About book Ghosts Of Spain: Travels Through Spain And Its Silent Past (2007)
In recent years, I have made a friend in the last surviving member of the Interior Directorate (DI), the anarchist exile clandestine committee dedicated to the assassination of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. From plans to bomb him en route to work, to the audacious plan to bomb him from the air when he visited the yacht races off San Sebastian in 1944, the attempts all sadly failed. But my friend today is involved in unravelling the "Pact of Forgetting" that allowed mass graves created by the Francoist-Falangist state to fester under the skin of the Spanish body politic for decades after the right's Nazi and Fascist sponsored victory in 1939. Giles Tremlett does a great job of shining an unflinching light into Spain's dark corners, like interacting with unrepentant veterans of the Division Azul who fought on the Eastern Front for Hitler, or rather against Bolshevism. One of the gems that comes to light is right-wing "communist" former dictator Fidel Castro's life-long friendship with Manuel Fraga Irbarne, Franco's interior minister (and thus responsible for the judicial execution of perhaps 220,000 Republican loyalists after the defeat of the Spanish Revolution in 1939) and the longest serving Francoist in Spain. That Fraga Irbarne's bodyguard was, until outed, the former leader of the ultra-right Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (Triple A) death squad responsible for massacres in Argentina, is another question mark against Castro's true politics (though this is hardly Tremlett's focus). But devastating details like that deliver far more than expected of a retrospective on a country still shrouded in the expedient myths of a murderous right that is again taking seats in European parliaments. A perhaps unintentionally cautionary tale.
An extended piece of journalism drawing on the author's own experiences of living and working in Spain as a Guardian newspaper reporter. It has a broad sweep and is rife with generalisations. Ghosts may or may not cover what interests any particular reader. I found the coverage of Valencia (the third biggest city in Spain) to be very scanty (the author has lived in Barcelona and Madrid but apparently not Valencia). Everything from the arguments between 'Valencian' and 'Catalan' speakers about their language(s) (mentioned but not fully explored) to the role of Ruta Destroy (which may have been based in Valencia but drew clubbers from all over Spain) in the post-dictatorship 1980s/1990s era of cultural excess, and much else in the Community of Valencia, could have loomed much larger. Benidorm does get relatively generous treatment but if you move into the mountains in the Valencian region somewhere like Xativa (important as an early - probably the first - centre of paper making in Europe, and also historically as a centre of Islamic scholarship) doesn't get a mention. While the Community of Valencia is the part of the Iberian Peninsula that most intrigues me, if you are fascinated by say Extremadura, you may also be disappointed by the slim coverage of that region. The book will work best for northern European tourists to Spain who'd like to know a bit more about the places they are most likely to find themselves visiting, done at 'quality' newspaper level rather than in-depth. There is plenty in Tremlett's book that you wouldn't get in a regular city guide and it is a very easy read.
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It’s sobering to read Ghosts of Spain and read about the Spanish Civil War. After decades of silence about it, witnesses and descendants alike are now asserting the right to examine its history. Mass graves have been exhumed; archives are being explored; witness statements are being made. Most significantly, memorials to the Republican dead are emerging while those of Franco’s supporters are shunned. All this takes place in a country where the emphasis has been resolute about looking forwards not backwards and where there are ongoing separatist movements.To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
—Lisa
The first few chapters are a little slow but this is a comprehensive look at Spain and it's people and the history that shaped who they are today. My personal views after living here in Spain for nine months sometimes contradict Mr. Trimlets views (i.e. he claims Spaniards are almost OCD in their addiction to cleanliness and yet there is dog crap all over every sidewalk, people stop to pee in the street here on a regular basis and if you find a public restroom with SOAP in it - you should win a prize. Also - his declaration that the Spaniards are strict rule followers is a joke which you would not find funny had you ever had to stand in a line with twenty Spaniards who do not think the rules apply to them and cut in front of you at every opportunity.) BUT his discussion of the Civil War and it's impact on Spaniards today is very interesting as is the chapter on Flamenco music. It's informative but maybe a little off on a detail or two.
—Jodi
How did Spain become a 'normal' country in Western Europe? In 1970 it was isolated (along with Portugal), a decaying fascist state. Yet, somehow, within Spain there existed enough independent life and thought that after Franco's death, the country quickly and relatively painlessly (one nearly tragic but ultimately comic coup attempt aside) became part of Western Europe. The author provides vivid details on small matters of life, especially the distinctions (not just Basque and Catalan) that makes Spain a mixture of regions and local cultures. He also, more importantly, presents a country where the past still lives in the present, and where only the passage of time will (perhaps) lessen the dark hand of the past. The Spanish Civil War was less than four decades in the past at the time of the political transition, and the compromises necessary for normalcy echo the dilemmas of other countries seeking to live with nightmares that still echo in the memories of the victors and victims.
—Steve
