This epic book is part travel memoir, part history of Spain. The book jacket quotes Michener’s own quite accurate description of the book: “a nineteenth-century English-style travel book with much personal observation, much reflection and much affection.” The book is of formidable length, and includes periodic photos of people, architecture, art, and food—all together, it reads like an extensive exploration of Spain written by a scholar, but written in a personable, approachable manner.
Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections
The book would be an ideal volume for someone interested in absorbing information on the history and culture (up through the mid twentieth century) of Spain, but who would prefer a personal recounting to a dry academic text.
Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections , begins with this line, “I have long believed that any man interested in either the mystic or the romantic aspects of life must sooner or later define his attitude concerning Spain (5)” and goes on to describe the author’s own feelings toward Spain before he arrived for the first time (from a ship where he was on the crew) to his evolving relationship with all things Spanish over four decades.
Parts of Spain
This volume is divided into thirteen chapters, each (aside from the introduction and a chapter on the Spanish bulls) named for a part of Spain. There are chapters on the following areas:
- Badajoz
- Toledo, Cordoba
- Las Marismas
- Sevilla
- Madrid
- Salamanca,
- Pamplona
- Barcelona
- Teruel
- Santiago De Compostela
Michener’s journey begins in the rugged west of Spain, in the region of Extremadura, which is still a rural agricultural area, but was in the 1930’s, during the first scenes of the book, an almost undiscovered rugged terrain. He eventually makes his way east and north throughout all the main cultural centers of Iberia.
Spanish History and James Michener
One of the delightful things about this book is the earnest and straightforward way in which the author combines his personal feelings, assumptions, and reflections about Spain with the documented history of the country over the centuries.
For example, on page twenty-three, Michener writes about something he noticed about people from the different parts of Spain during his first trips there. He compares the thriving city people of Valencia to the poor farmers of Teruel, and considers his attempts to reconcile these two groups under a single heading of “Spanish.” He discuses the way one might compare a banker from Edinburgh, Scotland, to a Scottish countryman. He writes, “there is at first a discrepancy, but as one exercises his muscles he can bring them together into one fused portrait of Scotland that is not difficult to comprehend.” In Spain, he says, it was more difficult to reconcile the people from two different regions, and he speculates as to why.
Michener recounts centuries of political and religious change in the country, and fuses his reflections with his knowledge of the region. Readers of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections, get to consider these questions along with the author, and are welcome to form their own conclusions—Michener does not dictate to the reader, but leaves the text as an open question to be regarded as one man’s striving in a world of many opinions, facts, and recollections.
This book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in European history, or Spain generally.
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Michener, James A. Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections. New York: Random House, 1968. Print.
Eva Gordon - Eva Sage Gordon
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