Customer Reviews

Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Silent Past

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great journalistic account of the social and political changes that have transformed Spain up to the present day. Tremlett discusses the country's past and present in fairly equal measure. He begins by looking at the legacies of the Spanish Civil War, discussing how only in the past decade has the full scale of the atrocities that took place come to light. He discusses how Spaniards whose relatives were killed by the Francoists have pushed in recent years for their relatives to be given decent burials. He also writes an interesting chapter on Franco's overall legacy, arguing that after his death and the country's transition to democracy he has been largely purged from public discourse. Despite this collective amnesia that he identifies, Tremlett points out that the same left-right cleavage that drove the war still lurks below the surface of Spanish society. The book also contains chapters on the Basque, Catalan, and Galician regions. Tremlett provides very insightful analysis of the origins of and main forces behind Basque and Catalan nationalism, while his chapter on Galicia details that region's emergence as a conduit for Columbian cocaine. One of my favorite chapters looked at gender relations in Spain, in which Tremlett provides some very amusing anecdotes that reveal contrasts between Spain and his native Britain. This chapter also discusses Tremlett's quest to understand the paradox of how a country can be so awash in brothels (which, he reports, 1/4 of Spanish men visited) yet relatively conservative in terms of the sexual mores of its people.

Other subjects covered here include Spain's emergence as a global tourism magnet (and the corruption that has often emerged alongside it) and the 2004 Madrid train bombing, which indirectly led to the defeat of the ruling party in the elections several days later. This was an interesting chapter, in which Tramlett looked at the ways in which the main parties tried to capitalize on this tragedy for political gain. Overall, I found Tremlett to be a very keen analyst of social and political relations, and there weren't really any weak chapters. For instance, I considered skipping a chapter on flamenco music, not being particularly interested in the musical form itself, but the chapter ended up including a fascinating discussion of the social history of Spain's gypsies.

Overall, I would heartily recommend this book to anybody interested in Spanish history, culture, and/or politics. I would NOT recommend it to those expecting more of a travel guide type of book; although Tremlett does visit and write evocatively about numerous regions, such descriptions are not the main substance of this book. If I had to make one minor criticism, it is that the chapters themselves were often not tightly organized. For example, the chapter on the Basques jumps from past to present and does not really follow any sort of structure. This wasn't really a problem for me, because Tremlett writes well and never bored me, but it might be a problem to some. Another minor complaint is that the book doesn't include a map, which might have been useful for readers like me who aren't intimately familiar with Spain's geography. Overall, though, I think that this is social and political journalism at its finest, and anybody wishing to learn more about this fascinating country could do worse than to start here!

A British journalist who has lived 20 years in Spain, married and raising his 2 children in Madrid, the author investigates, reveals and muses upon Spanish culture, history and the forces of the "two Spains" as they come together, or rub against each other, in forming the modern Spanish world. A fascinating look at Spain, its subcultures from the Basques to the Catalans to flamenco to the Galicians, to drug culture to tourism and the very difficult and delicate process of choosing to forget the differences of the Spanish Civil War and Franco's regime in order to move forward in a country that was once the most powerful on earth.
I like Spain and its history. This is one of the very best insights into modern Spain. Highly recommended.

Having been to Spain a number of times since 1991, I always sensed that Spain was "different" from any other western European country. REcently I attended a Hemingway field study in Madrid by R. W. Burda, and I read this book before and during my stay. I can't say enough about the book--Giles Tremlett must have researched for years. I highly recommend this to anyone visiting or living in Spain as an expatriate, as Tremlett himself does. He begins with the ghastly Civil War years (perfect companion piece to the understanding of Hemingway's FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS and SUN ALSO RISES), the Franco years, pointing out that King Juan Carlos is the first-ever king elected by a dictator! For a country full of loquacious people (138,000 bars in Spain, more that any other European country!), they are eerily silent about the painful past. ...if you want to start to understand what makes Spaniards tick, read this book. Better yet, buy it along with a ticket to Madrid and read it there in all the tapas bars you can manage to get to!

