A Stranger in Spain
March 13th, 2004 | Posted by Shannon
I’ve been reading A Stranger in Spain by H.V. Morton. The Slowtalk Patriarch, Doru, recommended this book as a good introduction to Spain. He is right – it is a great book – almost 40 years old but still fresh (though obviously some things have changed since then.) H.V. travels all over Spain and writes about his experiences, and he clearly is a sort of stuffy English guy but he is funny and keeps me interested every minute (which is, I must say, sort of hard to do.) Reading A Stranger in Spain is a lot better than brushing up on (or learning completely) your Spanish History by reading Lonely Planet or a DK Guide.
Here is a sample of Mr. Morton’s humor. It is a classic line – it just slays me.
“No one brought up on the works of Beatrix Potter can understand, much less appreciate, a bull-fight, and nothing can ever be done about it.”
CLASSIC. English homies will NEVER understand. For some bizarre reason, Hemingway did. He wasn’t English, but he wasn’t Spanish either. Hemingway must have been Spanish in one of his previous lives (Morton too, maybe. Also me, maybe.) At any rate I really love this book, have even tossed around the idea of bringing it with me. I’m still uncertain about the bull-fight thing. Because of the way Morton writes about it. I’m all for passion and ritual, but I think a flamenco may be more my speed.
