I used this guide to plan a trip for 5 women travelers, including myself. We selected 2 hotels, one in Madrid and the other in Sevilla. All information was accurate and we were more than pleased with our selections. It is a must-read for anyone on a budget and looking for a bargain. What is especially comforting is that the author has personally stayed in all of the places she highlights in the book. I am looking forward to more books by this author, especially England and France.

This very useful guide lists hotels for 22 cities. Also includes extra appendices: useful websites, maps, books; what to pack; tips on accommodations; tourist offices; tips on phoning, faxing; useful phrases; schedule of holidays, events; and a reservation form. Directions included for each hotel. Would be useful to have a plot of hotel locations within the city for trip planning. Listing of hotels by zip code is not useful. Excellent overall.

I am the author of Eating & Drinking in Spanish and Eating & Drinking in Italy (the What Kind of Food Am I? series). I own, and have used, all of Margo Classe's guides, including Hello Spain! These guides are thorough and the author adds a personal touch when she describes in detail each hotel she has visited. Hello Spain! is a must for the independent, budget traveler.

Brisk biography of a great apparition, Picasso's meditation on war, and the atrocity of the bombing of the Basques. Detached,almost remote from politics Picasso is suddenly drawn into a protest against the fascist tide in the period of the Spanish Civil War, the outcome the masterpiece one once saw many times at Moma--the author recounts the return of this orphaned msterpice to Spain after its long years of exile and rejection by Franco's spain. Well told, important story.

In a small village of Spain, it was market day on 26 April 1937, with farmers bringing in harvest. The village within the Basque region of northern Spain was without any serious strategic import, but it was less than twenty miles away from Bilbao, a Basque stronghold, and Francisco Franco wished to threaten the Basques. At the request of Franco's rebel army, Luftwaffe planes poured bombs, percussion and incendiary, onto the village for three hours, and strafed the people trying to flee. The event was to inspire possibly the most famous painting of the twentieth century, and the painting was to sear the events in Guernica into the world's memory. The story of the history that made the painting and the painting that made history is dramatically told in _Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece that Changed the World_ (Dutton) by Russell Martin. It is a great story of art and history, and it is told here with earnest verve.

Picasso didn't like the idea of a commission for a big mural, and although he fully supported the Spanish Republican forces in their efforts against Franco's fascism, he was not interested in making what he knew would be a piece of propaganda. He had never visited the Basque country, but once he heard of the attack, he began sketches for the commission. It was not immediately accepted as a masterpiece, although the partisans of the Spanish Republican cause were, of course, enthusiastic. It wound up at the commencement of World War II in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it would be a showpiece for more than forty years. Picasso made clear that the Spanish Republican government had paid for the painting and it thus belonged to the people of a democratic Spain, but he stipulated that democracy and freedom had to be restored before it returned. After Franco's death, and after serious legal tangles, possibly because the museum wanted to hold on to the painting as long as possible, the painting was sent to the Prado museum in Madrid in 1981. The national newspaper had the headline THE WAR HAS ENDED.

That might have been so, but controversy over the painting and the locale it deserves has not ended. It was moved to another Madrid museum, probably its permanent home, but many Basques believe that it needs to be closer to the rebuilt Guernica village. Hope for such a move peaked when the Bilbao museum was built. The architect, Frank Gehry, even showed the Spanish king and queen the wall on which _Guernica_ should be installed. Having the painting return to Spain helped to heal the years of repression, and perhaps sending it to Bilbao would heal the wounds between Basques and Spaniards; it is not impossible that the famous painting still has work to do. But Martin reminds us that Picasso said, "Wars end, but hostilities endure forever." Martin was researching his fine book, and looking at the painting himself, when other museum visitors hinted that as an American he ought to get to a television. It was 11 September 2001, and the world has not fully learned _Guernica_'s lesson.

