Crystal Spirit [Hardcover]

Roger Granelli (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1993

Personal and political freedom in 1930s Wales is the subject of this moving novel. The central character seeks to escape work as a miner during the Great Depression, and through his involvement in the Labour Movement, he finds himself in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Through battle and subsequent imprisonment, he finds the maturity to eventually return to his poverty-stricken Welsh valley and contribute to its regeneration. This gripping and affecting narrative is persuasive and authentic in its portrayal of the Depression and full of remarkable scenes from the Spanish Civil War. It is a moving testament to those who suffered in Wales and Spain yet remained undefeated by the horrors of poverty and a brutal war.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spanning four decades, this solid but familiar first novel focuses on the immature, self-centered son of a Welsh coal miner who comes of age during the Spanish Civil War. Frustrated by his prospects--either following in his father's footsteps or becoming a shopkeeper--David Hicks longs to escape the Welsh valley, whose inhabitants ``do not see farther than their own skyline.'' But an affair with beautiful Emma Vincent leads to her pregnancy and a forced marriage, and a resentful David settles into provincial life. Becoming fascinated with the Spanish Popular Front and the civil war it is waging against Fascist rebels, David joins the International Brigade, deserts Emma and goes off to fight for Republican Spain. Eventually he becomes a noncombatant, a stretcher bearer, but is captured and imprisoned. Told in flashbacks framed by a visit to Spain by Emma and David after Franco's death, the story centers not so much on battle scenes as on David's emotional and psychological journey. Although Granelli, a native of Wales, breaks no new ground, he offers a skillful portrait of a man caught up in forces larger than himself.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

""Granelli's vivid novel is one of testimony. And, praise be, it is a good read." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Seren Books/Poetry Wales Pr Ltd (March 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854110608
• ISBN-13: 978-1854110602
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,607,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars an undiscovered gem, May 27, 2007

By 

Eltham N. Jones "octavedoctor" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crystal Spirit (Paperback)

I've just finished reading this book for a second time and it's struck me even harder that its almost criminal that Crystal Spirit is not more widely known.

It has a gripping narrative that held me from first page to last, and the second half is full of memorable scenes of the Spanish Civil War.

As a specialist historian of this conflict it was clear to me that Granelli had obviously done a tremendous amount of research, which is magically brought to life on the page in near flawless detail. There is little of the polemicising that often blights other treatments of the same subject matter, but the novel is not politically inert and apologists for the Nationalist regime will find little to reassure them here.

Granelli pulls off a difficult balancing act; producing an easily readable, driving narrative that rattles along with the locomotive momentum of a Dan Brown blockbuster but with the literary intelligence of a far more accomplished writer. For me, he achieves the ultimate success of a book well-written and accessible.

For those who know little or nothing about this obscure period of European history, which in many ways sowed the seeds nurtured by subsequent conflicts in Europe and which flowered in the cold war of the sixties and seventies, Crystal Spirit could also serve as a valuable précis as the central character, David Hicks, is present of all the major battle fronts. The first section - set in a Welsh valley in the 1930's - is also sharply defined, a sort of a matured, literary version of How Green Was My Valley. Ultimately, the books moves to a very satisfying and moving climax, managing to convey great sentiment without sentimentality.

I doubt that the book has sold many copies because I only found it by accident, but it deserves far wider distribution. I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in good literature.

With the current vogue for "modern political/historical" movies such as "Enemy at the Gates" it seems a shame that some enterprising mogul hasn't optioned it...