Ghosts of Spain Travels through Spain and its silent past

AT the Corte Inglés bookstore in downtown Madrid, the divisions in Spanish society can be found spread out across the new-releases tables and propped up in the window displays. In the last few years, Spanish publishing houses have been putting out a stream of titles revisiting the Spanish Civil War and the four decades of dictatorship that followed. These books have revealed a spectrum of historical research and revisionism, from thinly veiled pro-Franco dissertations like "The Myths of the Spanish Civil War" to titles like "The Enormous Mutilation: The Destruction of Spanish Universities Under Francoism." The publication of these new histories came just after a second transición in Spain - the election of José María Aznar, head of the rightwing Popular Party and the first conservative leader of the country since Francisco Franco's death in 1975 - a time when Spain began, quite literally, to unearth its dead. Unmarked mass graves from the Civil War period were dug up across the country, and rojos, or Reds, were given an honorable second burial. It is at this moment - the end of the Spanish pacto del olvido, the pact of forgetting - that Giles Tremlett, the Madrid correspondent for The Guardian, opens his incisive and engaging book "Ghosts of Spain." For 25 years, he writes, "silence about the past" was seen as "the price to be paid for the successful self-dissolution of Francoism." In contrast to Chile, South Africa or Argentina, "there were no hearings, no truth commissions and no formal process of reconciliation beyond the business of constructing a new democracy." And in contrast to East Germany or the Czech Republic, "the mechanics of repression" were not revealed or put on trial. "In fact," Tremlett writes, "it was Franco's own men who would, largely, oversee and manage" the transition. Unlike so many of his colleagues passing through on their way to a post in Paris or New York, Tremlett, who has lived in Spain for the better part of two decades, is linguistically and socially integrated into Spanish life. Part modern social history, part travelogue, "Ghosts of Spain" is held together by elegant first-person prose that allows readers an occasional glimpse of Tremlett's personal life in Madrid amid the more general accounts of family life (children are coddled and fussed over and considered almost "public property"), the medical system (respect for the white coat, he writes, is still absolute), nocturnal entertainment (Spaniards are said to be the most enthusiastic brothel-goers - and cocaine users - in Europe), and so on. The legacy of Francoism provides the book's structure, but its true subject is the people of this quirky young democracy, a surprising percentage of whom would, prefer to be Basque or Catalan and not Spanish at all. Using the "hated" 1960s tourist slogan "Spain is different!," Tremlett draws on the voices of a string of commentators, ranging from 16th-century travelers to contemporary journalists. He is extraordinarily well read and has a wonderful eye for detail, but he's at his finest when allowing the Spaniards he meets to describe themselves. His account of the Gypsy roots of flamenco takes him from the projects outside Seville to jailhouse flamenco contests; then he tells the tragic story of the flamenco star Camarón de la Isla - literally, the Shrimp of the Island, but known simply as El Príncipe, the Prince. Even before his death from cancer in 1992, "years of drug abuse, of heroin and cocaine, had already drained the resistance out of a body that produced a sound which revolutionized flamenco," Tremlett writes. Tremlett's chapter on Spanish women's progress (and lack thereof) includes the hilarious story of his and his partner's search for a hospital that encouraged natural childbirth. (A Spanish man at a birthing class? Forget about it.) And his sober analysis of how the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004 an event known in Spain simply as 11-M - exposed deep fissures in Spanish society is the best report I've read on the subject. Tremlett is hardly without opinions. He begins a chapter on Basque separatism with a visit to Gotzone Mora, a Socialist politician and critic of the Basque separatist group ETA who was in turn hunted by it. Readers of Mark Kurlansky's book "The Basque History of the World" will find Tremlett's picture of the region quite different. "Long ago," he writes, "I was captivated by the romance of the Basques," adding that it starts "to pall however if you only ever come here to talk about shootings, bombings and kidnappings." Tremlett is more sympathetic to nonviolent Catalan nationalism. Yet in his discussion of the peoples that are sometimes uncomfortably sheltered under the Spanish flag, this book is caught by its one major, and unavoidable, flaw: published in Britain and Europe last spring, it is dated when it comes to the political situation. The "new" Socialist government is now three years old. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero quickly fulfilled a campaign promise to pull Spanish troops from Iraq, and Spain is marginalized in American foreign policy. The possible cease-fire with Basque separatists that Tremlett muses over has now, unfortunately, come and gone. Yet the level of daily violence in the Basque region is significantly lower than it was in the early 2000s, the focus of Tremlett's discussion. Finally, there are only passing mentions of immigration, an increasingly tense issue as newcomers continue to arrive. (In 2006 some 20,000 subSaharan Africans landed on Spanish shores, six times as many as in 2005.) "Ghosts of Spain" deserved an updated epilogue. Yet this remains an invaluable book. Indeed, since it appeared in Britain last year, "Ghosts of Spain" has become something of a bible for those of us extranjeros who have chosen to live in Spain. A country finally facing its past could scarcely hope for a better, or more enamored, chronicler of its present. Tremlett captures the people and the paradoxes of Spain's second transición. Sarah Wildman is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, based in Madrid.

Tremlett (Madrid correspondent, the Guardian), a 20-year resident of Spain, takes a hard look at modern life in that country, delivering a provocative and vividly written book that is part history, part political and social commentary, and part love letter. This is not the picture-postcard Spain of colorful fiestas, sandy white beaches, and tapas bars. This Spain tolerates corrupt government officials, is overwhelmed by hoards of tourists and uncontrolled development along its once pristine coastline, and is unwilling to address the atrocities of the civil war and Franco's oppressive regime. Even so, Tremlett is clearly caught up in the romance that is Spain. His search for authentic flamenco takes him to a prison and the barrios of Seville, and he is intrigued by the differences among the people in Spain's many regions, although his enthusiasm for Basque cooking is somewhat tempered by the possibility that its best chefs may be paying protection money to Basque separatists. This book should be in all public and academic library collections on Spanish history and culture.-Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.