One of the many men on horseback who rode across Spain in the 19th century, waving their swords and declaring Spain a republic/monarchy, was Juan Prim y Prats. Born in 1814, if he wasn't seated on a horse leading soldiers into battle in the name of the republic/monarchy he was thinking about it; and if he wasn't thinking about he was probably in exile (thinking about it). A follower of the progressive party in Spain he was one of that country's talented men who combined strong political beliefs with the ability to wave a sword. He may never have propounded a detailed political creed but it would be fair to say that he wanted to see a modern Spain, free from the grip of a small group of wealthy landed families and, of course, the church. Having said that I can't help but feel he was never happier than when seated on a horse, sword in hand, charging the serried ranks of the enemy, be that in Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Morocco and, again, in Spain. On the night of the 27th December 1870, in a heavy fall of snow, he was shot by three assassins while travelling through the streets of Madrid in his carriage. He died three days later.
A popular song was, I can't say written given that it has no writer, composed some time after his death.
En la calle del turco
Le mataron a Prim
Sentadito en su coche con la guardia civil
Con la guardia civil, con la guardia rural
A las diez de la noche
En paseo real
Cuatro tiros le dieron en mitad del corazón
Cuatro tiros le dieron a boca de cañón
Al pasar por las cortes le dijeron a Prim
Vaya usted con cuidado, que le quieren herir
Si me quieren herir, que me dejen hablar
Para entregar las armas a otro general
Al llegar a la plaza, salió el hijo mayor
¿quién ha sido ese ingrato que a mi padre mató?
¿quién será ese tirano, quién será ese traidor?
¿quién ha sido el infame que a mi padre mató?
In the calle del turco
They killed Prim
Seated in his coach with the guardia civil
With the guardia civil, with the guardia rural
At ten o'clock at night
In the royal way
They shot him four times right in the heart
Four shots from the mouth of a gun
As he passed the parliament they said to Prim
Watch out, they want to hurt you
If they want to hurt me, they must let me speak
To pass the guns to the other general
As they arrived in the square, his eldest son came out
Who was the swine who killed my father?
Who is that tyrant, who is that traitor?
Who is the vile person who killed my father?
The reason I know about Prim, the reason I know about the song, is that Carmen sang it to me. The reason Carmen knows it is because her mother sang it to her as a young child. The reason her mother sang it to her is that it is a lullaby.
Carmen lives in the same flat where she was born over eighty years ago. She shares it with her husband Paco. Carmen's mother was married in 1908, which would put her birth some time in the 1880s, well within living memory of Prim's assassination. It may be that her mother sang it to her. Carmen had an elder brother and sister. Her father drove steam trains and her mother cared for the children. Her father's salary was good enough for them to employ a servant to help in the flat. Carmen was eleven years old when the Spanish civil war started. She remembers sheltering in the metro station outside the entrance to the block where the family lived, as the nationalist bombs fell on the city. She remembers the executions of priests from the nearby church of Our Lady of Atocha; seeing the Russians that came to help in the fight against Franco's forces; being stopped by a militia soldier near the Puerta del Sol and the machine gun bullets that spattered the nearby buildings. She still remembers the name of the neighbour who denounced her father and brother in the years of Franco's rule (the same neighbour who had borrowed money from Carmen's parents and was given a overcoat by her mother) and was only saved by the intervention of a friend of her brother who had some influence. A friend of her father was not so lucky. A joke at Franco's expense led to his execution. The war stopped Carmen's education and by the time she was fourteen she was already working as a chambermaid in a Madrid hotel.
Her husband Paco doesn't like to talk about the past. His father died when he was five and as they lived in the countryside outside of Leon, he went to work in the fields, looking after the animals. He rarely went to school. He came to Madrid after the war and he met, by chance, Carmen in the metro. They've been married fifty years but they never had children. He worked in a furniture shop in the Calle Alcala. He likes to ask me:
-¿Cómo es la vida en el campo de su país? (How do people make a living in the countryside in your country?)
and:
-¿Ustedes son todos protestantes en su familia? (Are you all protestants in your family?)
and:
-Digame usted, que tipo de gobierno tiene su pais. (Tell me, what type of government does your country have).
To all my answers, he nods sagely. The only time he didn't was when I told him about porridge.
-¡Pero, con esto alimentamos a los animales en el campo! (But that's what we feed to the animals in the field!).
Both he and Carmen speak an old-fashioned Spanish (they talk about “duros”, the informal name given to five pesetas) which will vanish with the passing of their generation.
If there are books in the house, they have them well hidden. Carmen reads her gossip magazines and Paco fills in his football coupons, la quiniela. But they're no fools. They're faces lit up when I asked them about Lorca. For them he was a genius and his death at the hands of Franco's assassins una vergeuenza (“shame” would be the english translation but it's stronger than that, it carries with it a shared sense of outrage ). More than one commentator has noted this; that Lorca, more than any of his contemporaries such as Rafael Alberti or Vicente Alexaindre, was embraced by the working classes, the disenfranchised and those on the margins of society. Paco speaks well of Francisco Largo Caballero, head of the government during the winter of 1936 to 1937, and Manuel Azaña, last president of the Second Republic who died in exile in France in 1940. On the other hand, Carmen can sing a song that makes fun of the decision of Juan Negrin (last prime minister of the Second Republic) to leave the country in the spring of 1939 as Franco's troops prepared to enter Madrid. This charge of cowardice has always hung heavy over the memory of Negrin.
In the lives of Paco and Carmen there can be seen the marks left by the passage of the twentieth century in Spain. A century of great men, great hopes and great disappointments. And in that lullaby sung to Carmen by her mother about the death of General Prim there is also something of Spain in the nineteenth century. When Carmen sang it to me, she smiled, as if about to share a secret.
-Era republicano, she said. (He was a republican).
In all the years of Franco's dictatorship she and Paco must have guarded their thoughts very carefully. I don't think I'm being too fanciful to say that one of the thoughts Carmen guarded was of a man born in the previous century who, never happier than when seated on a horse and waving his sword in a mocking manner at the cannons that faced him, dreamed of a better and more just Spain.
domingo, 15 de febrero de 2009
sábado, 10 de enero de 2009
What the dickens, it's Mr. Dickens!
1805, Admiral Nelson, hopelessly romantic and missing parts of his body, leads his ships to victory against the combined fleets of Spain and France. His body, pickled, I believe, in a barrel is brought back to Britain and buried with due ceremony in St. Paul's cathedral. And then, with the arrogance of a country that can look back on many military victories, we let it merge into that general feeling that when it comes to killing foreigners we are really quite good at it. We don't ignore it. We just don’t write novels about it. Benito Pérez Galdos, quite clearly not British, uses the Battle of Trafalgar to open his series of novels called Episodios Nacionales. From 1873 until 1912, in 46 novels, he covered the main events of Spanish history in the nineteenth century. He is highly regarded in Spain, not least for using as his principal characters ordinary people who, up to then, had been largely absent from popular novels. He is compared with Balzac, Stendal, Dickens and Tolstoy. I’ve read three of his novels and feel confident that if I met him I could have a bit of a blether with him. I can’t say I would feel the same if I met Charles Dickens.
