Skip to main content

Claro, hablo castellano!


Tomorrow I start for Spain; a week in Catalonia. As one of my favourite parts of going on holiday is planning which books to take.

This is what’s accompanying me (you might notice a curious lack of Medieval and Renaissance titles):

As I walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee

A birthday gift from a friend. Lee’s autobiography from his journeys in Spain in 1934.

Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell

A classic of the Spanish Civil War. Long overdue.


The Skeptical Romancer: Selected Travel Writing - W. Somerset Maugham

The part of which concerns Spain. Trips to China for reading variation.

After the Death of Don Juan - Sylvia Townsend Warner

An accidental find. I’m a fan of Sylvia’s, and this was written during the Civil War and apparently reflects some of the turmoil in against the backdrop of eighteenth century Spain.


Hemingway’s For whom the Bell Tolls I read in Oxford. Am very much considering – as an antidote to overindulgence – Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice Trilogy, but we’ll see what the good ole bags can hold. Sadly missing from the cache is Don Quixote and Federico Garcia Lorca, but perhaps I will find English books in Barcelona…

I've never been to the Mediterranean and so will be taking notes. Back in a week.

Comments

Erin said…
Can't wait to see pictures!

Popular posts from this blog

I’ve a short story in the latest edition of The Stinging Fly , which is a brilliant Irish literary journal. If you’d like a copy (or if you like Claire-Louise Bennett or Kevin Barry or Danielle McLaughlin or Colin Barrett, who’ve all been published by SF ) you can get it here Or, you know, go to Dublin.
There’s a sudden late surge of warmth in the rough winds today and it’s the perfect day to read one of John Clare’s best sonnets: November Sybil of months & worshipper of winds I love thee rude & boisterous as thou art & scraps of joy my wandering ever finds Mid thy uproarious madness – when the start Of sudden tempests stir the forrest leaves Into hoarse fury till the shower set free Still the hugh swells & ebb the mighty heaves That swing the forrest like a troubled sea I love the wizard noise & rave in turn Half vacant thoughts & self imagined rhymes Then hide me from the shower a short sojourn Neath ivied oak & mutter to the winds Wishing their melody belonged to me That I might breath a living song to thee

Monologuing

My previous experience of Rachel Cusk is restricted to her travel book on Italy, The Last Supper , which was withdrawn in Britain because of objections from individuals who found themselves featured, unflatteringly, within its pages. It's very difficult not to write a book about Italy without being smug. Then I read reviews (especially hatchet jobs) about her controversial divorce memoir, Aftermath . I confess I’m suspicious when a writer writes memoir after memoir, as if his own life is the only field of interest. I read memoirs – I am moved by the familiar voice – but I’m wary of their cultural predominance. Self-knowledge is a good springboard for knowledge of others. Orbiting one’s own life without ever calling into question the limitation of it seems myopic. (This, however, is not to say that personal writing can be divorced from art, or that it should be.) But Outline is an expose of how fascinating and selfish and dreary and inescapable monologues on the self can be. The