Hanging in The United Nations is a tapestry that replicates the image of the painting that is the subject of Russell Martin's book, "Picasso's War". The painting is "Guernica" that Picasso created as a response to the destruction of a small town that is of the same name but at times is also spelled "Gernika". The first bit of irony I experienced while reading this wonderful book is that the tapestry hangs in The United Nations but is covered when various topics are discussed. For instance, when Secretary of State Colin Powell recently gave his presentation to The UN on Iraq the tapestry was covered, lest any television or print cameras photograph those speaking with the tapestry as a backdrop. So firstly there is this internationally renowned anti-war symbol hung in a building that rarely averts violence or acts quickly to prevent the spread of violence. And then when the possibility of violence is discussed, the imaged is removed from view.

The second instance was a personal experience involving the author, for on the day he was in Spain viewing the original work that documented the bombing of a civilian population by airplanes; the city of New York was targeted by airplanes used as massive flying bombs. The events that took place in Spain that shared the sorrow of that day are amongst the most poignant in the book. The similarity of events also made relevant once again a quote of Picasso's, "War's end, but hostilities endure forever".

The decisions and events that lead to the targeting of a civilian population in a manner that at times bordered on sport are repulsive, but are also familiar as they were repeated so many times in the 20th Century, and virtually every other century one may care to examine. Picasso managed to place on a massive canvas images that are horrible, but in a manner that is unique and that has made the image one that has been adopted for human cruelty around the world.

Author Russell Martin has created a well crafted book that is a work of History, Politics, Art, and Sociology. It is an extremely readable book for anyone interested in 20th Century events. You don't need to be an admirer of Picasso, you can even dislike his work and it will have little impact on how much you will enjoy this book. For what the author has done is to take what has become an icon for a variety of tragic and shameful human behaviors, and trace it from it's origins to the controversial location where it resides today. Nothing about Picasso's massive work is without controversy, except for the people who stand in endless lines to view it, almost everyone else involved in its custodianship since Picasso's death has little to be proud of and much to account for.

War often can be distilled down to one group coveting that which another has, and then using escalating levels of violence to make it their own. Picasso created a documentary of the result of these human failings, and had he lived he would have seen how his work became yet another object for an elite few to argue over and covet, while the masses that he painted it for have waited for decades to even view what he created for them.

The other guy said it better than me, but Bookchin's book is one of the few that really get's down deep into the process by which anti-authoritarian ideas and movements get generated and how they achieve, or can achieve, social change. Wonderful both for theory and history.

From the few dozen workers who first listened to Giuseppi Fanelli as he presented "The Idea" in 1868, a nucleus of Anarchists slowly grew in Spain. "Anarchistic ideals are difficult to fix into a hard and fast credo. Anarchism is a great libidinal movement of humanity to shake off the repressive apparatus created by hierarchical society. It originates in the age-old drive of the oppressed to assert the spirit of freedom, equality, and spontaneity over values and institutions based on authority." (p. 16) Nineteenth Century Spain was rife with oppressive and authoritarian institutions-a culture medium, as it were, for Anarchism.

Bookchin traces the growth of the movement, explaining the various forms through which the anarchistic "Idea" developed. He briefly explores the influences of Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Bakunin, and contrasts them with the bleak realities of the Spanish political situation. The Spanish anarchists were not an unruly mob of bomb hurling terrorists, they were "freedom fighters" in the best sense of the term. Many exemplified self-discipline:

"The more dedicated men, once having decided to embrace the "Idea," abjured smoking and drinking, avoided brothels, and purged their talk of "foul" language. They believed these traits to be "vices"--demeaning to free people and fostered deliberately by ruling classes to corrupt and enslave the workers spiritually." (p. 48)

"Anarchist-influenced unions gave higher priority to leisure and free time for self-development than to high wages and economic gains." (p. 50)

"A very compelling case, in fact, can be made for the argument that Spanish Anarchism refracted the spirit of Enlightenment Europe through an Iberian prism, breaking up its components and then reorganizing them to suit Spain's distinctive needs." (p. 51)

Bookchin threads his way through the maze of Spanish politics, explaining the labyrinthine changes of government and policy. At each step, whether liberal or more totalitarian, the poor kept on getting poorer and the rich kept on getting richer. At one point, a system known as Turnismo existed. "Liberal"and repressive regimes would regularly share the power back and forth. When capitalists and land-owners needed to reduce the power of unions, a "liberal" regime took power, and while promising land reform and better working conditions, repressed the unions. At other times the more totalitarian regimes ran things, at times easing a few restrictions to keep the populace content. (One can perhaps imagine a bit of "turnismo" in the Bush/Clinton/Bush administrations!)

