{"product_id":"9781934768709","title":"Belarmino y Apolonio","description":"Published in 1921, \"Belarmino y Apolonio\" probably is the best novel written by the Spanish Asturias-born writer Ramon Perez de Ayala, and certainly a most significant one among those published during the so-called Spanish culture Silver Age (1898-1936). According to the French hispanist critic Jean Cassou \"Belarmino y Apolonio\" should be considered one of the most important novels in Spanish literature, second only to \"El Quijote\". The novel appears at first sight to be a story that could be classified as \"costumbrismo\" or even romantic pulp fiction: the forbidden love between a young seminarist and a beautiful girl, son and daughter respectively of two shoemakers who happen to hate each other. But in truth the work constitutes a singular mechanism of mirrors and retelling, and a continuous pondering upon human behavior, up to the point that the reader soon realizes that one of the cobblers is a philosopher who happens to have invented a new language, and the other one considers himself to be a playwright and normally speaks in verse.\u003cbr\u003eWith this novel Perez de Ayala presents a fictional research on the point of view, the contrast and, finally, the relativeness and contingency of human opinion, and how do these affect the precious good called \"happiness\", in a text that combines cultural references and an essay-like style with a precise narrative structure, all encompassed in a playful and ironic tone of voice.","brand":"Stockcero","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47040277545200,"sku":"9781934768709","price":29.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781934768709_p0.jpg?v=1763655369","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781934768709","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}