Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183125 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-30
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A true taste of old Spain.
This is a true classic from Gerald Brenan. After WW1 the author was close to breakdown, desperate to experience poetry and literature and the recipient of a small war pension. His solution was to travel to a remote village in the South of Spain, take 2000 books and soak in the atmosphere and learn how to love once again. His journey is understated, educated, intelligent and human.

It is no picture book. It is a true snapshot taken through the eyes of a would-be Bloomsbury boy who had experienced the Empire, the Somme and physical illness and who then decided to actually pay attention to the world sarrounding him.

Brenans description of the personalities, geography, love affairs and society he encounters are glorious to me. There is no vanity or laziness in the writing. As his lifestyle is stripped to necessities so is his writing. Yet it is free and beautiful and evocative in many places. So many modern travel writers try to recreate life as a gaudy, filter-enhanced, postcard picture of the places they are subsidised to visit. Gerald Brenan captures a clear, gentle, colour snap of his life spent in Yegen during a period of time when black and white was all the camera could capture. Perhaps that is the reason it seems to have been so important for him to record it faithfully.

Visceral travel literature
I read this book before spending three weeks in Granada with the weekends in the Alpujarras. I have never been better prepared by a piece of fiction for a holiday. The prose is superb, and the stories are enticing. Naturally, excessive tourism has changed the areas that Brenan discusses, but the spirit of the book can still be seen. This book can bring some of the magic of the area to armchair readers, or is the perfect complement to an Andalucian break. Beats the Lonely Planet Guide any day of the week!

A thoroughly enjoyable read
This is an excellent book - As I'm going to the area, I thought I'll indulge in some light reading - It adds to the excitement. Once you start, it'll be difficult to put down.