La busca

"The search" is the first installment of the trilogy of "The struggle for life", a cycle of novels in which Baroja approached with a raw and direct style, but not without adventure and lyricism, the life of the lumpen and the proletariat in bustling Madrid between the 19th and 20th centuries. The novel narrates the arrival from rural areas to Madrid of Manuel Alcázar, a passive hero who, accepting his status as an outcast, accepts the most degrading tasks to try to get ahead, only to discover that exploitation and misery await him. Aware that his contacts with rogues, thugs, prostitutes and knife men, figures typical of the environment in which he lives, predict a slow fall into the world of crime, Manuel decides to face the destiny that society has reserved for him to aspire, through of his will, to an honest and free life.