The city of the discreet
A Spanish Historical Novel of Political Intrigue, Liberal Conspiracies, and DisillusionmentBy Pío Baroja
Length9h 24m
About this audiobook
In The City of the Discreet, Pío Baroja turns the provincial city into a study of social conformity, moral timidity, and frustrated individuality. The novel's observant protagonist encounters a community governed by decorum, habit, and tacit exclusions, where "discretion" becomes less a virtue than a strategy for preserving privilege. Baroja's brisk, episodic narrative, colloquial dialogue, irony, and sharply visual descriptions resist ornamental prose in favor of psychological and social immediacy. Its critique of stagnation places the work within the Spanish Generation of 1898, whose writers examined the country's cultural paralysis after national decline while seeking new forms of intellectual and ethical life. Born in San Sebastián in 1872, Baroja trained as a physician but soon devoted himself to literature, journalism, and an itinerant engagement with Spain's varied regions and marginal communities. His skepticism toward institutions, sympathy for outsiders, and attraction to energetic, rebellious personalities shaped a fiction hostile to provincial hypocrisy and inherited authority. The novel reflects both his firsthand knowledge of Spanish urban life and the intellectual climate of regenerationism, while preserving his characteristic distrust of fixed political or philosophical solutions. This book will reward readers interested in modern Spanish fiction, urban sociology, and the literary response to national crisis. It is especially recommended for those who value novels in which narrative movement, satire, and philosophical unease combine to expose the hidden structures of everyday respectability.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.8 (175)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon
GenreHistorical Fiction, General Fiction
Length9 hrs 24 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 30, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Boy in the Bush (Annotated)
2CHAPTER III INFANCY: SOMBRE VESTIBULE OF LIFE
3CHAPTER IV BLUE EYES, BLACK EYES
4CHAPTER V NOBLE AND ANCIENT ANCESTRAL HOMES!
5CHAPTER VI CONCERNING AN ADVENTURE OF QUENTIN’S IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EL POTRO
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6CHAPTER VII IN WHICH IS TOLD THE HISTORY OF A TAVERN ON SIERRA MORENA
7CHAPTER VIII A FIGHT IN AN OLIVE ORCHARD
8CHAPTER IX IN WHICH SEÑOR SABADÍA ABUSES WORDS AND WINE
9CHAPTER X DON GIL FINISHES HIS STORY
10CHAPTER XI MORE INCOMPREHENSIBLE THAN THE HEART OF A GROWN WOMAN, IS THAT OF A GIRL-CHILD
11CHAPTER XII IN SEARCH OF A JEWEL-CASE
12CHAPTER XIII A PICNIC AND A RIDE
13CHAPTER XIV SPRING
14CHAPTER XV WHERE HIS BEAUTIFUL EXPECTATIONS WENT!
15CHAPTER XVI THE MAN OF ACTION BEGINS TO MAKE HIMSELF KNOWN
16CHAPTER XVII “I AM A LITTLE CATILINE”
17CHAPTER XVIII THE TAVERN IN THE CALLE DEL BODEGONCILLO
18CHAPTER XIX THE PLEASANT IRONIES OF REALITY
19CHAPTER XX PHILOSOPHERS WITHOUT REALIZING THE FACT
20CHAPTER XXI JUAN TALKS
21CHAPTER XXII STICKS, SHOTS, AND STONES
22CHAPTER XXIII PURSUIT AND ESCAPE
23CHAPTER XXIV THE VICTIM OF A FEUILLETON
24CHAPTER XXV AN ABDUCTION IS PREPARED
25CHAPTER XXVI EXPLANATIONS
26CHAPTER XXVII IN WHICH A COUNTESS, A PROFESSIONAL BANDIT, AND A MAN OF ACTION HAVE A TALK
27CHAPTER XXVIII THE MASON’S MESSAGE
28CHAPTER XXIX A CONFERENCE
29CHAPTER XXX PROJECTS
30CHAPTER XXXI NIGHT AND DAY
31CHAPTER XXXII THE CITY OF THE DISCREET
32CHAPTER XXXIII THE DEPARTURE
33CHAPTER XXXIV THE END
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