+ R of Rs 62:333 S ’20 140w
BLASCO IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE. Woman triumphant (La maja desnuda); tr. from the Spanish by Hayward Keniston; with a special introductory note by the author. *$1.90 Dutton
20–7292
“The central theme concerns the intimate tragedy of a great painter, Renovales, who, beholding the loveliness of his young wife, persuades her to pose for him, promising that the picture shall be destroyed. But when his inspired hand has added the last brush-stroke, Renovales knows that this is his master piece, and when exhibited will bring him fame. The wife, however, in a sudden revulsion of outraged dignity, flings herself on the picture and slashes it into ribbons. Her act cleaves asunder the artist’s two-fold worship. Meanwhile, a blight has fallen upon the wife’s former beauty. With pitiful futility she admits to herself that he might freely paint and exhibit her if only it would bring back her vanished charm. Yet she clings to life until the day when she becomes aware that even his technical fidelity is at an end. But when the prematurely old and faded wife is dead and buried, the memory of her comes back to haunt Renovales with the elusive charm of her girlhood. And it is borne in upon him that while pursuing unattainable desires he has missed the best life had to offer, and that now it is forever too late.”—Pub W
“‘Woman triumphant’ is, if one may say so without sounding dogmatic, one of the three great novels by Blasco Ibáñez that will endure. There are power, irony, depth and greatness in this novel. Josefina is one of Blasco Ibáñez’s few convincing portrayals of women, and Renovales is not merely an artist type, but a flesh and blood creature. The atmosphere is vibrant with interest, there are admirable pages of art-criticism, and the ever attractive scenes out of Bohemia.” I: Goldberg
+ Boston Transcript p10 My 1 ’20 1300w Dial 69:102 Jl ’20 130w
“It shares the vivid pictorial quality, the sweeping rhetorical strokes characteristic of his fiction, but the slightness of its structure, tenuity of its philosophy and a certain morbidity of theme relegate it to the secondary rank among his novels. There is too much in the book that has this charnel-house atmosphere, and while it has unmistakable power, power does not redeem it.”
+ − N Y Evening Post p2 Ap 24 ’20 850w
“Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is the great storyteller of today. In sheer ability to narrate, to make even the minutest analyses of the thought-processes of his characters part of his action, he stands peerless. ‘Woman triumphant’ only serves to emphasize those traits which have brought him enthusiastic homage before. The translation, like the original, is far above the average.” T. R. Ybarra