Anarchism flourished in both the countryside and in the cities. Many pueblos had traditionally run themselves by ideals approaching anarchism. These folks accepted the "Idea" readily. syndicalist unions also found themselves attracted to anarchism.

Anarchists formed their own schools. Francisco Ferrer founded the Escuela Moderna, with "a curriculum based on the natural sciences and moral rationalism, freed of all religious dogma and political bias ... [there was to be] no atmosphere of competition, coercion, or humiliation. The classes were, in Ferrer's words, to be guided by the "principle of solidarity and equality ... Instruction was to rely exclusively on the spontaneous desire of students to acquire knowledge and permit them to learn at their own pace. The purpose of the school was ... to create solid minds, capable of forming their own rational convictions on every subject." (p. 117) This system was so successful that within a decade over 50 such schools existed in Spain. Eventually, however, Ferrer paid for his "radical" educational ideas with his life; the government executed him on October 13, 1909.

Bookchin traces the encounters between socialists and anarchists. He takes the time to establish the difference between the two groups (To oversimplify: socialists depended on central organization, while anarchists looked to the local "grupos de affinidad" (affinity groups) for decision making). These differences became crucial during the Spanish Civil War, when communists fought anarchists in the streets, rather than working with them to defeat Franco and his Fascist minions.

The book does a great job of explaining the world into which the Spanish Civil War burst in 1936. Bookchin, however, does not enter that conflict. He leaves that to other writers, and perhaps with good reason. The Civil War led to the total repression of Spanish Anarchism. Having the book stop while the Anarchism was still in the ascendancy and not yet being systematically destroyed, first by its "revolutionary" allies, and then by Fascism.

In his concluding remarks, Bookchin makes a bold claim: "Although Spanish Anarchism was virtually unknown to radicals abroad during the "heroic years" of its development, it could be argued in all earnestness that it marked the most magnificent flowering and , in the curious dialectic of such processes, the definitive end of the century-long history of proletarian Socialism." (p. 278)

"The genius of Spanish Anarchism stems from its ability to fuse the concerns of traditional proletarian socialism with broader, more contemporary aspirations." (p. 286) Bookchin concludes by showing how "The larger problems of abolishing hierarchy and domination, of achieving a spiritually nourishing daily life, of replacing mindless toil by meaningful work, of attaining the free time for the self-management of a truly solidarizing human community ... [all this can be sensed in] sectors of society that were never accorded serious consideration as forces for revolution within the economic framework of proletarian socialism."

This book is required reading for anybody who wishes to understand the causes of the Spanish Civil War. It also presents some of the greatest Anarchist accomplishments in recent history. Bookchin related the history well and held my attention. I strongly recommend this book to anybody interested in Anarchism, in the Spanish Civil War, or who has ever read Garcia y Vega's REVOLT OF THE MASSES. It also makes understanding Orwell's HOMAGE TO CATALONIA much easier.

Five stars for scholarship, five stars for making history accessible, five stars for explaining difficult situations and concepts.

(If you'd like to dialogue about this book or review, please click on the "about me" link above and drop me an email. Thanks!)

Bookchin does an excillent job of presenting the often chaotic history of pre-Civil War Spain in a clear and organized manner. Possessing a clear writing style and an excillent grasp of the movement in general, Bookchin's book is an asset to anyone interested in Spanish history or Anarchism in general.

This little book is a delightful read: informative, well-written, and entertaining. I can't imagine a better book for anyone planning a trip to Spain.