I think it was when I was reading Pérez’s account of the Spanish uprising against the French in Madrid in 1808, that I realized that I could understand it without too much difficulty. I’ve read enough in Spanish to know that I read it better than I speak it. But it was more than that. Yes, there were a few old-fashioned words which I had to ask E to translate. Some of those she had to guess because they were words which even her parents wouldn’t have used. But the main reason why I could follow the story was that his written Spanish was identical to what I was reading in contemporary Spanish novels despite being separated by more than a century. Hence the feeling that if I met him I could have a nice chat with him. Naturally, I would avoid any reference to him being dead but we could at least talk about the weather, the state of public transport and importance of eating at least three portions of fruit per day.
Charles Dickens, on the other hand, would be quite a different kettle of fish. Only a fool would criticise him as a writer but he was a man of his time. And his time was that of Britain in the nineteenth century. Reading his novels, as we read Shakespeare or Jane Austen, we have to assume that he spoke as his characters spoke. It would be a short time into the conversation with him that we would find, to our horror, that we were talking like him too. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? After all, it is Charles Dickens. “Ah yes, Mr. Dickens, I was commenting only the other day, the numerous hardships and general malfeasance that have recently befallen the poor souls of this parish who, through the intervention of the mighty potato barons, have seen their hard won potatoes torn, at times quite literally, from their calloused hands, the calloused hands, mind you, of the sons of lost fishermen.” Or some such bollocks. Charles Dickens, insulted at being patronised like this, would leave in high dudgeon, doffing his top hat , while saying, “And I wish you good day sir!”.
Am I saying that whereas English has evolved throughout the centuries, adapting itself to changes within society, renewing itself constantly, Spanish has remained static, unchanged for more than a century? Quite clearly, yes, that’s exactly what I am saying. Am I saying that this is one of the strengths of English, and one of the weaknesses of Spanish? That is a horse of another colour. What I would say, is that the more I am here and the more I read in Spanish, the more I am aware of the capacity for invention that writers in English display. Be it Winnie the Pooh and Piglet hunting Heffalumps or Winston Smith deciphering the coded layers of Doublespeak, there is in written English a sense of adventure, a search for the next discoveries, in the words themselves. This can have unforeseen consequences.
In my desire to explain this theory to E I chose as an example of this eternal search for the new in English literature, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Here was the writer who would show her the capacity for invention that English has and also how it can be assimilated into popular culture. I read the passage to her. I read the passage to her and in the short silence that followed it was clear that I had misjudged her taste in literature. She then made her feelings very clear, using a range of well-chosen Spanish phrases that would have made Begsy blush and the crew of the Santisima Trinidad, flagship of the Spanish fleet that fought bravely against Nelson's ships, cheer to the rigging. English may have the capacity for never-ending renewal. But it can also weigh itself down with metaphor, imagery and ambiguity. Spanish, on the other hand, says exactly what it wants, when it wants to and to whom it wants to. My ship listing, holed below the waterline, I did what Nelson never did. I retreated.
I think it was when I was reading Pérez’s account of the Spanish uprising against the French in Madrid in 1808, that I realized that I could understand it without too much difficulty. I’ve read enough in Spanish to know that I read it better than I speak it. But it was more than that. Yes, there were a few old-fashioned words which I had to ask E to translate. Some of those she had to guess because they were words which even her parents wouldn’t have used. But the main reason why I could follow the story was that his written Spanish was identical to what I was reading in contemporary Spanish novels despite being separated by more than a century. Hence the feeling that if I met him I could have a nice chat with him. Naturally, I would avoid any reference to him being dead but we could at least talk about the weather, the state of public transport and importance of eating at least three portions of fruit per day.
Charles Dickens, on the other hand, would be quite a different kettle of fish. Only a fool would criticise him as a writer but he was a man of his time. And his time was that of Britain in the nineteenth century. Reading his novels, as we read Shakespeare or Jane Austen, we have to assume that he spoke as his characters spoke. It would be a short time into the conversation with him that we would find, to our horror, that we were talking like him too. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? After all, it is Charles Dickens. “Ah yes, Mr. Dickens, I was commenting only the other day, the numerous hardships and general malfeasance that have recently befallen the poor souls of this parish who, through the intervention of the mighty potato barons, have seen their hard won potatoes torn, at times quite literally, from their calloused hands, the calloused hands, mind you, of the sons of lost fishermen.” Or some such bollocks. Charles Dickens, insulted at being patronised like this, would leave in high dudgeon, doffing his top hat , while saying, “And I wish you good day sir!”.
Am I saying that whereas English has evolved throughout the centuries, adapting itself to changes within society, renewing itself constantly, Spanish has remained static, unchanged for more than a century? Quite clearly, yes, that’s exactly what I am saying. Am I saying that this is one of the strengths of English, and one of the weaknesses of Spanish? That is a horse of another colour. What I would say, is that the more I am here and the more I read in Spanish, the more I am aware of the capacity for invention that writers in English display. Be it Winnie the Pooh and Piglet hunting Heffalumps or Winston Smith deciphering the coded layers of Doublespeak, there is in written English a sense of adventure, a search for the next discoveries, in the words themselves. This can have unforeseen consequences.
In my desire to explain this theory to E I chose as an example of this eternal search for the new in English literature, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Here was the writer who would show her the capacity for invention that English has and also how it can be assimilated into popular culture. I read the passage to her. I read the passage to her and in the short silence that followed it was clear that I had misjudged her taste in literature. She then made her feelings very clear, using a range of well-chosen Spanish phrases that would have made Begsy blush and the crew of the Santisima Trinidad, flagship of the Spanish fleet that fought bravely against Nelson's ships, cheer to the rigging. English may have the capacity for never-ending renewal. But it can also weigh itself down with metaphor, imagery and ambiguity. Spanish, on the other hand, says exactly what it wants, when it wants to and to whom it wants to. My ship listing, holed below the waterline, I did what Nelson never did. I retreated.
miércoles, 19 de marzo de 2008
Would you, could you read books on trains?
My friend John has been here for over fifteen years so I reckoned if anyone would know it would be him.
-Why, I asked him, do people in Madrid put covers on their books?
I’d noticed on the metro that a lot of the readers wrap covers on their books, usually pages from newspapers (not the brown paper my dad used for my school reading books).
-That’s a throwback from the days of Franco, he told me, when you didn’t want other people to know what you were reading.
I thought:
-Franco’s been dead for a long time. What are people wanting to hide now?
Looking at the books on the metro without newspaper covers, I’d say a lot of Ken Follett. Not only do the book shops have his novels, you can also buy them in the quioscos (where you buy your newspapers, DVDs and models of the world’s taxis, “This week: Albania”) and they are even given away free by Spain’s equivalent of The Guardian newspaper. Which is a lot more than The Guardian would do. The books I see being read have titles such as The Thief of Donkeys, The House of Carrots and The Holy Sisterhood of Socks. I exaggerate but, as my observations on the metro tell me, not by much.
What people are clearly not reading are the books that they are told to read by Metro de Madrid. Under the title Libros a la Calle (Books to the Street) most carriages have stuck by the doors an illustrated poster with an excerpt from the chapter of a book. Where the text ends in an ellipsis there is a strap line encouraging us to search for the book and read it in its entirety. These admonitions vary. It might be Leer nos hace libres. Y mas felices (Reading make us free. And happier) or Si quieres conocer, pregúntale a los libros (If you want to know, ask books). The posters with poetry always end with Ni un día sin poesia (Not a day without poetry). Looking at what they do read it is clear that the people of Madrid, at least those who use the metro, don’t want to be free, happy or ask a book a question and it is very possible that months go by without even a hint of poetry.
