SOURCE: Franz, Thomas R. “Cela's La familia del héroe.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 26, no. 3 (October 1992): 435-51.

In the following essay, Franz finds parallels between La familia del héroe and Pío Baroja's La feria de los discretos.

In a recent interview (“Camilo José Cela: ‘Español del Año’” 5) upon the occasion of his winning the 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature, Camilo José Cela stated that he would cede his award to only one other Spanish novelist, Pío Baroja. That a Spanish writer of Cela's or subsequent generations should admire Baroja is not surprising (Cela Conde, Cela 22, 41, 82, 92), but that Cela should single him out over early twentieth-century novelists whose technical wizardry more nearly approximates portions of his own protean technique gives us pause to reflect on the possible reasons. Cela knew Baroja well (Sánchez Dragó 18; Cela Conde, “Crónicas” 29), and criticism has from time...