If you have time to read only one book about Spain, Ghosts of Spain, would be my pick for you. I have been to Spain several times: to Valderama for the Ryder Cup; to the Pyrenees to hike; to Barcelona to see Gaudi's works; to Bilbao to see "Puppy" and the Gehry Guggenheim; and to Guernica because of Picasso's painting of the same name. There is little in Spain that hasn't captured my interest. Ghosts of Spain has pulled together my varied experiences and has made sense of them. Ghosts is rich with history, pre- and post Franco, and with a devoted admirer's unravelling of modern Spain's political, economic, artistic, and social sensibilities. Read Ghosts and you will arrive in Spain to find that Giles Tremlett has given you an amazing gift, a "Rosetta Stone" for Spain. Whether you speak Spanish or not, Tremlett's Ghosts will make the new and the strange feel familiar. If you already know Spain, I suspect that Ghosts is even more of a "must read."

Giles Tremlett has written a highly readable, incisive portrait of Spain today--its problems and its pleasures. His presentation of the manner in which Spain has chosen to deal with the aftermath of Francisco Franco's death is particularly well written and revealing. He examines how the decades of dictatorship and brutal repression have been swept under the rug of collective consciousness by Spaniards choosing not to confront it or attempt to reconcile themselves with this difficult episode in their nation's history. The author's years of closely observing Spain, and reporting on its politics and culture for Britain's most respected newspaper, The Guardian, have given him a wonderful sense of both the large picture and the quotidian details, which do so much to bring this book to life.
Anyone wanting a sense of what today's Spain is all about will find it in these pages.

As a regular visitor to Spain who unfortunately hasn't had much luck mastering the language, I've scoured bookstores and websites in order to learn everything I can about the the history and culture of this amazing country. Many of the books available are not very comprehensive, or dry to the point of being boring. Most books in English you buy in Spain (translations) are almost unreadable, and clearly not edited by native English speakers. Ghosts of Spain has got a ton of information...and insight, and it's very readable. I highly recommend it for anyone with casual interest, or for "Span-o-files" like myself.

Giles Tremlett is the Spanish correspondent for The Guardian of London. When Ghosts of Spain was published, late in 2006, he had been living in Spain for over 10 years, first in Barcelona, then in Madrid, where he is still stationed. The tone of his book is entirely different from John Hooper's The New Spaniards, 2nd Edition, though both are excellent in different ways and complement each other nicely. Hooper's tone is detached throughout; though his commentary is always smart and to the point, he maintains a certain distance. It is clear that his book was written by someone who is very familiar with Spain, but who no longer lives there (this may have been less evident in the first edition, which was written after he had just completed an 8-year assignment there). The reader learns very little about Hooper, other than his obvious expertise about Spain. Tremlett, in contrast, takes a much more personal approach - repeatedly drawing on his own particular experience to illustrate a general point, grounding his analysis in the quotidian details of ordinary life. As a result, there is an immediacy to Tremlett's writing that is missing from Hooper's book. Some readers might find Tremlett's willingness to place himself in the foreground a little offputting - it didn't bother me, as I found him generally engaging, smart, with the knack of a good journalist for asking interesting questions.

Hooper takes a very systematic approach to a book that is obviously intended as a comprehensive treatment, with separate, clearly delineated sections (transition to democracy, private life, the monarchy, regional autonomy, social issues, culture and the media). I doubt that Tremlett was interested in writing a comprehensive account of contemporary Spain; his book is structured more like a collection of essays on different aspects of Spanish life. Though both books seem to have come out in 2006, Tremlett's appears far more up to date, reflecting a journalist's focus on topics of immediate public interest. Of course, as his book's title indicates, understanding current events often requires an examination of past history, and this is nowhere more true than in Spain, where the ghosts of the Civil War have yet to be laid to rest.

