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Lo rojo y lo azul, first published in 1932, can be considered an ideal introduction to the universe of the Aragonese writer Benjamin Jarnes (1888-1949) for the same several reasons that also single it out within his fiction works.
First, the novel is directly based on historical facts: an anarchist revolt in a military barracks. This historical basis is intertwined in the plot, and so is the author’s military training years language.
Second, the novel aims to point out what the author considers full of falsehood: military, bourgeois and revolutionary lives.
It is also in this novel where the author faces more clearly the issues of his times.
Its main character gets involved in various social conflicts, and must take a stance and decide how to face reality.
Finally, taking the abovementioned into account, we may say that Lo rojo y lo azul stands out by including among its main objectives the explicit proposal of a possible ethic. In this sense, the novel constitutes a study on Peninsular society and class relations in those times, while the author takes a clear stance against messianism, extremism and radicalization, therefore against violent revolution –represented by the uprising in the barracks- favoring gradual social transformation stemming not from the State or community but from the individual.
Formally and stylistically the novel sways from the avant-garde , dehumanized and fragmentary style of the previous Jarnes fiction works, to develop a continuous and sketchy narration where the storyline has enough entity not to depend neither on style magic nor on the perfect phrase or page charm.
In short, Lo rojo y lo azul contains all the core elements of Jarnes’s works without the reading difficulties that the other more avant garde novels may pose.
This edition, by prof. Juan Herrero-Senes, includes an introductory essay and footnotes, intended to help the modern reader enjoy the text at its full extent.
