In the novels of Pérez de Ayala the “conceptual is emphasized. As Amelia and Ángel del Río have written: “They could be compared with Ortega y Gasset in intellectual orientation and desire to surpass impressionism.” And although Ortega was a thinker and Pérez de Ayala a novelist, the “intellectual” aspect of the latter is predominant.
A good part of this monograph is dedicated to the ideas of the author of Belarmino y Apolonio and the manner in which they are reflected in his work. Weber indicates that the most notable characteristic of Pérez de Ayala’s novels is their multiple focus, i.e. “a prismatic image of reality” (p. 11). For him there exists no one sole criterion of truth. “Truth floats through the world, atomized and scattered,” wrote Pérez de Ayala in Divagaciones. Reason does not lead to total knowledge. Nevertheless, esthetic experience is the perfect road to reality. He regards the drama and the novel as faithful reproductions of the universal order. But sometimes, instead of being an interpreter, the writer becomes a protagonist. This is what happened to Pérez de Ayala, who grew more inclined to show the process of artistic creation than to create himself.
Weber declares that in his “intellectualized,” almost “dehumanized” novels, Pérez de Ayala draws away from his characters and dissolves them, so that they never really attain human form. He animates objects as if he wished to show the result of contagion from human beings.
Weber sets forth Pérez de Ayala’s goals in this manner—the creation of antithetic human types and the use of symmetry in the composition of the parts. She declares also that in Pérez de Ayala’s writings exist two levels of reality, relativism and humor, linguistic perspectivism and a contrast between reality and art. But as del Río points out, “his realism is not the purely descriptive or analytical realism of the nineteenth century, but one which is put to the service of an integrating and intellectual vision.”
Weber has competently examined the works of Pérez de Ayala, taking account of the structural complexity of his novels. A closer comparison with the work of his European contemporaries, however, might have improved the appraisal of this renowned Spaniard’s writings. It might have established important forerunners of trends which still predominate today.