The specific trigger for a reexamination of past events was the exhumation of bodies for reburial from first a handful, later scores, of mass graves dating from the Spanish Civil War. The vast majority were bodies of Republicans killed or executed by Franco's forces; many had disappeared with little or no information about the circumstances of their death, and had been buried in unmarked, communal graves. It took almost 30 years after Franco's death, but suddenly, in the middle of the last decade, old wounds were reopened and old hostilities resurfaced as relatives of the dead began to demand exhumation, proper burial, and some measure of accountability. The question of the graves, and coming to term with the past, received a major increase in traction when the right-wing government of Jose Maria Aznar lost to Zapatero's socialist party in the general election of 2004 (it was still a hot topic in 2009). It provided the impetus for the opening three essays in Tremlett's book: Secretos a Voces (Open Secrets), Looking for the Generalisimo, and Amnesty & Amnesia (The Pact of Forgetting).

The number of books about the Spanish Civil War now exceeds 2000, a number that gives me a major headache. Tremlett's material is nonetheless interesting, because he is specifically focused on how it still affects life in Spain seventy years later. 100 pages examining the legacy of civil war, in Spain or anywhere else, isn't exactly a walk in the park, though Tremlett is clear and engaging. Fortunately, each of the remaining chapters is largely self-contained, so they can be read in any order. Later chapters are (generally) given over to more cheerful topics, specifically:


* How the Bikini Saved Spain (Benidorm and the rise of tourism)
* Anarchy, Order and a Real Pair of Balls (the importance of enchufe, corruption and scandal)
* The Mean Streets of Flamenco
* Clubs and Curas (Sex. Prostitution neither legal nor illegal. Decline of the influence of the church)
* Men and Children First (Role of the family)
* 11-M: Moros y Cristianos (terrorist attacks of March 11th, 2004 and the aftermath)
* In the Shadow of the Serpent and the Axe (ETA and the Basques)
* The Madness of Verdaguer (those crazy Catalans)
* Coffins, Celts and Clothes (Galicia)
* Moderns and Ruins (the frenetic pace of change)

Tremlett and Hooper are obviously covering some of the same ground. Both are worth reading. What I particularly liked about Tremlett's book is the way all of his writing is grounded in the vivid details of everyday life. He is much better at capturing how it feels to live in Spain. The cacophony of noise in Madrid, the necessity for having and using connections (enchufe) to get anything done that pervades all aspects of Spanish life, first-hand encounters with the health and educational systems through the birth and education of his child, a visit to the municipal jail in Seville (conjugal visits), a brothel in Almeria - the mosaic of Spanish life that Tremlett constructs is detailed, colorful and vibrant. Cumulatively his delightful collection of essays do manage to capture both the charm and frustration of Spanish life.

I highly recommend Ghosts of Spain.

Nice follow up after reading the classic Iberia by James Michener. Brings the reader up to date on life in modern Spain which is still haunted by ghosts of its civil war and the battle between tradition and modernism. La Transicion, or Spain's transition to democracy is something that is occuring both historically, politically, and personally as Spain enters a more globalized, connected world. Tremlett describes this "transicion" from all perspectives, but it is his personal perspective, as an ex-pat Brit raising his family in Spain, which I found particularly enjoyable. His descriptions of day to day life juxtaposed into chapters dealing with deeper historical and political events, such as the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, the legacy of Franco, the Basque separatist movement, the pride of Catalans, and the 2004 Islamic bombings, makes this book very readable and pertitent to truly understanding not only the country but its people, and their remarkable history.

cool-minded views of a passionate lover of Spain, with lots of insight and a committed approach. Very interesting and useful to have an understanding of my country

I picked up this book because in a couple of weeks I'll be going to Madrid to give a lecture. I finally managed to get to it this week, and I've been entranced. Giles Tremlett is the GUARDIAN's Madrid correspondent, and he is an excellent guide to modern Spain. This fine book seamlessly fuses the genres of journalism, memoir, travel literature, and history. Tremlett is especially good at teasing out the complexities of the quandary of Spanish identity and the contradictions of Spanish politics. Readers should get the paperback edition, because of the excellent new afterword. Highest recommendation.