Benjamin Jarnes

Paula y Paulita Benjamin Jarnes

Paula and Paulita, published in 1929, is one of the best novels of the Aragonese writer Benjamín Jarnés (1888-1949), unanimously considered the most important novelist of the Spanish avant-garde.

Divided in two parts, the novel exposes Julio's, the main character, attempts to seduce a young woman, Paulita, who happens to be staying with her mother, Paula, at the same spa hotel.

Along their encounters Julio will ponder on sensations, the power of the body, the paths of desire and the artificiality of the landscape.

In the second part, the characters get involved in a journey through the past, led by Mister Brook, a millionaire who has decided to put an end to his life.

Paula and Paulita offers in a juicy, cheerful and luminous text not just one of the best examples of the period's prose, but also a meditation on the main vital impulses of the human being, and how existence is daily built by avoiding to fall into despair or boredom.

This edition, annotated and with a foreword by Juan Herrero-Senés, is a great reading for courses dealing with Peninsular Modernism.