I read this book nearly one month ago, as you know this book as to be read if you want to go to the selectivity exams.
I think that book is an interesing example of nineteen century spanish literature. The plot of the book is about a boy that's going to be a doctor, then the boy form a pesimistic life style explais how is the spain of late nineteen century. It's quite obious that the book is a biography of the same author, Pio Baroja, was a doctor as his main character, he lived on Madrid too and the things that happens on the film happened realy on his life so we could say that the book is a nice autobiography.
Moreover we can appreciate the pesimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer and the life stlye of the german philosophs like Kant.
In my opinion this book explains pretty well the moment before the fall of Cuba and how does the spanish intelectuals live with Europe. As the main character say, the spanish people think that they are the bests in Europe and they other countries dont want to reconize that because of gelosy.