This state of affairs, at the very least, is unnecessary. One of the many reasons for living in Madrid is that the metro system has its own library system. Even better, they do not call the libraries “branches”, instead they are called “modules”. I would have preferred “pod” myself but I imagine we will have to wait until the 22nd century before every bus stop has its book pod. There are eleven of these modules and they go under the name of Bibliometro. They are self-contained, sealed, I have to use the word “pod”, pods that stand on the stations’ platforms, curved and asymmetrical in the modern fashion, staffed by two Biblionauts (I’ve made that word up), usually women, and they are open Monday to Friday from 1.30 to 8.00. You can take out one book at a time (consult the computer screen on the outside of the module because you cannot browse as the books are kept inside under the watchful eyes of the Biblionauts). Everything about them says “speed”, “efficiency” and, of course, “books”. They even have their own logo, a B on its side, two trains head-on in each of the semicircles.
I decided that it was time to play my part to get more books to the street. I would apply for my library card and read the books I had seen on the posters. I decided to go to my “surface” library staffed largely by Elois (I’ve made that up to but I suppose you saw it coming) here in the barrio. With my reader’s card I would be able to take out books from there and from the realms of the Morlocks (Oh God, there’s a whole novel here where youthful and innocent Eloi librarians in bikinis are eaten by subterranean Morlock librarians who are then burnt alive). What can I tell you about my experiences so far? To begin with, it is pleasing and reassuring to note that public libraries in Spain are as much a refuge for the timid, the socially inept, people who are “special” and those that are quite clearly insane as they are in Britain. I’m talking here about the staff and the public. It’s possible that libraries here have an even more important role in this respect. Given the level of noise and physical contact in any public space in Spain, libraries give their staff an environment where they can be free of the compulsion to curl up into a ball, rock back and forth while making soothing animal noises. As for the books, I do have some slight criticisms. The book I took out on the writer Miguel Unamuno had no details (date of acquisition, cataloguing information etc.) on the back of the title page nor did it have the book number stamped on page 21. Some pages had been stamped with the libraries’ stamp of the Communidad de Madrid but apparently at random and after page 43 the person charged with this task had simply given up. Most serious of all, not only was the book cover not stuck with sellotape there was no clear plastic cover on it. I’m happy to say that the book I borrowed that same day from the Bibliometro in Nuevos Ministerios, La lluvia amarilla (The Yellow Rain) by Julio Llamazares, had a stout cover on it and was clearly identified with a very fetching sticker. However, once again, it was let down by a lack of cataloguing details. Those of you accustomed to the rigours of the British public libraries’ cataloguing protocols will share my disappointment. The rest of you will not give a monkey’s.
I have to add that I have also been disappointed by the reaction of my fellow Madrileños. Basically, there hasn’t been one. However, it is early days yet and I’m sure I can expect a letter of thanks from the President of the Communidad any day. At the very least, a cheery wave from the driver of the next metro train I go on and a jolly:
-Hoy un día mas bueno y acuerdate, ¡ni un día sin poesia!
(Turned out nice again and remember, not a day without poetry!)
-Why, I asked him, do people in Madrid put covers on their books?
I’d noticed on the metro that a lot of the readers wrap covers on their books, usually pages from newspapers (not the brown paper my dad used for my school reading books).
-That’s a throwback from the days of Franco, he told me, when you didn’t want other people to know what you were reading.
I thought:
-Franco’s been dead for a long time. What are people wanting to hide now?
Looking at the books on the metro without newspaper covers, I’d say a lot of Ken Follett. Not only do the book shops have his novels, you can also buy them in the quioscos (where you buy your newspapers, DVDs and models of the world’s taxis, “This week: Albania”) and they are even given away free by Spain’s equivalent of The Guardian newspaper. Which is a lot more than The Guardian would do. The books I see being read have titles such as The Thief of Donkeys, The House of Carrots and The Holy Sisterhood of Socks. I exaggerate but, as my observations on the metro tell me, not by much.
What people are clearly not reading are the books that they are told to read by Metro de Madrid. Under the title Libros a la Calle (Books to the Street) most carriages have stuck by the doors an illustrated poster with an excerpt from the chapter of a book. Where the text ends in an ellipsis there is a strap line encouraging us to search for the book and read it in its entirety. These admonitions vary. It might be Leer nos hace libres. Y mas felices (Reading make us free. And happier) or Si quieres conocer, pregúntale a los libros (If you want to know, ask books). The posters with poetry always end with Ni un día sin poesia (Not a day without poetry). Looking at what they do read it is clear that the people of Madrid, at least those who use the metro, don’t want to be free, happy or ask a book a question and it is very possible that months go by without even a hint of poetry.
This state of affairs, at the very least, is unnecessary. One of the many reasons for living in Madrid is that the metro system has its own library system. Even better, they do not call the libraries “branches”, instead they are called “modules”. I would have preferred “pod” myself but I imagine we will have to wait until the 22nd century before every bus stop has its book pod. There are eleven of these modules and they go under the name of Bibliometro. They are self-contained, sealed, I have to use the word “pod”, pods that stand on the stations’ platforms, curved and asymmetrical in the modern fashion, staffed by two Biblionauts (I’ve made that word up), usually women, and they are open Monday to Friday from 1.30 to 8.00. You can take out one book at a time (consult the computer screen on the outside of the module because you cannot browse as the books are kept inside under the watchful eyes of the Biblionauts). Everything about them says “speed”, “efficiency” and, of course, “books”. They even have their own logo, a B on its side, two trains head-on in each of the semicircles.
I decided that it was time to play my part to get more books to the street. I would apply for my library card and read the books I had seen on the posters. I decided to go to my “surface” library staffed largely by Elois (I’ve made that up to but I suppose you saw it coming) here in the barrio. With my reader’s card I would be able to take out books from there and from the realms of the Morlocks (Oh God, there’s a whole novel here where youthful and innocent Eloi librarians in bikinis are eaten by subterranean Morlock librarians who are then burnt alive). What can I tell you about my experiences so far? To begin with, it is pleasing and reassuring to note that public libraries in Spain are as much a refuge for the timid, the socially inept, people who are “special” and those that are quite clearly insane as they are in Britain. I’m talking here about the staff and the public. It’s possible that libraries here have an even more important role in this respect. Given the level of noise and physical contact in any public space in Spain, libraries give their staff an environment where they can be free of the compulsion to curl up into a ball, rock back and forth while making soothing animal noises. As for the books, I do have some slight criticisms. The book I took out on the writer Miguel Unamuno had no details (date of acquisition, cataloguing information etc.) on the back of the title page nor did it have the book number stamped on page 21. Some pages had been stamped with the libraries’ stamp of the Communidad de Madrid but apparently at random and after page 43 the person charged with this task had simply given up. Most serious of all, not only was the book cover not stuck with sellotape there was no clear plastic cover on it. I’m happy to say that the book I borrowed that same day from the Bibliometro in Nuevos Ministerios, La lluvia amarilla (The Yellow Rain) by Julio Llamazares, had a stout cover on it and was clearly identified with a very fetching sticker. However, once again, it was let down by a lack of cataloguing details. Those of you accustomed to the rigours of the British public libraries’ cataloguing protocols will share my disappointment. The rest of you will not give a monkey’s.
