Note 106 — XIX THE MODERN SPANISH NOVEL

“César ó Nada” is the first of a trilogy entitled “Las Ciudades”; another trilogy, “El Mar,” is begun with “Las Inquietudes de Shanti Andía” (1911), a vivid disconnected narrative concerning the lives of adventurous sailors of the Basque coast in the little fishing-harbour of Luzaro and in their distant voyages. The style, or absence of style, is clear, transparent, as it were brittle with the shock of abrupt short sentences, interspersed with sonorous Basque names and rough snatches of Basque song. In Basque, too, are the indications of the site in which lie buried the coffers of gold coins hoarded by a miserly slave trader. But the book ends with the sad reflection: “No one now in Luzaro is willing to be a sailor. Los vascos se retiran del mar.”