(1872-1956) novelist
Pio Baroja y Nessi was born in San Sebastian, Spain. His father was a mining engineer, and the family moved frequently during his childhood, relocating from town to town, following his father’s professional career. Baroja y Nessi studied to be a doctor, and when he graduated from school, he began a medical practice in the town of Cestona in northern Spain. The medical profession did not suit him. His practice was a disaster; after a short time, he gave it up and moved to Madrid, a cosmopolitan city, where he ran a bakery that was owned by his aunt.
It was at this time that he began to publish his novels. He was successful as an author and quickly gave up the management of the bakery to write full time.
Baroja y Nessi was a member of the generation of 1898. He shared with the other writers of the Generation of ’98 a strong sense of Spanish nationalism and a need to reform society. However, Baroja y Nessi was particularly individualistic. As a youth, he had briefly been an anarchist but found even this ideology too constraining. Because of an aversion to any societal structure that limited his freedom, he never married. This individualism was the main theme of his novels.
In his trilogy The Struggle for Life (1903-04), Baroja y Nessi depicts the slums of Madrid and a collection of characters who, by living outside the norms of society, manage to achieve personal freedom. Though the books are distinctly melancholy and terse, written in what critics call Baroja y Nessi’s gray style, they are optimistic in that some of the characters do achieve a degree of freedom by opposing society. In later novels, such as The Tree of Knowledge (1911), Baroja y Nessi depicts the same scenario but in a more pessimistic manner. At the end, the protagonist is unable to realize his goal of personal freedom and is crushed by society.
Baroja y Nessi was a formal innovator. He did not believe in the “closed” novel, the standard model of the 19th century, because he felt its carefully planned plot, structure, and resolution of every conflict did not accurately reflect reality. Instead he wrote in a style of apparent aimlessness. For example, he creates scenes in which suspense is carefully built but never resolved. His stark tone and innovative structure had a great effect on many 20th-century writers, most notably Ernest Hemingway.
Baroja y Nessi is one of the greatest Spanish novelists of the early 20th century. His work, along with that of the other members of the Generation of ’98, revitalized Spanish literature. His influence on later Spanish writers is widespread, but it can be particularly seen in the works of Camilo Jose cela. His innovative style, as well as his theme of the struggle of the individual in modern society, has secured his place among other great writers of world literature.
Another Work by Pfo Baroja y Nessi
The Restlessness of Shanti Andia and Other Writings. Translated by Anthony Corrigan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959.
A Work about Pfo Baroja y Nessi
Patt, Beatrice P. Pio Baroja y Nessi. Boston: Twayne, 1971.
