Japanese cinema and otherness

This novel is set in 1860s Spain. This is the story of a snobbish, mean-spirited petite-bourgeois woman, married to an incredible cheapskate fifteen years her senior. Dona Rosalia Bringas has expensive tastes and buys extravagant dresses on credit. Her indebtedness is furthered by unscrupulous friends who use her shamelessly for their own purposes. The novel is an allegory on the corruption of the Spanish ruling classes.