There is a narrative genre that is talked about less than it should, judging by the very good books that it is giving to recent Spanish literature. I am referring to literary travel books, those in which an author travels through a landscape, a city or a place of cultural resonance, and he does so while delving into readings to which he refers, having been inspired by that place. It is the heir of the genre known as the ‘Grand Tour’, which ended in Naples. Even before the ‘Grand Tour’ invented by the English pre-romantics, there were memorable European trips such as the one Montaigne recounted from his visit to Italy. He was followed by Goethe, Lord Byron and many others. The three have talked about Umbria, the region where Assisi is located, homeland of one of the most followed saints, that other Christ of whom tradition speaks and whose figure is the subject of this attractive book by Vicente Valero. ESSAY ‘The time of los lirios’ Author Vicente Valero Editorial Periférica Year 2024 Pages 224 Price 19 euros 4Since I have spoken of the rich Spanish harvest of literary travel in these years, such a way of living the mirror landscapes of his literary and artistic readings has given excellent sets such as the five volumes that Cesar Antonio Molina grouped under the title ‘Memories of Fiction’, in which each place visited raised a painting, a comment from another writer or a essayistic reading in such a way that the site is looked at again from them. José Carlos Llop has also given quality in this genre in several books about the Mediterranean. This landscape experienced as a literary resonance has also inspired María José Solano’s books: ‘A Greek Adventure’ and ‘The Woman Who Kissed Virgilio and Other Literary Journeys’. Within travel literature, one must know how to distinguish this type, to which Valero’s book belongs, from another modality developed from the generation of ’98, such as those of Cela and then the generation of realists, in which the important thing was the landscape, Castilla, Alcarria or Las Hurdes, as a transcript of a state of things or Spanish situation. Culture is the joy that can be added to these trips, not overcrowded or prostituted by tourism Few historical figures have structured so much culture and commentary like Saint Francis, from the frescoes of Cimabue or his disciple Giotto, which illustrate the cathedrals of Assisi, to the films that Rossellini, Zefirelli or Pasolini dedicated to him. This book by Valero does not lack any notable references, especially very detailed ones on painting from Lo Spagna to Perugino and other painters who left their mark on convents and cathedrals in the region that the book covers during a sixteen-day trip. There is more culture than landscape, and the variety of references from German authors such as Goethe, Herman Hesse or Willhem Heisen is surprising. The novel that he published in 1787 is read by Valero and commented, like all the references he speaks of, singularly effusive with Lord Byron. The intervention of Mrs. Emilia Pardo Bazán is curious because it is little known. When it comes to spirituality and culture, the perspective of the Jewish essayist Simone Weil could not be missing. The genre does not allow the personal, barely any reference to the taste for this cheese or that wine, in inns or hostels. Culture is the joy that can be added to these trips, not overcrowded or prostituted by tourism. Fortunately they never will be.
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