I have to add that I have also been disappointed by the reaction of my fellow Madrileños. Basically, there hasn’t been one. However, it is early days yet and I’m sure I can expect a letter of thanks from the President of the Communidad any day. At the very least, a cheery wave from the driver of the next metro train I go on and a jolly:
-Hoy un día mas bueno y acuerdate, ¡ni un día sin poesia!
(Turned out nice again and remember, not a day without poetry!)
martes, 4 de marzo de 2008
Dust, heretics and death
The land to the north of the Andalusian village of Viznar rises steeply into the Sierra Huétor. The slopes are rocky and although there are trees the soil is shallow and poor. The land nearer the village is more fertile. Irrigation channels built a thousand years ago by the Moors, acequias, bring water to the huertas or vegetable gardens that have been planted on the hillside terraces. As the nearby city of Granada continues to grow, new housing estates are being built on this land. Seventy years ago olive groves lined these slopes. There are still a few olive trees left. It was to here, possibly in the early hours of the 19th of August 1936, that the Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca was brought by men of the local Falange and executed.
Before it vanishes into the tunnel that carries it beneath Granada, the River Darro flows past the eleventh century Moorish baths that sit at the bottom of one of the narrow streets that climb into the old Moorish quarter of the Albaicín. It is not a big building, no more that five or six rooms. The style is simple: arched vaults held up by slender pillars, the capitals decorated with interlaced carvings. Light enters through octagonal shaped holes in the ceilings of the arched vaults. The marble floor still has the channels where water would once have flowed. It is this simplicity that gives the building its charm and beauty. The tomb of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel, on the other hand, in the Royal Chapel in Granada has engraved on it ‘Overthrowers of the Mahommetan sect and repressor of heretical stubbornness’1 . On the altar piece where Ferdinand and Isabel kneel in prayer, a headless John the Baptist kneels too, his neck ending in a gaping throat from which blood continues to spurt. Beside him John the Evangelist has boiling water poured over his head as he is slowly cooked alive in a cauldron, the body of his executioner twisted away from us as he tips the water from a ladle. A slightly different view of the human body is on view here, as if it is saying “Now that we are in charge you can expect a few changes around here.”
It is difficult to know if an accurate map of the Albaicín exists. The streets, narrow enough at times to let two people pass and sometimes not even that, disappear around corners, fall away into worn steps and congregate in little squares called placetas. It is a place of carmens, walled-in patio gardens where orange trees grow around a central fountain and where every view is of the Alhambra, the palace-cum-fortress built by the Moorish monarchs on the other side of the valley. Lorca knew the Albaicín very well. Although his family lived in the areas of the city developed in the nineteenth century, they came to the Albaicín to celebrate midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the chapel of the Convent of the Angustinas Recoletas de Santo Tomás de Villanueva. It was in the carmen of his friend Fernando Vílchez that he listened to the music of Manuel Falla, the Spanish composer and himself from Granada. The musicians too tired to play any more, Lorca rose to his feet and recited his ode to the city of Granada. He was nineteen years old. On the 24th of July 1936, after four days of being shelled by the artillery placed on the terraces of the Alhambra, the inhabitants of the Albaicín surrendered. They had held out for four days against the Fascist rebels who had seized power in the city on the 20th of July. Denied access to weapons by the Republican governor in the days before the uprising, they had fought with shotguns and knives.
Lorca did not go alone to his execution in the olive grove outside of Viznar. With him were three men. Dióscoro Galindo was a 58 year old teacher working in the Andalusian town of Pulianas, three kilometres to the north of Granada. As a member of the Popular Front he had helped ensure that the caciques, the wealthy and conservative Andalusian families who had manipulated the elections for two generations, would not commit electoral fraud yet again. He was arrested on the 18th of August at two o’clock in the morning. Francisco Galadí and Joaquin Arcollas were banderilleras, the men who help the toreador in his fight with the bull. They were also members of the anarchist organisation the C.N.T, Confederación National de Trabajo. It was Galadí who had gone to the Governor to plead unsuccessfully in the days before the Fascist uprising that the workers should be armed. They both took part in the defence of the Albaicín and, possibly using their knowledge of its labyrinthine layout, managed to slip through the armed cordon that surrounded it. Galadí was arrested when he returned to see his ten year old son and Arcolla was betrayed by a family friend. The four men were buried together in a narrow trench.
It is easier to conclude this article by saying what it is not than what it is. It is not a condemnation of acts of brutality both against persons and the world of literature. It is not a condemnation of the repressive regime that followed the defeat of the Spanish Republic in 1939. Nor is it to lament the triumph of mediocrity that followed this defeat; a triumph that the death of Lorca came to symbolise, one of many innovative artistic voices executed or exiled by the Francoist regime. This has been done by better writers than myself. It is definitely not an attempt to use the empty fountains of the neglected Federico Garcia Lorca Park, where the men are buried, as an ironical comment on the way in which Spain has treated both the legacy of Lorca and the consequences of the summary executions. I will leave that to worse writers than myself. What I want to suggest is that the Arab baths, the Albaicín, the lives of the four men all offered different paths for Spain to follow. On each occasion this possibility was rejected.
Looking at what I've written, it strikes me that two currents run deep in Spain, both old and new. There is the personal, deeply human Spain. One of the things that angered the Andalusian caciques about Dióscoro Galindo was that he taught illiterate women how to read and write. And there is the Spain that likes to make sure that everyone knows who is in charge. Again: one of the things that angered the Andalusian caciques about Dióscoro Galindo was that he taught illiterate women how to read and write. As they say in Spain:
-Unos nacen para moler y otros para ser molidos.
Literally:
-Some are born to grind and other to be ground.
I assumed the allusion was to milling grain. In itself, a strong image and, I hoped, a suitable metaphor for my belief in the importance of power in Spanish culture. But checking the meaning of the word moler in the dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spain, I found this definition:
-Quebrantar un cuerpo, reduciéndolo a menudísimas partes, o hasta hacerlo polvo.
That is:
-To break a body, reducing it to tiny pieces, or to turn it into dust.
For those in charge of the mill, surely a just punishment for all heretics be they muslims, poets, teachers or bullfighters’ assistants.
Before it vanishes into the tunnel that carries it beneath Granada, the River Darro flows past the eleventh century Moorish baths that sit at the bottom of one of the narrow streets that climb into the old Moorish quarter of the Albaicín. It is not a big building, no more that five or six rooms. The style is simple: arched vaults held up by slender pillars, the capitals decorated with interlaced carvings. Light enters through octagonal shaped holes in the ceilings of the arched vaults. The marble floor still has the channels where water would once have flowed. It is this simplicity that gives the building its charm and beauty. The tomb of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel, on the other hand, in the Royal Chapel in Granada has engraved on it ‘Overthrowers of the Mahommetan sect and repressor of heretical stubbornness’1 . On the altar piece where Ferdinand and Isabel kneel in prayer, a headless John the Baptist kneels too, his neck ending in a gaping throat from which blood continues to spurt. Beside him John the Evangelist has boiling water poured over his head as he is slowly cooked alive in a cauldron, the body of his executioner twisted away from us as he tips the water from a ladle. A slightly different view of the human body is on view here, as if it is saying “Now that we are in charge you can expect a few changes around here.”
