The Wisdom of Eccentric Old Men: A Study of Type and Secondary Character in Galdós's Social Novels, 1870–1897

Carol A. Stos is an assistant professor of Spanish Studies at Laurentian
University.

Peter Bly’s detailed and meticulously researched investigation of
Benito Pérez Galdуs’s creation and use of a specific type of
eccentric secondary character is an insightful and significant
contribution to the study of the 19th-century novel and to criticism of
Galdуs’s work. Undertaking a systematic and in-depth analysis of the
eccentric characters in the contemporary social novels of the
1870–1897 period—generally considered the most important in
Galdуs’s work—Bly sets out to determine if these foolish old men
are mere types or more complex and individual secondary characters.

In the introduction he briefly discusses characterology, definitions of
a secondary character, and the eccentric type in the 19th-century
tradition, including Galdуs’s initial interest in types and
eccentrics prior to 1870. It is evident that Galdуs—influenced by his
knowledge of Dickens’s works—had already begun to experiment with
these “funny but wise” types. The following nine chapters trace
Galdуs’s development and refinement of the eccentric character and
his role in each novel, focusing always on one particular
“principal” secondary character, but including, as well, a study of
the other equally or more eccentric minor characters whom Galdуs
creates and uses to set off his main eccentric. Bly helpfully adds an
appendix summarizing the characterological devices these eccentrics have
in common.

However, far from being redundantly “flat” types, whose
eccentricities of speech, demeanour, and dress would make them merely
sources of comic relief both to other characters in the novel and to the
reader, Bly convincingly argues that these funny (and wise) old men are
essential to plot development. They can serve as guides for the
protagonists, becoming at times the wise fool who utters the truth about
themselves and others. They are also integral to the relationship of the
literary text to the contemporary society from which it presumably
springs, able to point out the basic madness of the world and to remind
the reader that the realistic novel of the 19th-century is “the
illusion of a mimetic reproduction in the words of the real world.”

This study is a must-have for students and scholars interested in
Galdуs.