Muertes de perro fue publicada por primera vez en 1958, durante el largo exilio que vivió Francisco Ayala. Se trata, sin duda, de una de las más impresionantes novelas escritas en lengua castellana sobre la arbitrariedad y el abuso de poder, la degradación humana y la corrupción, el odio, la impostura, la manipulación, la deslealtad, la frustración y la venganza. Con una lucidez y una precisión extraordinarias, ricas en matices y con una incuestionable originalidad, el autor traza, a través de las apuntes recogidos por el narrador, la historia de una dictadura indeterminada #la de cualquier dictadura, al fin y al cabo# que impregna de cinismo y crueldad a todos aquellos que ejercen el poder en cualquiera de su ámbitos.

No lo pude terminar, encontré el estilo de escritura innecesariamente obtuso. ( )

Ayala, a sociologist who in 2009 died at age 103, saw the best and the worst of Spanish society in his long life. This novel from 1965 is written in the form of a memoir by a witness to the excesses of a totalitarian regime. There is a sardonic knowingness to the narrative--an expectation that people in power will behave badly, and that the worst will rise to the top. An amusing and disquieting novel. ( )

Part of book project. Definitely a book. Spoilers could appear. Did it make sense? I don't know. I think the reader was supposed to draw conclusions beyond what the narrator did; the plot lines were fantastic, somewhat, and not believable; I assumed Angelo was the idiot who killed Dona Concha but I don't think he said that. There were some typos & a sentence or 2 that didn't make sense & I didn't know if that was the fault of the printing, the translator, or there on purpose because the narrator is transcribing. It is well done, and interestingly conceived, and humorous in the way the narrator wanders off into digressions and thinks he is a historian when he is not, thinks he is independent and unbiased when he is not...and he turns out to be a murderer like the rest....