Spanish Recognitions: The Road from the Past [Hardcover]

Mary Lee Settle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2004

A book of discovery, in which the landscape of Spain, its history, and its people flow together, each explaining the other. At the age of eighty-two, Mary Lee Settle set off alone to find the Spain she thought she knew from guidebooks, from friends, and even from her own earlier trip there. But, like Columbus on another voyage of discovery, she found something - many things - that she hadn't even known she was looking for. Winner of a National Book Award for fiction and author of an acclaimed book of travel and history on Turkey, Settle brings to her task the visual equivalent of perfect pitch. She has no interest in tourist destinations; instead she follows, slowly and with no itinerary, the great, traumatic flows in Spanish history: the Moorish conquest from south to north, and the Christian 'reconquista', several hundred years later in the opposite direction. Those epic struggles, shaped by geography, are the source of the fascinating tensions in the Spanish character, in its art, architecture, and literature, and the author's magical prose puts these gifts in our hands. With a map and 12 pages of illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Traveling through Spain's central provinces from Castile to the southern coast in a "beautiful small rental car, a Real; stick shift, balance and weight perfect for speeding," novelist Settle (The Beulah Quintet; Blood Ties) makes a point of this being a solo trek ("To be alone by choice is one of the great luxuries of the world"). With this engaging, lucid recollection, personal, but not self-centered, she's the perfect guide for a vicarious journey through a land where "history intrudes everywhere." Footprints of Visigoths, Romans, Moors, Muslims and Falangists appear all along the path; Cervantes looms large. Settle encounters El Cid in Zamora, Unamuno in Salamanca and Lorca and St. John of the Cross in Granada. St. Teresa, who "wasn't afraid of God, the king, the papal nuncio who tried to stop her, or the devil himself," emerges in Avila, and in Tordesillas, Settle finds the queen whom history refers to as Juana la Loca de Amor, but whom Settle sees as "the victim of a hostile takeover." She sights the explorers (Cortes, Pizarro, de Soto, Balboa) in their Extremadura hometowns and recounts the Knights Templar's tale in Jerez de los Cabelleros. Settle, an "eighty-two-year-old grownup," delights in discovery, is curious about the old, possessing an intellectual-quest spirit and ageless wisdom. Clearly in love with the "people so beautiful," "the scene so handsome," Settle invites readers to follow in her footsteps and see out of her eyes. Map, 12 pages of illus. not seen by PW.
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From Booklist

Some three decades ago, Settle enjoyed a prominent name in American fiction, winning the National Book Award in 1977 for her novel Blood Tie. Little has been heard from her in recent years, so discriminating readers will welcome her new book with open arms. It is travel writing, not fiction, but in the hands of such a dramatic, intelligent, curious, and empathetic writer, the difference to the reader is really no difference at all. Settle went to Spain recently, a second visit after a first one made several years ago. The Spanish explorers set out in centuries past with no map in hand, and she chose the same approach: "I was looking forward to discovery, not to being tied to that deadening word, itinerary." The soil of Spain is soaked with dramatic history, and her goal was to lay open that soil and, with all five senses highly tuned, take samplings of the true Spanish national character. Wandering planless leads to surprises, of course, and hers are recalled with delicious, plainspoken eloquence. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (March 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393020274
• ISBN-13: 978-0393020274
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, May 24, 2004

By 

Stephen McHenry (Olney, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spanish Recognitions: The Road from the Past (Hardcover)

An 82 year old woman from an American coal mining region heads out to explore Spain on her own in a rental car, with very little Spanish, but a wealth of information she has read before hand. Her notes and thoughts through the journey are fascinating and revealing. Her insights into St. Theresa are original and enlightening, her discussion of the Roman remains in Merida are very interesting reading. In a few short paragraphs lays out why the Muslin religion took hold so well when it did, a description that is simple that I have not seen anywhere else. She takes her facts and transcends them into clear understanding in an impressive way. Without speaking the language she has the feel for the people and conveys it quite well. The last couple chapters tail off in strength, but the book is a definite read for anyone who has been to Spain and is in love with the country. Remarkable piece of work.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a tour through Spains, May 20, 2004

By 

I. Tysoe "Inna Tysoe" (Earth) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spanish Recognitions: The Road from the Past (Hardcover)

This is a lovely account of one lady's tour through a country with which she so rightly tells us "no one in this new millennium should ignore... it was one of the first places mentioned as being stolen from the Muslims in an early televised Osama bin Laden tirade of bitterness and intent. ... Al-Andalus. Andalucia. Spain. Few in this country knew what he was talking about" (255). I (unknowingly following in Mary Lee Settle's footsteps) decided to find out.

Yet it was so difficult to discover any information about post-1492 Spain. I had a hard time finding books telling me about Knights Templar's history and tragic end in Il Torre Sangrienta (the tower of blood); giving me an intimate portrait of Black Virgin's of Guadalupe's haunting eyes; telling me of Unamunno's dramatic defiance of Franco's regime; or telling me the scandal in Zamora. And I had no joy at all in finding a book that tells the story of the many Spains (for in truth as Mary Lee Settle makes clear there is not ONE Spain but many) as though all its rich history grew up naturally--from the stones in the ground. As though this history were but part and parcel of the sights, sounds, and smell of modern Spain. Until, of course, I found this book.

For Mary Lee Settle's book does all of the above. She tells her and Spain's story from the vintage point of an often lost and eternally fascinated traveler. A traveler who romps through the physical Spain and through Spain's history equally and who manages to construct an immensely readable and thoroughly enjoyable book interweaving both journeys.

It is not, however, a history book and it freely admits this. Indeed, perhaps one of the most precious (to me) parts of this book is the frequent history book recommendations. Mary Lee Settle's Spanish Recognitions is thus the ideal book for someone like me: someone who wants to read about Spain's rich history and who would like to travel there armed with historical and cultural knowledge but who is not sure how to get started.

I highly recommend it.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immensely enjoying read, May 3, 2004

By 

Alexander Hamilton "Sandy" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spanish Recognitions: The Road from the Past (Hardcover)

If you base your review on the use of "da" instead of "de" and can't spell the name of the town where you live (it's Oakland), I suggest actually finishing reading the book before making such harsh judgements about it.
This is a wonderful read, full of interesting and accessible information on Spain. Those of us who have actually been there understand exactly what she is saying about the contrasts that exist in the people of Spain who are going through a tremendous change in national character, partly based on their EU membership. BTW: reviewing a travel book for authenticity should at a minimum have a requirement of having actually visited.
I am going back in a few weeks and hope to use some of the information in this book as a means of exploring the areas in and around Madrid.
As an aside, If you want to see a more objective sense of this woman's writing, check out what has been said about "Turkish Reflections".