his nights in brothels. As the book draws to a close, Onofre becomes more pensive and meets another woman who takes his fancy whose father is an inventor who he had met many years ago, he agrees to support his project to build a form of blimp. He falls for this woman and has one night with her before the unveiling of their project and the next world trade fair in 1929. Finally Onofre dies when their Blimp crashes into the sea at the world trade fair. Reception After discussing the various ways the novel captures and intrigues the reader, Jonathan Franzen, writing for the Los Angeles Times, states, " It’s all fairly interesting, but when the book ends ... what lingers is not the memory of a real Onofre Bouvila but only the spirit of the hard, flamboyant era he represents." Franzen further states that "though modern-day Catalonians may find fascinating his account of Barcelona’s architectural growing pains, the impartial reader working through the 10th dense page of it may be forgiven for asking: Is this book for me?" Franzen answers this question by saying, To the extent that Mendoza tries at all to answer this question and find general truth in specific history, he does it as a cynic, highlighting in every anecdote the ugly, the venal, the ridiculous, the cruel. ... To depict an entire epoch in this way is arrogant if we’re meant to believe the world has improved since then; profoundly diminishing if we’re meant to believe it hasn’t.Similarly, Kirkus Reviews said the novel was "[p]leasant enough reading, but no grabber; the cool, level tone ... sees to that, along with the ice-cold Onofre, who becomes progressively dwarfed by the scale of events." Publishers Weekly added, "Unfortunately, the characterization remains opaque, though the novel entertains and informs with its panorama of Catalan politics and social life, the advent of cinema and flying machines, and amusing cameos of Rasputin and Mata Hari." Film adaptation The novel was adapted into a 1999 Spanish film of the same name, with Olivier Martinez as Onofre Bouvila and Emma Suárez as Delfina. References 20th-century Spanish novels Spanish-language novels 1986 novels Novels set in Barcelona