Part way into a year in Madrid, I found this book in a bookshop near the Puerto del Sol. Having read -- mostly with disappointment -- guidebooks of the "eat here, sleep there" variety, as well as of the "observe famous site on the left" variety, I have been absolutely entranced with this book.

What it does is bring alive the stories of Madrid. It's not a guidebook, per se, although I think it would be an invaluable book to have on any visit to Spain. It's more a collection of stories, of anecdotes, that pull you into the actual life of the city as it is and as it was.

A typical example: almost all guidebooks mention the Cafe Gijon, and cite it as a good place to eat where generations of Madrid literati have dined. You are left wondering, which Madrid literati, what was the appeal, and what did they do there? Rather than leave you hanging so, Elizabeth Nash guides through the society of "tertullias" (informal but somewhat stable idle discussion groups) that once flourished in these cafes, quoting from some of the novels written about this literary life, pulling up diverse quotes and recollections. By the time you are done you even know the name and the politics of the man who sells cigarettes at the stand just inside the Cafe Gijon's door.

That's the sort of thing the book does throughout. Rather than just identify sites and give you a summary description, it takes you into tales of selected important areas of Madrid. Some are on everyone's tour itinerary, such as the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta del Sol, while others, such as the college residence hall where Dali, Bunuel and Garcia Lorca discovered each other, art and life, do not figure in the packaged tours.

While drawing on marvellously deep and diverse sources, it's also a very good read. It moves quickly.

I recommend it highly.

The author's knowledge and understanding of Madrileno culture, history, literature, art and psyche are impressive. She brings all these elements together to form the big picture, and the result is a potrayal of Madrid that goes deep beyond the surface. A fascinating account.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION

