Bulls and Bells

Further to my last blog, I have been thinking more about the use of language and the perceived exoticism of foreign settings.

I suppose the most famous novel in English involving the Spanish is For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway’s take on the Spanish civil war. ‘Bells, bulls and balls’ was Nabokov’s brisk summary of Hemingway’s interest in Spain. And I have some sympathy for that.

A little less dismissive was the complaint of an absurdly archaic tone given by Hemingway’s use of ‘thou’ for the Spanish ‘tú’, that Edmund Wilson described as a ‘a strange atmosphere of literary medievalism.’ See http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls#encyclopedia
(Scroll down the following page to ‘Language’) for more on this.

False exoticism is not new. Look at Byron’s introduction to Don Juan where he lampoons the romantic fantasy of Spain, or the whole storks drunk on sherry fumes from the bodegas approach, including barefoot children with voices like angels and of course a gypsy dancing girl or two (no, I’m not just talking about Laurie Lee).

I was anxious to avoid that. This has nothing to do with ‘expat pedantry’. It is about doing justice to people.

The Peter Cotton series is really about the end of imperialism and I want it to include respect both for the people of the countries I am writing about, and also respect for the reader.

The Language of Character

I don’t as a general rule respond to other people’s comments about my books, but Fiction Desk’s review of The Maze of Cadiz, and the subsequent thread of comments which I came across recently, raised some interesting questions that confront any author who writes a story with a foreign setting, where many of the conversations are actually taking place in another language that will not be understood by the majority of readers. Should you simply put everything in English - thereby making no distinction between the English and non-English speaking characters? If not, how much foreign language are you going to use?

When I embarked on the Peter Cotton series, I was clear that each of the books should aim to reflect, as faithfully as possible, the flavour of the particular time and place in which the story was set. Context is like a pre-biotic soup from which the characters and actions emerge. And language is an essential part of this - as much as climate, or landscape, or food, or political regimes.

I have spoken to a lot of bilingual or multilingual people who, independently, have made the same point: that their manner and even their personality takes on changes according to the language they are speaking - an interesting phenomenon, which I have observed with some amusement myself as my bilingual children were growing up. Spanish can have a raw, energetic directness in comparison with the rather polished, polite cadences of English. We are what we eat? Yes, in part. But even more, we are what we speak, and our speech reflects what we are.

The inclusion of some Spanish language was, for me, not a question of adding exoticism but of reflecting reality. I lived in Spain for over twenty five years and as I was writing The Maze of Cadiz, just as an English writer might hear a character speaking with a Glasgow accent, I was hearing the words of the Spanish characters not just in Spanish, but in gaditano, that is, the Spanish of Cadiz, with its curious, rich and sometimes quirky turns of phrase. To deprive characters entirely of their mother tongue is to deprive them of an important part of who they are.

Peter Cotton was brought up in Mexico and does speak Spanish - but not gaditano, and he sometimes has to think and work out what people are saying. That’s what happens when you are dropped in a foreign environment, and the inclusion of Spanish gives the reader some flavour of what it was like for him to find out what was going on.

The comments left on the Fiction Desk review soon turned to Javier Marias - a writer I greatly admire. He is perhaps the best Spanish writer writing today. He speaks excellent English and in fact taught at Oxford during the eighties (his experiences of this are reflected in All Souls). The book that made him internationally famous was A Heart so White, for which he was awarded the IMPAC prize in 1997. The protagonist of the book is a translator. Javier Marias himself translated a lot of English works into Spanish when he was younger, most notably Tristram Shandy - a great labour of love.

Would-be Spanish purists say that his writing sounds like English. Absurd. He is a fine and inventive writer. Fortunately for non-Spanish speakers, he has an excellent translator in Margaret Jull Costa.

In this weekend’s FT (12/13 Sept 2009) there is an interesting interview with the Russian-born conductor Semyon Bychkov (about to conduct Verdi’s Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House) who emigrated to the US in 1975 and now lives in France. He speaks five languages and says:

“You can only truly get to know a people through the subtleties of their language. Language is the mirror of national character.”

I don’t know about national character, but it is certainly true of characters in novels.

The Maze of Cadiz, Paperback Now Available

The paperback of The Maze of Cadiz , official publication date 17th September, is now available on amazon.co.uk

You can read an extract from the book, and a Q&A on my website -

http://www.alymonroe.com/

Broad from Badsville

If you haven't come across Donna Moore's blog, dedicated to Scottish crime fiction, take a look. It's much more than that - entertaining and well written. Good fun. I like her tales of the 62 bus!
Here is the link:

http://bigbeatfrombadsville.blogspot.com/

Apart from her blog, Donna is the author of Go To Helena Handbasket and Old Dogs, due out in June 2010.

