 developed a more extensive narrative series titled memoirs of a man of action, composed of 22 novels whose protagonist is Eugene de Aviraneta, nineteenth century ancestor of the author.
Other works
stories and novellas, essays, travel books, biographies, several works in dialogue form, a single book of verse.
Those are exciting their brands and memoirs, titled: from the latest turn in the road. Seven volumes that make up a long soliloquy that accumulates memories Baroja aesthetic judgments and moral views of any great interest as evidence of the author's personality and affectionate union as a panorama of an entire era.
Significance of Baroja
for his idea of life and the sincerity Baroja is a very representative figure of feeling and atmosphere of his generation. That novelist par excellence of contemporary Spanish literature for his gifts as storyteller and his ability to create.
The tree of knowledge
introduction
philosophical character for him the most perfect and complete book, which summarizes better than any other book in the spirit of Baroja. Written in 1911 has much Autografia, is a snapshot of some sensitivity and spiritual conflicts that lie at the heart of the era.
The central tenet: the story of existential disorientation
develops the life of Andres Hurtado, a character lost in an absurd world and in the midst of adverse circumstances that constitute a succession of disappointments.
It feels just left with a void in the soul, you feel a thirst for knowledge and wants to find a direction. His studies did not fill this craving, its contact with the sick in hospitals are a new reason for depression. Andrew politically torn between a utopian revolutionary radicalism and sense of the futility of it all.
The long illness and death of his brother, Luis, leads to a skepticism about science and the darkest thoughts about life is consumed if the education of the protagonist, is the anguish, the despair of not knowing what to do with life , is lost.
Subsequent stages: blind alleys. Environment deformed the people. It was an absolute anguish derives political pessimism, increasingly isolated and adopts a passive stance in seeking a peace disenchanted.
Temporary peace by marriage to Lulu but the death of his son and his wife, leading to ultimate disappointment Andrew suicide.
The structure
the figure of Andres Hurtado gives unity to the story, many elements (types, anecdotes, pictures of environment, disquisitions ...)
the tree of knowledge is composed of seven parts totaling 53 chapters usually brief extension, the number of chapters is variable
although the work could be divided into two phases or stages of the protagonist's life separated by an intermediate reflective. In the view of Galdós's in the tree of knowledge a lot of technique.
That puts on the shirt not the narrative structure there is great freedom in the plot with plenty of side stories.
The characters and the art of characterization
Lulu from him is the other major character: funny, bitter, lucid and sharp, not accept any rights or social practices, however, has a background very human and very noble.
Secondary characters: the father of Andrew, despotic and arbitrary; Aracil, cynical, unscrupulous playboy, the tender Luisito Iturrioz, the philosopher ... stopping at a character is not justified by requirements of the central argument but because Baroja has a tendency to linger over the road. The main characters is describing the slowly progressive characterization, in situation, they also increasingly emerging human thickness. The secondary characters describes them quickly.
Environments
vivid impressions the corner of Andrew and what you see from his window, the cabarets, the dissection room, hospitals, home of Minglanillas
is notable for his mastery landscape, makes us go feeling the space, light, heat stifling, the atmosphere of the hotel, casino, etc..
social significance. Spanish Reality
the characters and environments identified a mosaic of Spanish life of the age are about 98 years. Baroja lavished anomalies or talons against the absurdities of the Spain.
It cites the cultural poverty of the country and insist on the contempt for science and research.
Social issues: poverty and social ills.
The rural world is a world still chaired by the lack of solidarity and passivity in the face of injustice. Words like selfish cruelty and so prejudices envy. are those that excel. Denouncing the chieftaincy. The city, Madrid, presents us with samples of abject poverty. Given the social injustice the protagonist feels impotent rage. The town is increasingly degenerate and there seems no solution because Andrew would bowing to spiritual anarchism, based on sympathy, and pity, without a solution.
The existential meaning of the novel
such pessimism explains that we are facing a political novel. Existential conflicts, religiously, there is then no intellectual grip. Science does not give you the answers you seek, on the contrary, intelligence and science merely exacerbate the pain of living. Thus arises the idea that the novel's title. In short human life is unexplained, meaningless. The main influence as noted, is that of Schopenhauer, for Andrew's life was a tumultuous stream unconscious where all stakeholders represented a comedy that did not understand and men arrived in a state of intellectuality watched the scene with a compassionate and merciful. This combines the idea of the struggle for life.
Style
paragraph brief taste, naturalness of expression, both as a descriptive narrative or dialogue. Colloquialisms and slang.
Conclusion
the most representative works of the generation of '98.