It's hard to review a book when one feels that she could have written it herself and worse yet when in fact that book has been published already. In some ways it's reassuring to read the same thoughts, opinions, even the same literary references and mythological symbols. In other ways it is almost eerie to share with it a similar structure of titled chapters which can be read independently. It all started with the cover of Lucia Graves' A Woman Unknown. Voices from a Spanish Life (Washington D. C.: Counterpoint, 2000) where I saw the familiar picture of Mercedes Formica, a writer I interviewed some years ago, but more about her later.
Lucia Graves is the daughter of Robert Graves, the English poet who lived in Majorca with his Spanish wife and children for several years. Her book is labeled as her autobiography, but it's more like a history of Spain during the almost forty years of Franco's Dictatorship and the ensuing some twenty years of Democracy. Her role is more that of a well-versed witness, a woman who has lived among three different cultures: the English of her birth, the Spanish of her adopted country and the Catalan into which she married. Hers is a well documented account of everyday life, political repression, historical events and a study of the richness of languages.
The author moved to Majorca, where a version of Catalan is spoken, when she was three years old. Despite her father's prominence, she lived a rather modest life on the island before it became a popular tourist destination. A few years of her childhood were spent in Palma, the island's capital, where she studied in a repressive nun school like any other Spanish girl, until she was almost convinced to be baptized in the Catholic Church ( to keep her from "going to hell"), at which time her parents had her first tutored at home and then send to England to receive a "proper" education.
At Oxford, although she missed Spain terribly, she became familiar with the language of her birth, her own father's work and - interestingly enough- Spanish literature which she could then study uncensored. It was her appreciation of the complexity of languages and in particular her translation class, that gave her the tools to become the accomplished translator she is now. Her reflections on language are in themselves worth the reading of A Woman Unknown. Her dilemma should be familiar to anyone fluent in more than one language: "I began to see that being trilingual meant I had never been able to focus fully on any one of my languages, that each one covered only particular areas of experience, and as result I could not express myself fully in any of them" (115).
Lucia Graves' book is full of expressions in Catalan which she carefully explains and translates into English. In fact, if anything, her careful attention to detail is superfluous to the initiated reader of Spanish culture. Her knowledge of the subtleties of the Spanish and Catalan character is commendable as is the varied tidbits of information about popular customs. Her appraisal of the repressive years of Franco's regime is equally on target as is her appreciation - only now becoming official in Spain- of the liberal Republican government.
However, for all her political openness, Lucia Graves is very coy about much of her personal information. For instance, she mentions in passing the sudden death of her half-sister Jenny (149), but doesn't bother to explain it, or we know little more than her oldest daughter's name and not even that of her other two daughters. Her Spanish mother, despite the fact that her illness opens and closes the book, remains a mystery as well. The reader is left wondering what led to her divorce from her Catalan husband and even to whom is she married now since she alludes to a second marriage, while she analyzes in depth the effects of the new Spanish divorce law of 1981. It could be argued that this lack of detail is a good thing since the reader's curiosity is peaked due to her talent as a writer and her, indeed, fascinating life.
The title, "A Woman Unknown" refers to the legal terminology given a woman in divorce proceedings. In fact Lucia Graves gives special attention to the situation of Spanish women: from the liberties of the Second Republic before Franco to the repression of the years after the Civil War, up to the new freedom we are presently enjoying. Her representation of postwar courtship rituals is as poignant as that of Carmen Martín Gaite's, one of the best Spanish writers who have written on the same topic. Her sympathetic portrait of Margarida de Prades, in the chapter titled "The Queen Who Never Was," a fifteen century Catalan noblewoman, for example, makes for captivating reading.
Lucia Graves is equally sympathetic in her depiction of the Sephardic Jews who inhabited Majorca and Catalonia. Their exile, in many ways, parallels her own quest for a homeland. But she is overly simplistic when she states that Franco was anti-Semitic. Despite all his other abuses, Franco saved over thirty thousand Ukranian Jews as it is documented in Chaim Lipschitz's book, Franco, Spain, the Jews, and the Holacaust (KTVA Publishing House, 1984). In fact Franco's own mother was of Jewish descent; her maiden name, Bahamonde, being typically Jewish.
There is no mention in the text of Mercedes Formica, the writer who graces the book's cover. This is a surprising choice given her right wing ideology - she was a sympathizer of the Falangist leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera. My guess is that it was chosen by the editor in an otherwise beautiful, careful edition. These minor issues aside, Lucia Graves' book is a well written, compelling history of contemporary Spain from the point of view of a not so foreign woman, even when her own story is still not completely told.
CONCHA ALBORG

Concha Alborg is a Spanish writer who lives in Philadelphia and teaches Spanish literature at Saint Joseph's University. She has recently published Beyond Jet-Lag (New Jersey: Ediciones Nuevo Espacio, 2000), her second work of fiction, about the immigrant experience. Beyond Jet-Lag is available on Amazon.com ...

This is a fascinating perspective from the tri-lingual-daughter of a well-known poet. Lucia is caught between two identities-Britain and Spain. She tells tales of growing up-island style-off of the coast of Spain-with her Roman Catholic upbringings. All this set after the Spanish civil war where people's identities marred, hopes dashed, and properties confiscated under the Fascist Franco regime (1939-1975) which was characterized by the tight grip of church and state. Her viewpoints on women rights, religious rights, the Catalan identity and the translation profession are particularly illuminating.

I loved this book and, as a writer, I found it very inspiring! Graves writes beautifully of growing up on Majorca and her descriptions of the place and the people there, and other parts of Catalonia, are very evocative. The book caught my eye because I am studying Spanish and this book gave me a great feel for life in Spain, particularly under Franco but also, as described to her by people she knew, during the Spanish Civil War. It also offers interesting thoughts on language and identity, because she grew up speaking English at home, Majorcan/Catalan with neighbors (at least until Franco tried to crush the language), and Castilian Spanish at school. It's no wonder she became a translator.

By the way, if you're interested in Robert Graves (I didn't know anything about him - I guess I missed the whole PBS "I Claudius" series), you won't find out all that much about him here - this is Lucia's story. At least he passed on to his daughter his talent for writing.

