Прогулки по Испании От Пиренеев до Гибралтара
ак и едва ли не для каждой страны, для Испании существует свой стереотип: коррида, фламенко, вино, Кармен. И, разумеется, этими образами Испания не только не исчерпывается, но даже и не начинается. Она удивительно красива и многолика, эта страна между Пиренеями и морем.
Неутомимый путешественник Генри Мортон приехал в Испанию не за стереотипами - он хотел увидеть страну и ак и едва ли не для каждой страны, для Испании существует свой стереотип: коррида, фламенко, вино, Кармен. И, разумеется, этими образами Испания не только не исчерпывается, но даже и не начинается. Она удивительно красива и многолика, эта страна между Пиренеями и морем.
Неутомимый путешественник Генри Мортон приехал в Испанию не за стереотипами - он хотел увидеть страну изнутри, окинуть ее взглядом "доброжелательного постороннего", чтобы понять, принять и восхититься. "Испания" Мортона - книга такая же разноликая, контрастная, солнечная и сумрачная, величественная и карнавальная, чинная и вольная, как и страна, которой она посвящена. . more
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This is a charming and fascinating book about HV Morton’s travels in Spain, written in 1954. As with his other books there are wonderfully evocative descriptions - of Spanish people, cities, villages and countryside. The book is also liberally endowed with generous dollops of history - and marvellous anecdotes and stories about heroes, saints, travellers and royalty. One gets a lovely flavour of Spain in the mid 20th century, and in many instances that could still be the mid 18th or 19th century This is a charming and fascinating book about HV Morton’s travels in Spain, written in 1954. As with his other books there are wonderfully evocative descriptions - of Spanish people, cities, villages and countryside. The book is also liberally endowed with generous dollops of history - and marvellous anecdotes and stories about heroes, saints, travellers and royalty. One gets a lovely flavour of Spain in the mid 20th century, and in many instances that could still be the mid 18th or 19th century….so many of the things Morton describes seem utterly timeless.
Aspects of the book that I particularly enjoyed:(view spoiler) [* The lovely opening …
The aircraft descended upon a landscape that was just as I had expected it to be. The trees had vanished centuries ago, much of the top soil had gone, and the bones of the land lay stark and bare in various shades of brown……
* His unexpected observations - painting wonderful pictures of the places he visits…
A narrow street led up into the town and there was another vista of old houses and balconies. The surprising arrival of the telephone has covered the slit of sky above these streets with a precarious network of thin wires, and upon some of the balconies are rows of porcelain insulators that look like swallows preparing to migrate.
* His descriptions of various madonnas that were dressed up in material clothing. Some of this clothing went back centuries. He describes a dressing room for the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe…..
“This apartment, called the ‘camarín’, was a typical baroque reconstruction… In many churches this sumptuous little apartment is the Virgin’s dressing-room, where she is clothed for festivals.The ‘Camarín’ at Guadalupe is obviously associated with the robing of the Virgin, for a door leads from it into her jewel-room. This is furnished with chairs, tables and cabinets, all of the seventeenth century, and the walls are lined with crimson silk. Here is to be seen an amazing collection of jewels and crowns, headdresses and all kinds of valuable objects given at various time to the Virgin….It is a curious form of piety, and indeed it fascinates me and I could watch monks for hours as they lovingly withdraw shelves from presses and point out the beauty of the oddly shaped garments, with an expert eye for embroidery and needlework…. The most spectacular and valuable dresses have names. There is a superb piece of embroidery known as “the One from the Infanta”, which was sent from Flanders by the daughter of Philip II, Doňa Clara Eugenia, in 1629; another is called “the First of the Community”, and a third “the Rich Robe of the Community”, both embroidered and sewn with thousands of pearls by monks in the eighteenth century. What a strange occupation for men who had turned their faces from womankind to sit year after year making these rich and flashing gala dresses for the Queen of Heaven. The monk drew my attention to the coats-of-arms in enamel and gold, with diamonds and pearls in the centre of each crest, which form the border of one robe, and to the great cape sewn with thousands of pearls in such a way that from every direction they spell the words ‘Ave Maria’.“There is nothing richer in the whole world,” whispered the monk as he closed the press.
*A typical HV Morton aside….his description of William Prescott, who wrote the book The Conquest of Mexico in spite of being almost blind…
One of his secretaries has left an account of him at work in a darkened library fitted with screens, which had to be adjusted with almost every cloud that passed across the sky. He wrote on a now obsolete instrument called a noctograph, designed for the blind, which was a frame with lines traced in wires on which words were written with a stylus on carbon paper. How a man so handicapped, who had to use other people’s eyes, who had to have his authorities read to him, and in a foreign language, who worked in America, far from the European sources of his works, how such a man could have slowly and painfully marshalled such an enormous mass of historical detail is a shining example of courage and genius. When he was writing ‘The Conquest of Mexico’ he was limited by his failing sight to one hour’s work a day with his remaining eye, and this hour was divided into two widely separated periods of thirty minutes. How did he find the strength and the courage to plod on at this snail’s pace, year after year, book after book
* His description of Cortéz’s conquest of the Aztec Empire. There is too much blood and guts in this episode in history for me to be able to read a whole book on the subject, but I was hugely fascinated by the chapter or so that Morton devoted to the subject.
* The book is full of delightful anecdotes about Spanish life – this being an example…
“Every year at Corpus Christi choristers in the dress of three centuries ago dance in front of this altear to the sound of castanets; and if I had to choose, I would rather see this Dance of the Seises than the famous ceremonies of Holy Week. The boys wear satin knee-breeches, jackets hanging from one shoulder, buckled shoes, and plumed hates, and they perform a grave and stately measure. It is a unique survival of the religious dancing which was always popular in Spain, thought the Church was more than a little doubtful about it…. Rome was anxious to put a stop to it, and Pope Eugenius IV allowed the dance to continue, so the story goes, only as long as the costumes should last. It is said that, in order to keep up the custom, the dresses have been cunningly patched and re-patched until hardly a shred of the original garments remains.”
* His discussion about the Inquisition… I was particularly interested in the following:
“Even if we judge the Inquisition against its historical background and admit that its tortures were the normal methods in use at the time, it must still appear one of the most monstrous rackets in history. Its immense wealth was derived from the confiscated property of its victims. It had no other source of income. It would have gone bankrupt without prisoners, and the more people it condemned the richer it became. Every time its officers arrested a man, they were accompanied by a notary who made an inventory of the prisoner’s possessions, thus enormous estates often passed into the keeping of the Holy Office
*Morton’s description of the feting of Columbus when he returned from America was fascinating too – he was give a real heroes welcome. (hide spoiler)]
This book had one last added attraction for me – a personal attraction. My copy is yellowed and stained, and a lot of the pages are loose. This is because the book is old. It was given by one of my grandmothers to my other grandmother, and a message in the flyleaf reads “Florence from Dorothy. Best wishes for a splendid trip to Spain." Whilst reading this I felt very much that I was sharing it with my grannies, who have both now been dead for many years. I think we are all HV Morton fans, and that’s a nice feeling.