The City of Marvels Author:Eduardo Mendoza, Bernard Molloy (Translator) Nothing succeeds like excess. And no one is more daring than Onofre Bouvila, an eminently corruptible peasant youth who stops at nothing on his way to fabulous wealth and power in Barcelona. A vibrant coastal city in the shadow of Madrid, Barcelona reaches its own heights preparing for two World Fairs: 1888, which marks the beginning of Onofre's... more » vagabond career, and 1929, of even greater note as its end.
With a gift of gab and dazzling entrepreneurial genius, Onofre rises from rabble-rouser to the richest magnate in Spain, via baldness cures, burglary, land speculating, diamonds, film producing, arms smuggling and international finance. Falling desperately in and out of love three times, he remains a canny pragmatist, subsidizing Lenin's Bolsheviks and drinking champagne with Rasputin at a dinner given for the Tsarina on her visit to Spain. As Onofre conquers Barcelona, a juicy array of characters swarms riotously through the city, among them: a maid whose ferocious cat guards her virginity; an old sailor speaking an unknown tongue; a missionary priest who becomes a whirling dervish; and a patron saint whose statue lectures the mayor on municipal ills.
Rich, irreverent and always entertaining, The City of Marvels deftly captures a city lurching into the modern age...and an endearing scoundrel whose adventures are as outrageous, unpredictable and fascinating as the age in which he flourishes.« less