Socialist correspondent Felix Morrow writes a powerful account of the revolutionary uprising of Spain's workers and farmers in the 1930's and the heroic battles they waged to defend the rights and organisations won through struggle.

The counter revolution began in Spanish Morocco under the command of fascist General Franco, aided and abetted by Hitler and Mussolini while the liberal democracies from the United Sates to Britain and France, sitting under the shade of "neutrality" looked the other way secretly hoping for the Generals success.

For revolutionary fighters who thought the Soviet Union's bumbling help to the Spanish toilers was due to a series of bad misjudgements came to the realisation they were in fact coming up against counter revolutionary Stalinism.

Despite the impediments posed by social democracy and Stalinism, the Spanish workers had an ability to learn the lessons of previous events at great speed and combined with their almost unlimited capacity for struggle, were able to overcome what stood in their path.

However, they were let down not by the usual suspects but by the organisation that seemed to be the most free of the Stalinist and social democratic straightjacket - the POUM.

Morrow takes the reader through the earth shattering events that unfolded in Spain at the time and takes up central challengers facing that countries working people in the battle for state power.

Morrow's book concludes with a chapter entitled "Two Roads," to revolution or to counterrevolution, to workers power or to Franco. It was not only the abstract need for socialism, that Morrow explains the Spanish revolution could have won only by going to workers power. The disastrous policies of the Stalinists, the social democrats, and the anarchist labor bureaucrats subordinated the struggle to the dictates of big business in Spain and imperialism abroad, the same forces that welcomed Franco.
Morrow is very good at explaining how this policy prevented the workers, peasants, and oppressed peoples in Spain from solving the many national and democratic tasks, supposedly solved in the US in 1776 and in France in 1789: land to the tiller, freedom from feudal rights and powers of nobility and church, national independence for the colonies in Africa, linguistic freedom and national rights up to self-determination for Catalonia and the Basque Country, to name a few. Fighting for these things was the natural reaction of popular masses in Spain as soon as Franco tried to overturn the republic. Sadly, Morrow shows how the Republican government lost because it turned its back not only on these rights, not only on socialism, but even the basic democratic right of workers and peasants to organize political parties, unions, workers councils, to publish and speak freely.
Morrow is not all depression and criticism. He saw with his own eyes the natural response of the working peoples in Spain to fight beyond the limitations of class collaboration. He saw how that power nearly defeated Franco and how it could have defeated Franco especially if the Republic had joined with the struggle of the colonial masses and oppressed nationalities to gain freedom Read Morrow and learn how the coming struggles will be victories and not defeats.

Morrow was a great editor, a great journalist, a man who captured the spirit and realities of the Spanish civil war, not as an uncritical supporter of the Republicans, but as a revolutionary critique familiar with the lessons Leon Trotsky tried to give about the Russian Revolution, familiar with the betrayal of the class collaborationist leaders of the Communist and Socialist parties in Spain.
In this book we see in the flesh what we may here about in other writer's analysis of this civil war. I was always struck by how he shows the imporance of the struggle for land and support to the small farmers, not by analysis but by describing the debates he heard on this subject between Spanish peasants and Franco's troops.
The rise of Le Pen and France and the attempts of the same social democrats and stalinists to get workers in that country to subordinate the struggle to supporting Chirac is an errie echo of the same policies that Morrow shows led to the defeat in Spain.

This book is the rambling memoirs of Usumah ibn-Munqidh, 1095-1188. His lifetime very nearly tracks the time of the First Crusade through Saladin's reconquest of Jerusalem. Usumah was a member of the noble family of Shayzar, but was exiled by his jealous uncle. He became a high-ranking government official in Egypt, then in Damascus.

Usumah's memiors is an invaluable description of ordinary life during the time of the Crusades. Usumah spends more time in battle against other Muslims than against the Crusaders, and often travelled to Crusader lands for business or on diplomatic missions. His descriptions of Western Civilization are fascinating.