It is difficult to know if an accurate map of the Albaicín exists. The streets, narrow enough at times to let two people pass and sometimes not even that, disappear around corners, fall away into worn steps and congregate in little squares called placetas. It is a place of carmens, walled-in patio gardens where orange trees grow around a central fountain and where every view is of the Alhambra, the palace-cum-fortress built by the Moorish monarchs on the other side of the valley. Lorca knew the Albaicín very well. Although his family lived in the areas of the city developed in the nineteenth century, they came to the Albaicín to celebrate midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the chapel of the Convent of the Angustinas Recoletas de Santo Tomás de Villanueva. It was in the carmen of his friend Fernando Vílchez that he listened to the music of Manuel Falla, the Spanish composer and himself from Granada. The musicians too tired to play any more, Lorca rose to his feet and recited his ode to the city of Granada. He was nineteen years old. On the 24th of July 1936, after four days of being shelled by the artillery placed on the terraces of the Alhambra, the inhabitants of the Albaicín surrendered. They had held out for four days against the Fascist rebels who had seized power in the city on the 20th of July. Denied access to weapons by the Republican governor in the days before the uprising, they had fought with shotguns and knives.
Lorca did not go alone to his execution in the olive grove outside of Viznar. With him were three men. Dióscoro Galindo was a 58 year old teacher working in the Andalusian town of Pulianas, three kilometres to the north of Granada. As a member of the Popular Front he had helped ensure that the caciques, the wealthy and conservative Andalusian families who had manipulated the elections for two generations, would not commit electoral fraud yet again. He was arrested on the 18th of August at two o’clock in the morning. Francisco Galadí and Joaquin Arcollas were banderilleras, the men who help the toreador in his fight with the bull. They were also members of the anarchist organisation the C.N.T, Confederación National de Trabajo. It was Galadí who had gone to the Governor to plead unsuccessfully in the days before the Fascist uprising that the workers should be armed. They both took part in the defence of the Albaicín and, possibly using their knowledge of its labyrinthine layout, managed to slip through the armed cordon that surrounded it. Galadí was arrested when he returned to see his ten year old son and Arcolla was betrayed by a family friend. The four men were buried together in a narrow trench.
It is easier to conclude this article by saying what it is not than what it is. It is not a condemnation of acts of brutality both against persons and the world of literature. It is not a condemnation of the repressive regime that followed the defeat of the Spanish Republic in 1939. Nor is it to lament the triumph of mediocrity that followed this defeat; a triumph that the death of Lorca came to symbolise, one of many innovative artistic voices executed or exiled by the Francoist regime. This has been done by better writers than myself. It is definitely not an attempt to use the empty fountains of the neglected Federico Garcia Lorca Park, where the men are buried, as an ironical comment on the way in which Spain has treated both the legacy of Lorca and the consequences of the summary executions. I will leave that to worse writers than myself. What I want to suggest is that the Arab baths, the Albaicín, the lives of the four men all offered different paths for Spain to follow. On each occasion this possibility was rejected.
Looking at what I've written, it strikes me that two currents run deep in Spain, both old and new. There is the personal, deeply human Spain. One of the things that angered the Andalusian caciques about Dióscoro Galindo was that he taught illiterate women how to read and write. And there is the Spain that likes to make sure that everyone knows who is in charge. Again: one of the things that angered the Andalusian caciques about Dióscoro Galindo was that he taught illiterate women how to read and write. As they say in Spain:
-Unos nacen para moler y otros para ser molidos.
Literally:
-Some are born to grind and other to be ground.
I assumed the allusion was to milling grain. In itself, a strong image and, I hoped, a suitable metaphor for my belief in the importance of power in Spanish culture. But checking the meaning of the word moler in the dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spain, I found this definition:
-Quebrantar un cuerpo, reduciéndolo a menudísimas partes, o hasta hacerlo polvo.
That is:
-To break a body, reducing it to tiny pieces, or to turn it into dust.
For those in charge of the mill, surely a just punishment for all heretics be they muslims, poets, teachers or bullfighters’ assistants.
martes, 5 de febrero de 2008
Ooops seems to be the hardest word
There must come a time in the life of every country when it says a collective “Ooops” For Britain this may well have happened in 1956. Responding to Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal, British paratroops were dropped into the El Gamil airfield and told to stay there until Nasser stopped nationalising the Suez Canal. Nobody in the British government had thought of telling the Americans. After all, we were still an imperial power and what was the point of being an imperial power if you couldn’t drop paratroops onto Egyptian airfields. It wasn’t long before the Americans found out what we were doing. Paratroopers are lovely people but when dropped onto enemy airfields they tend to be rather noisy and, thus, annoy the neighbours. The phone in 10 Downing Street duly rang. The one that connected with the Oval Office in the White House. Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, picked it up and was heard to say:
-Oh, so you’re not going to support us?
Ooops.
Here in Spain they have just had a competition. The Spanish Olympic Committee decided it would a good idea if the Spanish national anthem had some words written for it. I think they felt it was undignified for Spanish athletes to be seen humming to the national anthem when they won medals. It never occurred to them that there may have been very good reasons why no one has written words for it, namely it would be impossible to find two Spaniards who would agree that:
a. it was a good idea for the national anthem to have words,
and
b. it was a good idea to have a national anthem.
Oh, and nobody thought of telling the king (you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?).
But the Spanish Olympic Committee not only went ahead with the competition they even said whichever of the Five (Four? Three?) Tenors was not dead would sing the winning entry. A winner was announced. The lyric was published in the newspapers and it became very clear to the Spanish Olympic Committee why no one should hold a competition like this in Spain. Ever. The Catalans refused to sing anything with the word “Spain” in it. The Basques didn't even return the Committee’s phone calls and as for the rest of Spain there was a unanimous rejection of the winning entry on the grounds that they would all have to agree, unanimously, that it was, in fact, the winning entry. “Unanimous” is not a word that comes easily to Spaniards unless they are disagreeing about the same thing at the same time.
The entry formerly known as the winning entry was, when I read it, very innocuous. It spoke of the mountains of Spain, tall and green, and the sea, wet and blue, and the sun, big and very hot. And that was pretty much it. I suppose it was this very innocuousness that attracted the Spanish Olympic Committee. “How could such a song offend anybody?”, they probably thought. It makes me wonder if any of them was actually Spanish. As the storm of protest grew the Spanish Olympic Committee cancelled the competition claiming that whichever of the Two (One?) Tenors was still alive was refusing to sing the winning entry (possibly in protest at the absence of any mention of the canals of Spain) and the man who wrote it said he was so upset that he would never write another national anthem again.
And nobody said “Ooops”.
