South from Granada

Living in an area known as south from Granada  I just had to buy this book. The area is not only beautiful and tranquil to live in but it is also the name of a famous book written by Gerald Brenan who lived in a Spanish village called Yegen in the Alpujarran district between 1920 and 1934.  As an officer and a gentleman having survived the first world war he wanted nothing more than a haven of peace and tranquillity for himself and his books.  He was not to be disappointed.

Due to his connections with the Bloomsbury set he was during his years in the village visited by many luminaries including Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf, whose views on the area were not quite as his own.  

The book is a fascinating insight into the ways and day to day living of the people at that time. He talks of the festivals, fiestas and folklore and describes the landscape. But what struck me as I read it was to realise that apart from the infrastructure the area really has changed a great deal. Villagers still sit out at the end of the day in the cool of the evening  chatting with their friends, children and grandchildren,  many of them having never moved away from their own village.   Mules still roam around the villages and the valleys still groan beneath the many orange and lemon groves and goatkeepers still tend to their flock.

It goes onto describes the food of the area, religous activities, schools and education, births, deaths and marriages, beliefs and rituals and the village calender. Throughout it all he brings to life the rich and varied cultural life of the time.  But I could not help but be struck by the similarities in my own Spanish village nearby.  You really do not have to look very hard to see it all today here in the Lecrin valley in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

                               

Many people compare and contrast Brenan's book with the more recent one by         Chris Stewart 'Driving Over Lemons'  who also wrote about the area but in more recent times.  His book became an international best seller and describes an idyllic life in a remote, sunny part of southern Spain.  He also came to live in the Alpujarra's but in the 1990's. His account although written in modern times and in the modern idium nonetheless resounds with passages that could have come straight out of Brenan's book.  As is often the case, Brenan's book became more popular after his death, with the advent of tourism and people actually coming to live in and nearby the Alpujarra's. But should you come to the area and stay still and quiet and look very closely you will still see life as it was described by Brenan all those years ago.