El caballo desnudo / The Naked Horse
Novel , 1970
Penguin Random House
In the small town of Villabruna, stuck in its rancid traditions and sordid provincialism, there was real upheaval, and pious souls embarked on a crusade on behalf of decency. The motive was simple: one morning in the poplar grove, a boy by the name of Adolfito said to his auntie, Doña Evangelio: Auntie, look at that horse, it’s naked! That’s when the upheaval kicked off that led to the founding of the League for Animal Ethics, whose aim was to defend the spiritual values of the life in Villabruna society, threatened by the Evil Enemy...
Under the guise of a humorous, ironic story, this novel reconstructs the life of a provincial city as a microcosm of Spain during the Restoration, that phantom Spain already about to perish in the year 1917.