In 1492 Granada fell to the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel. Promised that their religion and way of life would be respected, the muslim defenders handed over the keys to the city. In 1499 Cardinal Cisneros ordered that the books be taken out from the city’s muslim university and burnt in the town square. 700 years of learning went up in smoke. In 1898, with the American fleet in Cuban waters, Admiral Pascual Cervera ordered his fleet out of the harbour at Santiago de Cuba. His plan, if he had one, was to order his boats out of the harbour at Santiago de Cuba and see them sunk by the Americans. In this he was successful -within two hours all his boats were sunk and four hundred years of Spanish rule in Cuba was ended. In July 1936 General Jose Sanjurjo, one of the principal conspirators of the right wing uprising, stepped onto the plane taking him to Burgos. The pilot warned him that he had too much luggage for such a small plane. Sanjurjo ignored the warning. A few minutes after takeoff the plane crashed and Sanjurjo was killed. In September of the same year Franco was named leader of the nationalist cause. There may have been discussion about any or all of the above but, as far as I know, nobody has ever said “Ooops”.
Am I going as far as to say that the Spanish are incapable of saying “Ooops”? Quite clearly, yes. What I am not sure about is whether this is a good or a bad thing. Britain has a long tradition of saying “Ooops” and yet we can still regard Captain Scott as a hero (“Sledges pulled by ponies? What a jolly good idea. And at the South Pole, you say? Even better!”) and claim that the evacuation at Dunkirk was a victory. Which it was. Therefore, we get the best of both worlds: a spate of national hand-wringing and some very good documentaries on the BBC. The Spanish don’t get to watch good documentaries but neither do they indulge in acts of national hand-wringing. They have survived a loss of empire, massive political and social upheavals, a rocky transition to democracy and by a stunning act of national stubbornness defied the attempts of an unelected body to foist on them a national anthem to be sung when the synchronised swimming team wins gold in Beijing. But a bit of Spanish hand-wringing might have been worth it to see the king, opening whichever large building he was opening that day, turning to the person next to him, very possibly the queen, and saying, as the officials and public broke into song as the national anthem struck up:
-No one told me about this.
Ooops.
-Oh, so you’re not going to support us?
Ooops.
Here in Spain they have just had a competition. The Spanish Olympic Committee decided it would a good idea if the Spanish national anthem had some words written for it. I think they felt it was undignified for Spanish athletes to be seen humming to the national anthem when they won medals. It never occurred to them that there may have been very good reasons why no one has written words for it, namely it would be impossible to find two Spaniards who would agree that:
a. it was a good idea for the national anthem to have words,
and
b. it was a good idea to have a national anthem.
Oh, and nobody thought of telling the king (you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?).
But the Spanish Olympic Committee not only went ahead with the competition they even said whichever of the Five (Four? Three?) Tenors was not dead would sing the winning entry. A winner was announced. The lyric was published in the newspapers and it became very clear to the Spanish Olympic Committee why no one should hold a competition like this in Spain. Ever. The Catalans refused to sing anything with the word “Spain” in it. The Basques didn't even return the Committee’s phone calls and as for the rest of Spain there was a unanimous rejection of the winning entry on the grounds that they would all have to agree, unanimously, that it was, in fact, the winning entry. “Unanimous” is not a word that comes easily to Spaniards unless they are disagreeing about the same thing at the same time.
The entry formerly known as the winning entry was, when I read it, very innocuous. It spoke of the mountains of Spain, tall and green, and the sea, wet and blue, and the sun, big and very hot. And that was pretty much it. I suppose it was this very innocuousness that attracted the Spanish Olympic Committee. “How could such a song offend anybody?”, they probably thought. It makes me wonder if any of them was actually Spanish. As the storm of protest grew the Spanish Olympic Committee cancelled the competition claiming that whichever of the Two (One?) Tenors was still alive was refusing to sing the winning entry (possibly in protest at the absence of any mention of the canals of Spain) and the man who wrote it said he was so upset that he would never write another national anthem again.
And nobody said “Ooops”.
In 1492 Granada fell to the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel. Promised that their religion and way of life would be respected, the muslim defenders handed over the keys to the city. In 1499 Cardinal Cisneros ordered that the books be taken out from the city’s muslim university and burnt in the town square. 700 years of learning went up in smoke. In 1898, with the American fleet in Cuban waters, Admiral Pascual Cervera ordered his fleet out of the harbour at Santiago de Cuba. His plan, if he had one, was to order his boats out of the harbour at Santiago de Cuba and see them sunk by the Americans. In this he was successful -within two hours all his boats were sunk and four hundred years of Spanish rule in Cuba was ended. In July 1936 General Jose Sanjurjo, one of the principal conspirators of the right wing uprising, stepped onto the plane taking him to Burgos. The pilot warned him that he had too much luggage for such a small plane. Sanjurjo ignored the warning. A few minutes after takeoff the plane crashed and Sanjurjo was killed. In September of the same year Franco was named leader of the nationalist cause. There may have been discussion about any or all of the above but, as far as I know, nobody has ever said “Ooops”.
Am I going as far as to say that the Spanish are incapable of saying “Ooops”? Quite clearly, yes. What I am not sure about is whether this is a good or a bad thing. Britain has a long tradition of saying “Ooops” and yet we can still regard Captain Scott as a hero (“Sledges pulled by ponies? What a jolly good idea. And at the South Pole, you say? Even better!”) and claim that the evacuation at Dunkirk was a victory. Which it was. Therefore, we get the best of both worlds: a spate of national hand-wringing and some very good documentaries on the BBC. The Spanish don’t get to watch good documentaries but neither do they indulge in acts of national hand-wringing. They have survived a loss of empire, massive political and social upheavals, a rocky transition to democracy and by a stunning act of national stubbornness defied the attempts of an unelected body to foist on them a national anthem to be sung when the synchronised swimming team wins gold in Beijing. But a bit of Spanish hand-wringing might have been worth it to see the king, opening whichever large building he was opening that day, turning to the person next to him, very possibly the queen, and saying, as the officials and public broke into song as the national anthem struck up:
-No one told me about this.
Ooops.
martes, 15 de enero de 2008
Of Metaphors and Meat
The doors of the train opened and the beggar got on. He was well dressed; jeans, a jacket, clean shaven, no obvious signs of mental illness. But I knew he was a beggar by the way he stood at the end of the carriage. Like an actor walking onto stage, he took up his position, composed himself and began to speak.
-Disculpen las molestias señores y señoras. Estoy de paro mas de un año por una enfermedad muy grave. Tengo una familia y comemos poco y mal. Les pido unas monedas para aliviar sus hambre. Disculpen las molestias y muchas gracias (Forgive the interruption, ladies and gentlemen. I have been unemployed for over a year due to a serious illness. I have a family and we eat little and badly. I ask you for some money to relieve their hunger. Forgive the interruption and thank you.)
As I may have said before Spanish is an expressionless language. It is spoken, with the possible exception of parts of Galicia and Asturias, in a monotone. If I had a cent for every time a Spaniard spoke to me in a crowded room without realising that he was talking to me I would have approximately 3 euros and 78 cents. Another exception are the beggars. They speak in a singsong voice that stands in contrast to the castellano spoken in Madrid. No one would think of making fun of them for this. Begging, if it is to be done properly, has to have a story and the proper delivery. Had Cervantes been on that train he would have at least recognised the beggar as something that had not changed since the seventeenth century.
