In the final chapters of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning Laurie Lee really transcends the personal. The two chapters dealing with his experiences in the little village of Almunecar by the sea afford great insight into just how quickly Spain descended into civil war once the Republic was established and how horribly inevitable that must have felt at the time. Seeing this through the naively innocent eyes of the memoirist adds to the reader's sense of something close to despair as life in the archetypally Spanish village unravels. It's very much a powerfully unnerving contrast to the predominantly celebratory quality of the descriptions of life in the country in the earlier chapters, even when that life is being dealt with at its most poverty-stricken.
And what a wonderfully evocative writer Lee is, whether he's celebrating or casting shadows. There's something to savour in almost every paragraph in terms of striking imagery or fine phrasing, yet it never seems that he's trying too hard. It's clear that this comes naturally to him; it's the way he sees the world.
But I did take slight exception to one usage he employs. In the chapter dealing with the procession of the Virgin in Toro - a typically vivid set-piece - he recounts the townsfolk praising of the Saint thus: so comely, so linda, such an excellent colour... I like comely but since when was linda a word in English? I had to look this one up, and couldn't find it even in the big OED, but fortunately an on-line search pointed to the fact that linda means 'pretty' in Spanish (hence, the English name.) It's a pity he didn't go for pretty, I reckon. A rare misstep. Very rare though in a work that comes close to perfection as far as I'm concerned.
No comments:
Post a Comment