From Booklist
The Spanish revolution of 1868 ushered in an era of freethinking and questioning that was reflected in much of the art, music, and literature of the time. Jacinto Octavio Pico{¢}n, like his contemporaries, began to publish stories that examined the religious establishment, society, and personal conscience. Most of the 21 brief, skillfully told stories in this collection have a lesson for humankind. Pico{¢}n's subjects address such timeless themes as love, hate, jealousy, wisdom, happiness, and freedom. In "The Irreverent Nun," he questions the meaning of charity when a group of nuns share their resources not as a spontaneous gesture of love, but only in response to a threat. "Keep Holy the Sabbath Day" offers the opposite situation, telling of a compassionate priest who takes over for one of the stonecutters working in front of the church, performing the tired man's manual labor. It is interesting to note that Pico{¢}n's stories were considered rabidly anticlerical at the time of their first publication. His espousal of personal and sexual freedom for women, championing of the proletariat, and investigations of injustice and repression are still relevant today. Kathleen Hughes

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Moral Divorce" and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Jacinto Octavio Picon y Bouchet (1852-1923), a member of Spain's Generation of 1868. A bibliophile and a Francophile (his mother was French); a native of Madrid who loved Paris; a member of the Royal Spanish Academy (of the Spanish language) and the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts (he published a volume of art criticism entitled the Life and Works of Don Diego Velazquez); a novelist, short story writer, and journalist; a liberal (in politics, religion, social philosophy); a Spaniard steeped in his own literature (from Cervantes to Galdos) but knowledgeable about others; an aesthete whose appreciation of French cooking prompted Emilia Pardo Bazan (probably tongue in cheek) to provide a recipe for a "Jacinto Octavio Omelette" in her Modern Spanish Cuisine; a friend of literary greats of his time (Clarin, Galdos, Palacio Valdes, Pardo Bazan, Valera, etc.); and a loving father whose son's premature death at the age of forty nearly drove him to despair, Picon deserves to be read anew, for in his stories he deals with timeless and universal themes - freedom, justice, equality, compassion, suffering, love, and hope.

FROM THE CRITICS

BookList - Kathleen Hughes