Word: torments
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...TORMENT (312 pp.)-Perez Galdós-Farrar, Straus & Young...
Universal Amparo. There are two reasons why Torment, with its routine plot and its 19th century setting, is first-rate literary news in 1953: 1) it is told with much of the eloquence and appetite for life that are the trademarks of the great men of the novel-Dickens, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Fielding; and 2) it is virtually the first chance since the turn of the century that U.S. readers have had to meet Benito Pérez Galdós, one of Spain's finest writers (The Spendthrifts sold 400 copies in this country). Like his mighty peers...
...Torment is no longer than the average lending-library time killer, but it gets more said about the human condition than many a contemporary novelist gives forth in his entire output. For Author Pérez Galdós is bold enough to use the fine old materials of fiction as if he had just discovered them: love and lust, generosity and greed, envy and charity, understanding and pettiness. Poor Amparo is no figure in a Spanish soap opera; she is the universal woman who has sinned, under pressure of her own generosity and momentary passion, and is willing...
...Galdós does things, this is no commonplace happy ending. It is an end to anguish achieved by a cleansing of guilt on Amparo's part, by the courage on Agustin's to dismiss the sneers of his narrow world. An old story, but Torment shows how good...
Then Dealer Ambroise Vollard began promoting him and Rouault's reputation grew. His art was growing even faster; it lost the taint of caricature and took on the glow of compassion. Religious paintings became his most important work. At first, pure torment was what they conveyed. Then slowly Rouault imbued them with infinitely weary, infinitely tender peace. The same peace flooded his harsh landscapes, and his clowns ceased to be merely pathetic; they became almost Christlike...