I would claim that begging in Spain, while low on the social totem pole, does not carry the same stigma that it carries in Britain. After all, shitty as it is, it is a job. Some people sit behind a desk all day to earn their wage. Others kneel motionless with their hands stretched out in front of them for hours at a time. The pay is not as good and the pension scheme is limited but it does put money in your hand and if there is a Spanish word for “jakey” I have not yet come across it. Therefore as a job it is permissible to display publicly stumps of missing limbs, festering sores and babes in arms as your means of standing out from the run-of-the-mill beggars that fill the streets of Madrid.
If this sounds heartless then you are very likely not Spanish. A person standing in a street asking for money in Spain is, well, a person standing in a street asking for money. In Spain. It is not a damning indictment of the failure of modern society to care for its citizens. It is not a cry to action. Politicians do not pledge themselves to sweeping initiatives. Targets are not set. Task forces are not set up. Editorials are not written. People’s hearts are not moved. The famous do not appear on TV specials. Here begging is not a sign that things have gone wrong in the world. It is simply, that for one reason or another, someone has decided to stand in the street and ask for money. And if, as I have seen, you walk out of a supermarket and see someone begging, you can reach into your bag , take out the loaf of bread you have just bought and hand it to the beggar if you so wish.
I would argue that because Spain is not a country of symbols, signs and metaphors that such an attitude exists. I will now say that, of course, I am not claiming that Spain is a country without signs, symbols and metaphors. Quite clearly it is. If you are wondering what all that meant, you are very probably Spanish. To be British is, I feel, to live in a world of, if not symbols, then at the very least clues. We dance around our conversations using, for the average Spaniard (the very phrase “average Spaniard” while being a useful symbol for us is an invitation to the Spanish to argue long into the night ending, usually, with blaming it all on the Catalans), far too many conditional tenses, the suffix “ish”, the phrase “I gather...” and the word hated by all Spaniards, “indeed”. A painting by Turner for us can never be simply a big ship being pulled by a little ship; while in Spain a man walking into bar wearing a big floppy hat, a cape and a sword is just that. Contrast that to Glasgow where the drinkers will ignore the details of the big floppy hat and the cape and concentrate on the sword and all that it represents.
When pointed out to him he was standing in the Calle Ortega y Gassett, a noted Spanish philosopher, someone I know very well shouted in a very loud voice “That’s ridiculous! There’s no such thing as a Spanish philosopher!” My girlfriend, far from being offended, simply laughed and agreed with him. What, for us, the lovers of signs, represented a social gaffe was, for her, simply stating the obvious. To be a philosopher is to read the symbols with which we surround ourselves. In a country where the butchers in late autumn put pictures of cuts of meat in their windows under the title “La Semana de Matanza” (“Massacre Week”) what is there left to decode?
-Disculpen las molestias señores y señoras. Estoy de paro mas de un año por una enfermedad muy grave. Tengo una familia y comemos poco y mal. Les pido unas monedas para aliviar sus hambre. Disculpen las molestias y muchas gracias (Forgive the interruption, ladies and gentlemen. I have been unemployed for over a year due to a serious illness. I have a family and we eat little and badly. I ask you for some money to relieve their hunger. Forgive the interruption and thank you.)
As I may have said before Spanish is an expressionless language. It is spoken, with the possible exception of parts of Galicia and Asturias, in a monotone. If I had a cent for every time a Spaniard spoke to me in a crowded room without realising that he was talking to me I would have approximately 3 euros and 78 cents. Another exception are the beggars. They speak in a singsong voice that stands in contrast to the castellano spoken in Madrid. No one would think of making fun of them for this. Begging, if it is to be done properly, has to have a story and the proper delivery. Had Cervantes been on that train he would have at least recognised the beggar as something that had not changed since the seventeenth century.
I would claim that begging in Spain, while low on the social totem pole, does not carry the same stigma that it carries in Britain. After all, shitty as it is, it is a job. Some people sit behind a desk all day to earn their wage. Others kneel motionless with their hands stretched out in front of them for hours at a time. The pay is not as good and the pension scheme is limited but it does put money in your hand and if there is a Spanish word for “jakey” I have not yet come across it. Therefore as a job it is permissible to display publicly stumps of missing limbs, festering sores and babes in arms as your means of standing out from the run-of-the-mill beggars that fill the streets of Madrid.
If this sounds heartless then you are very likely not Spanish. A person standing in a street asking for money in Spain is, well, a person standing in a street asking for money. In Spain. It is not a damning indictment of the failure of modern society to care for its citizens. It is not a cry to action. Politicians do not pledge themselves to sweeping initiatives. Targets are not set. Task forces are not set up. Editorials are not written. People’s hearts are not moved. The famous do not appear on TV specials. Here begging is not a sign that things have gone wrong in the world. It is simply, that for one reason or another, someone has decided to stand in the street and ask for money. And if, as I have seen, you walk out of a supermarket and see someone begging, you can reach into your bag , take out the loaf of bread you have just bought and hand it to the beggar if you so wish.
I would argue that because Spain is not a country of symbols, signs and metaphors that such an attitude exists. I will now say that, of course, I am not claiming that Spain is a country without signs, symbols and metaphors. Quite clearly it is. If you are wondering what all that meant, you are very probably Spanish. To be British is, I feel, to live in a world of, if not symbols, then at the very least clues. We dance around our conversations using, for the average Spaniard (the very phrase “average Spaniard” while being a useful symbol for us is an invitation to the Spanish to argue long into the night ending, usually, with blaming it all on the Catalans), far too many conditional tenses, the suffix “ish”, the phrase “I gather...” and the word hated by all Spaniards, “indeed”. A painting by Turner for us can never be simply a big ship being pulled by a little ship; while in Spain a man walking into bar wearing a big floppy hat, a cape and a sword is just that. Contrast that to Glasgow where the drinkers will ignore the details of the big floppy hat and the cape and concentrate on the sword and all that it represents.
When pointed out to him he was standing in the Calle Ortega y Gassett, a noted Spanish philosopher, someone I know very well shouted in a very loud voice “That’s ridiculous! There’s no such thing as a Spanish philosopher!” My girlfriend, far from being offended, simply laughed and agreed with him. What, for us, the lovers of signs, represented a social gaffe was, for her, simply stating the obvious. To be a philosopher is to read the symbols with which we surround ourselves. In a country where the butchers in late autumn put pictures of cuts of meat in their windows under the title “La Semana de Matanza” (“Massacre Week”) what is there left to decode?
miércoles, 27 de junio de 2007
Whatchamacallits, thingimijigs and wotsits
The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains 171,476 full entries of words in current use. Once you add on all the odds and ends (the words found stuck up in trees or sewn neatly into the hem of a pair of trousers worn by W.C.Fields in 1935, for example) you end up with about a quarter of a million words. The 22nd edition of the Diccionario de la Real Academia Español contains 90, 000 words. In other words, if words were missiles then the English language could launch a successful first strike against Spanish and still have plenty left over to deal with the French.
Now, the way in which we respond to this information will depend, quite clearly, on our nationality. The British will sit back smugly in their chairs, turn on Radio 4 and fall asleep. The Spanish, on the other hand, will deny loudly the fact that English has more words, blame the politicians and then go on holiday for a month in August. However, I should point out that I have yet to see Spaniards lost for words. So, the fact that Spanish operates with 90, 000 words has never stopped any Spaniard from expressing himself.
