The noise of politicians

Year of publication: 1923

Valuation: Fully topical

I am writing this review a few days after the threat of resignation / paripé / reflection period (and here everyone can call it whatever they want) of President Pedro Sánchez. And I think that the book that we bring to ULAD today fits the situation of national politics like a glove.

Because this “El chirrión de los politicians” by Azorín is, at least in its central part, a fierce political satire on Restoration Spain (a period in which the generation of ’98 itself had to do with it from an intellectual point of view). and its slow decline until the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera back in 1923. It is the time of turnism, of perks, of placing cronies in good positions, of rigged elections, of empty words and pats on the back, of fictitious scandals for their own use and benefit, of sound and fury that is nothing more than a puppet theater with which some and others keep the populace entertained while positions and benefits are distributed among climbers, bosses and some naive people of good faith . And, although at the time the book is set the liberals govern, the conservatives do not fare well either. After all, today for you and tomorrow for me. With its updates and so on, but it seems quite familiar to you, right?

Halfway between the story, the essay, the journalistic report and the epistolary genre, the good Azorín distributes to almost all the institutions of the State: Council of Ministers, opposition, ministers, parliament, etc. and draws a bleak panorama of the class political, mirror, on the other hand, of the society it claims to represent.

As a counterpoint to this, both in the prologue and in the epilogue we are presented with what could be a kind of “Azorinian” political ideology through Don Pascual, a retired politician and intellectual (which is not the same thing, listen). Perhaps a transcript of Azorín himself, this Don Pascual reflects the disenchantment of the intellectuals with the political class of the time, despite (or precisely because) Azorín had belonged to that political class at certain moments in his life.

Anyway. I haven’t read anything else by Azorín (sometimes we focus on “modernities” and perhaps we should look back at our “classics”) and I imagine that this will be a minor work by the Alicante native. In any case, it is an interesting testimony of the goings-on of a political class and a country that, although they have undoubtedly changed for the better, may not be, in certain aspects, as far away as they might seem. We will see what the future holds for us.