I recommend that you understand the basics of Crusader history before reading this book. Read Runciman vol.1 and 2 and Maalouf's "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes." Both Usumah and the editor assume that you already know basically what happened.

I suggest that you keep Runciman vol. 2 handy at all times. Usumah jumps backwards and forwards in time and it is sometimes difficukt to follow him. He also suffers from the medieval curse of obsessing on a topic and writing about it to death. The topics that fascinate him are wounds and hunting, and his discussion of these topics can get a little tedious.

But overall, a really cool book that I highly recommend to my fellow Crusades-freaks.

Usamah calls his book "Kitab al-Itibar" or "The Book of Instructive Example." True to its title, there is much to learn from this book, but what I found very interesting were perhaps things other than what Usamah wanted us to learn. For example, it was interesting to note the Arab perception of Franks, the relationship between Arabs and Franks during the first of two centuries of crusades on the Eastern Mediterranean, and aspects of the life of a prince and some commoners as well. The stories about hunts are numerous and tend to get boring, but they tell us of a rich fauna that is now largely extinct (lions, leopards, etc.). Usamah's talk of old age provides a sobering philosophical view of life.

What an excellent job by Philip Hitti who translated the manuscript from Arabic! Considering that the manuscript was lacking in things such diacritical marks (dots on Arabic letters), punctuation, etc. it is truly an amazing that he was able to pull this book together in the manner its stands. Thanks to Philip Hitti we can enjoy Usamah's book: it is truly a delightful read!

Unlike any other history book, this is a first hand account, day to day life of an Arab Syrian prince in the time of the crusades; He talks about his advantures, feelings and thoughts, it's just like going back in time almost 1000 years. If you like history and especially the crusades, this book is a must. I go back and read this book every once in a while, it's entertaining and informative.

"EL ESPEJO ENTERRADO" ES UN LIBRO QUE NO PUEDES DEJAR DE LEER. TIENES QUE TOMARTE UN TIEMPO PARA LEERLO Y APRENDER DE O RECORDAR LA HISTORIA DE TODO AMERICA.

Fuentes dice en el Espejo Enterrado que Rocinante es una yegua y no es cierto. Reto al mismo Carlos Fuentes a que me lo demuestre.

I first read The Buried Mirror as a college student 7 years ago. Since then, I have travelled through Mexico, Guatemala, and Spain and have always looked to "The Burried Mirror" as a valuable source of insight to the cultures I experience.

For anyone who has ever wondered about how the cultures and histories of those from the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas have comingled and collided, this is the book for you!

In late 1993, right before the new year, Toni Dorado is returning home to Los Angeles to face the lover she left abruptly and to reconnect with her family. Her niece and her mother are very excited to have her back, but her sister Sylvia isn't happy at all, and she has her own problems in the form of an abusive husband. Toni struggles to make amends with Pat, her former lover, and the two slowly begin to communicate about where to go from here. As the various women's lives and sometimes volatile relationships collide, so too does the earth as a major earthquake hits the area in January 1994, forcing the women to face some naked truths about each other and about themselves. Even though the earthquake has a deus ex machina feel (where it solves problems so the characters don't have to), "Faults" is quite a remarkable novel for creating a beautiful portrait of a present-day Chicana family to which everyone can relate.

This book is excellent and readers of Ms. De La Pena's previous books will be reunited with some familiar characters. It's also a fascinating read for LA fans and fans of lesbian literature. It's the kind of novel you wish wouldn't end but when it does you know she'll be back with an even greater read next time! I think Terri De La Pena really captures what it's like to be a lesbian and a Mexican-American!

Other reviewers have outlined the plot of this novel adequately, but more needs to be said about the deft characterizations, setting, and style.

The five primary characters in Faults have each been given a distinct voice. The novel is structured through short chapters, each in the first-person voice of five very different women. Terri de la Pena has created characteristic idioms, world-views, personalities, and character strenghts and 'faults' for each person. I was fascinated as these characters unfolded; it is a risky and, in Terri's hands, successful narrative technique.