It should also be pointed out that it could be argued that Spanish, as a language, does not exist. In 1714 Philip V took one look at the list of languages spoken by his subjects and said:
-Bugger that, the only one I'm going to listen to is Castilian. And I'm the king so do what you're told!
Confronted by this creation of an official language, the speakers of High Aragonese, Aranese, Asturian, Basque, Caló, Catalan, Extremaduran, Fala Extremaduran, Galician and Mirandes, did what Spaniards usually do when confronted by a strong central authority intent in interfering in the cultural identity of its citizens: they ignored it. Even Franco could not stop the people of Spain speaking the language of their faithers and mithers. And by the way, the speakers of Valenciano get really pissed off if you say they speak a variety of Catalan and never, ever say that they both sound like French. No wonder the Habsburgs, after a century or so of governing a bunch of people, or peoples, who couldn't even agree they lived in the same country said:
-Game's a bogey,
and left it to the Bourbons to sort it out.
I should also add that Spanish, if it exists, and Castilian if it doesn't, is an incredibly economical language. English depends a great deal on phrasal verbs to convey meaning. Without the sentence "Shall we get on the bus now?" the English-speaking world would have ended up as a group of aimless nomadic-wanderers clustered around bus stops. A Spaniard, on the other hand, would say:
-¿Subimos?-
After all if you are already at the bus stop and if a bus is there and everyone knows that they are there to get on the bus then why in the name of ¡mis cojones santos! (my sainted balls) would anyone want to discuss this? ¡Coño!
You'll notice that I didn't translate Coño. That's because I can't. You see, it's the "C" word in English. In Spanish (Castilian), however, it is an incredibly useful interjection that can be used in a variety of situations. It can be used to express anger: ¡Esa abeja me ha picado!¡Coño! - "That damn bee stung me!"; it can be used to express surprise: ¿Están saliendo juntos? ¡Coño! - "Are they really going out? Jings!" It can even be used by grandmothers. So, once again Spanish/Castilian has found a way of expressing different feelings with a single word. They just had to pick the one word which in English can never be used in public.
So, once again, context is everything when living in Spain. I found this out, yet again, a couple of weeks ago when my girlfriend and her daughter were having an argument. Or, possibly, they were having a barney, a set-to, a strong exchange of views, a right old ding-dong. a shouting match or perhaps they were even going at it like cats and dogs. You could call it a dispute, a disgreement, a squabble or a bit of a rhubarb. After all, voices were raised, the phrase -¡No me escuchas!- ("You're not listening to me!"- four words and a contraction in English compared to three in Spanish, by the way) was used repeatedly and forcefully. They were, in Spanish, discutiendo; in English, arguing, from the verb discutir, to argue. However, and this would explain why they could break off from shouting at each other and laugh at the look of concern on my face, discutir also means to discuss. Far from having an argument, they were merely having a loving discussion between mother and daughter.
Now, there are other words in Spanish which mean the same as discutir , for example disputar. But I have only ever heard them use discutir. To be honest, I think they do this on purpose, use one word to express different meanings. The longer I stay here the more sympathy I feel for anyone whose lot it was to be in charge of this bunch of linguistic acrobats. When the subjects of Philip V were paying him homage, rindiendo homenaje, it could never have been far from his mind that a synonym of rendir is fatigar, to exhaust or tire out. More than once, swamped by this never-ending outpouring of ambiguity, he must have thought:
-Oh Jeez, gie's a break!
To which I can only add:
-¡Coño!-
Now, the way in which we respond to this information will depend, quite clearly, on our nationality. The British will sit back smugly in their chairs, turn on Radio 4 and fall asleep. The Spanish, on the other hand, will deny loudly the fact that English has more words, blame the politicians and then go on holiday for a month in August. However, I should point out that I have yet to see Spaniards lost for words. So, the fact that Spanish operates with 90, 000 words has never stopped any Spaniard from expressing himself.
It should also be pointed out that it could be argued that Spanish, as a language, does not exist. In 1714 Philip V took one look at the list of languages spoken by his subjects and said:
-Bugger that, the only one I'm going to listen to is Castilian. And I'm the king so do what you're told!
Confronted by this creation of an official language, the speakers of High Aragonese, Aranese, Asturian, Basque, Caló, Catalan, Extremaduran, Fala Extremaduran, Galician and Mirandes, did what Spaniards usually do when confronted by a strong central authority intent in interfering in the cultural identity of its citizens: they ignored it. Even Franco could not stop the people of Spain speaking the language of their faithers and mithers. And by the way, the speakers of Valenciano get really pissed off if you say they speak a variety of Catalan and never, ever say that they both sound like French. No wonder the Habsburgs, after a century or so of governing a bunch of people, or peoples, who couldn't even agree they lived in the same country said:
-Game's a bogey,
and left it to the Bourbons to sort it out.
I should also add that Spanish, if it exists, and Castilian if it doesn't, is an incredibly economical language. English depends a great deal on phrasal verbs to convey meaning. Without the sentence "Shall we get on the bus now?" the English-speaking world would have ended up as a group of aimless nomadic-wanderers clustered around bus stops. A Spaniard, on the other hand, would say:
-¿Subimos?-
After all if you are already at the bus stop and if a bus is there and everyone knows that they are there to get on the bus then why in the name of ¡mis cojones santos! (my sainted balls) would anyone want to discuss this? ¡Coño!
You'll notice that I didn't translate Coño. That's because I can't. You see, it's the "C" word in English. In Spanish (Castilian), however, it is an incredibly useful interjection that can be used in a variety of situations. It can be used to express anger: ¡Esa abeja me ha picado!¡Coño! - "That damn bee stung me!"; it can be used to express surprise: ¿Están saliendo juntos? ¡Coño! - "Are they really going out? Jings!" It can even be used by grandmothers. So, once again Spanish/Castilian has found a way of expressing different feelings with a single word. They just had to pick the one word which in English can never be used in public.
So, once again, context is everything when living in Spain. I found this out, yet again, a couple of weeks ago when my girlfriend and her daughter were having an argument. Or, possibly, they were having a barney, a set-to, a strong exchange of views, a right old ding-dong. a shouting match or perhaps they were even going at it like cats and dogs. You could call it a dispute, a disgreement, a squabble or a bit of a rhubarb. After all, voices were raised, the phrase -¡No me escuchas!- ("You're not listening to me!"- four words and a contraction in English compared to three in Spanish, by the way) was used repeatedly and forcefully. They were, in Spanish, discutiendo; in English, arguing, from the verb discutir, to argue. However, and this would explain why they could break off from shouting at each other and laugh at the look of concern on my face, discutir also means to discuss. Far from having an argument, they were merely having a loving discussion between mother and daughter.
Now, there are other words in Spanish which mean the same as discutir , for example disputar. But I have only ever heard them use discutir. To be honest, I think they do this on purpose, use one word to express different meanings. The longer I stay here the more sympathy I feel for anyone whose lot it was to be in charge of this bunch of linguistic acrobats. When the subjects of Philip V were paying him homage, rindiendo homenaje, it could never have been far from his mind that a synonym of rendir is fatigar, to exhaust or tire out. More than once, swamped by this never-ending outpouring of ambiguity, he must have thought:
-Oh Jeez, gie's a break!
To which I can only add:
-¡Coño!-
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)