Customer Reviews

The Bible in Spain (1)

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This is a rambling but amusing autobiographical tale of George Borrow, as he meanders through Portugal, Spain, Gibralter, and the Barbary Coast. Although his ostensible mission is to distribute New Testaments (not full Bibles), it is clear he is also going out of his way to amuse himself. Borrow speaks virtually every language, and, as such, manages to travel through a country torn by civil war and rampant banditry without ever getting in serious trouble (his impisonment for distributing testaments not withstanding).

Unfortunately, this volume printed by IndyPublish.com is clearly a download from Project Guternberg or another website. It has CAPITALS where it should have italics, the formatting is poor for a reading book (gaps between the paragraphs rather than indents), and, most offensive, instead of a few passages in Greek, it has the words [Greek text which cannot be reproduced.] There are a dozen typographic errors. The margins are poorly laid out (the bottom margin should be larger than the top, not the other way around). Frankly, it looks almost as if the publisher didn't even proof the copy before sending it to press.

This volume is NOT worth the cover price. If you can find it published by any other source, the book is worth reading. If not, download it and read it that way -- at least you won't have the affront of having paid good money for a lazily produced volume.

I read the Bible in Spain immediately after reading Lavengro and Romany Rye. While I find that particular characters and anecdotes were actually more powerful than those in Lavengro etc, the book on the whole was rather poor and worthy of neither the author, nor the tales he recounts. There were extremely boring rants against "papists" at every opportunity, for one thing. But, if I remember correctly, Borrow even said he was aware of these faults in the introduction; it was one of his earlier works, and he said he wrote it in seclusion based on the many letters he had sent to the Bible Society (for whom he was working at the time); I think he had either lost steam by the time he wrote the book, or else he was unsure how to procede and leant too heavily on the letters. In any case, the book certainly reads like a report, besides the odd sketch--that is otherworldly and unforgettable, but suddenly ends, and doesn't really relate to the narrative, which jumps abo! ut without reason.

In short, if you read Lavengro and Romany Rye and couldn't get enough of them, then this book is worth it; I have read none of his others, (besides dipping into Wild Wales, which I also found dull) so I don't know if another would be better. Also, if you're really obsessed with Catholicism in the Mediteranean or Spain during that civil war, then you'll enjoy this book. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it.

Borrow travels all over Spain in the early 19th century with the aim of selling and setting up the printing of bibles to give the Spanish the holy word without any Catholic inter mediation. He viewed his book as something of a guidebook noting to bring some food if you stop at an inn. They'll cook it for you but they won't give you any. Also make sure that you are armed as you will certainly be shot at and if the number of flies round your horses becomes impossible then put bags over their heads.