Two reviewers complained about the mix of Spanish words and phrases in the narratives, a perspective I would like to counter. My Spanish understanding is based on a couple of semesters 20 years ago, and although I didn't understand the litteral meaning of every Spanish phrase, I found the use of Spanish absolutely authentic to the characters, and actually pretty easy to decode. In fact, there is often a translation of sorts in the context, many are English cognates, and others are common Spanish heard in the US. So don't let it put you off. Even when you don't understand the phrase, the intent and mood is clear. Actually, the use of Spanish adds a great deal to the novel--how much Spanish crops up in a character's thoughts, for instance, provides insight to her personal culture. Also, the presence of Spanish is important to the sense of living as Chicanas in an Anglo macroculture. Bilingualism (and not every Chicano/a speaks Spanish) must be an enormous, perhaps a defining part of the experience. For a non-Spanish speaker of another culture to criticize what is clearly a deeply imbedded cultural characteristic shows a regretable bias, and listening to it would limit one's aesthetic. Finally, I want to say that for Chicanas and others with Spanish-based cultures, the language mix must be quite welcome. (Terri de la Pena is not the only Chicana author writing in this manner, of course.)

I appreciate the attention Terri de la Pena pays to environment in her settings--from street and business names to architectural details. Though briefly mentioned, these things add to the authentic ring of the story.

One other strength of the structure created by the five woman characters is the way time unfolds as the characters speak. Each short narrative takes place within a given moment or brief period of time; in fact, each section is dated so we have a sense of events defining a period of several weeks. What we know about the past is colored by the POV of the speaker, so the contrasting views give us various "truths" that we must sort out as we perceive the biases of each woman.

I have focused on three aspects of Terri de la Pena's writing that contribute to the strength of "Faults." The sum is, of course, much more than the parts. The book is an important addition to lesbian literature which offers a reading experience rich on many levels. I recommend it.

I have known and worked with the author for 30 years so I might be considered prejudice. I can honestly say however that I enjoyed the book on it's own merits. Naturally being able to visualize Bob as he described his daily adventures enhanced that enjoyment. Most of those who know Bob as a conservative banker(retired) whose main idea of excercise was to walk out to his garage for a drive in his Mercedes were shocked when he announced he was going backpacking across Spain. This was completely out of character as was acknowledged by his wife Marie and other family members. However, true to character when Bob said he was going to do something you knew he would. For me the highlight of the book was his thoughful planning and preparation prior to the actual trip. I also enjoyed his colorful description of the people he met on the trial and how they watched out for each other. I actually grew to like George and Margaret and hope someday to meet them if they ever come to visit Bob in Chicago. As Bob described his daily travels his doggedness, attention to detail,honesty, frugality (he loved those $6.00 a night refuges) and dry sense of humor kept emerging. I found myself smiling often and thinking "that's Bob". I may never hike the St James Trail but Bob's book was an inspiration to rethink what is possible when you have a dream, set a goal and achieve what you set out to do.

I was impressed by the writer's thoughtfulness to address the preparations prior to making his historic walk. Bob Tuggle's diary format of his journey makes it easy reading, as well as placing the reader in a position to actually visualize the trek without have to do the walk. The writer's descriptions of relationships developed during the trek also added some drama and enjoyable reading of his book.

After wading through book after book about the mystical or cultural significance of the Camino, I was thrilled to find such an honest and down-to-earth guide. Mr. Tuggle made it personal enough to keep me interested, but factual enough to give me a good idea of how to plan my upcoming trip. I finally feel prepared to go. Another thing that is so great about this book is that Mr. Tuggle offers his personal email address for readers to ask questions and such. I wrote to him, not really expecting a reply, but he answered all of my questions thoroughly and with such grace and kindness that I am even more enthusiastic about my trip and his book. It is a fast read and a must for anyone who just wants to walk the trail and not worry about cosmic visions, reincarnation or the power of ley lines. Thank you, Mr. Tuggle.