Audiobook of The Maze of Cadiz now available

The Audiobook of The Maze of Cadiz

read by Johnathan Keeble

is now available for purchase direct from

Isis Publishing

Cotton’s Tastes of Cadiz: Poor Man’s Lobster - or Gato por Liebre

I first ate monkfish in Cadiz over twenty years ago, long before it was a desirable dish in fine restaurants. At the time, this was not a typically ‘gaditano’ dish - the cook was actually from Asturias. The Spanish name for monkfish is rape (pronounced ‘rappay’) but it was popularly known as Langosta de Pobre - Poor Man’s Lobster.

This put me in mind of the Spanish picaresque tradition prevalent during the Golden Age of Spanish literature (sixteenth and early seventeenth century). The protagonists of these stories - the most famous of which are probably El Lazarillo de Tormes (anonymous) and El Buscón (Quevedo) - were from the lowest levels of a highly stratified and immobile society, and in order to survive or medrar (prosper), they had to resort to all kinds of ingenious subterfuge. An essential part of the education of the ‘picaro’ was to learn how to aparentar lo que no eres - in other words, to pass yourself off as something you are not, in order to gain access to people, places and possibilities otherwise barred to you.

A wealth of vocabulary and expressions remain in modern Spanish from this time - the verb aparentar with its connotations of pretending to be more than you are is frequently used. Another common expression - which I used in The Maze of Cadiz - is gato por liebre (literally, cat for hare) which originated in the tabernas serving up a dish of ‘hare which was actually cat. The expression now is commonly used to pass anything off as something else.

People no longer try to pass monkfish off as lobster - it is a recognized delicacy in its own right - and it is certainly not the food of the poor. This is how I first ate it in Spain, how I often cook it, and how Peter Cotton ate it in The Maze of Cadiz:


Monkfish with Mussels and Saffron

Ingredients:

• 1 kilo of monkfish tail cut into diagonal slices about an inch thick. Get your fishmonger to prepare this for you. When you are home, any grey membrane still covering the fish should be carefully removed before cooking.
• 1/2 kilo mussels (or clams)
• some good virgin olive oil
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 2 shallots/ a handful of spring onions (green stalks included)
• A little chopped green pepper (a small slice)
• A pinch of saffron (or turmeric if that is what you have at hand)
• A little flour
• some chopped flat leaf parsley
• freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Salt
• freshly ground black pepper
  
  Instructions:
• Scrub and de-beard the mussels. (If using clams, simply wash in a few changes of water). Leave to soak for a while in cold water with a squeeze of lemon juice.
• Lightly coat the monkfish in flour seasoned with a little salt and pepper.
• On a gentle heat, fry the chopped shallots/spring onions and chopped green pepper in a little olive oil until soft. Add the crushed garlic and cook very little more, taking care not to brown the garlic as it will go bitter. Then remove from the pan, drain and set aside.
• Gently fry the monkfish pieces until beginning to take on a golden colour. Depending on the quantity, fry a few pieces at a time, and reserve.
• Drain the oil from the pan and make sure there is no burnt residue that will make the sauce bitter. (If necessary, clean out the pan carefully with kitchen paper.)
• Return the monkfish to the pan with the onions etc. Add the saffron/ pinch of turmeric, a squeeze of lemon juice and a little water/ stock.
• Shake the pan and stir gently to allow the flour coating the monkfish to thicken the sauce slightly.
• Simmer gently, adding a little more water if necessary, for about ten minutes or until the fish is nearly cooked through.
• Add the mussels/clams and a little more water if necessary. Cover the pan and turn up the heat, shaking gently until the mussels/clams have opened. Then immediately turn off the heat. (Overcooking mussels and clams makes them go rubbery and lose flavour).
• Stir in the chopped flat leaf parsley and adjust seasoning if necessary.
  
  This is more filling than it looks. It can be served as it is for a first course or with fried potato slices added to the dish for a main, accompanied by a simple, dressed green salad.
  
  Today you will often find Brochetas de Rape (Monkfish Kebabs) served as a simple tapa or starter:
  

You will need:

• 1 Monkfish tail
• 2 Sprigs fresh thyme
• 12 - 14 slices of serrano ham

Method

• Take one monkfish tail and chop in half.
• Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the fish.
• Wrap the tail in strips of thinly sliced serrano ham and secure in place with cocktail sticks.
• Place under the grill for 8 - 10 minutes.
• Cut into medallions.
• Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

Serve with a fresh tomato salad.

Gothic Science

I am reading an excellent book called A Natural History of Seeing by Simon Ings. His website http://www.simonings.net/ is similarly amenable and wide-ranging and includes, for example his astute review of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.

In Simon Ings's book - which is subtitled The Art & Science of Vision - there is, in Chapter Two, a delightful account of the fantastic combination of two nineteenth century inventions – photography and the ophthalmoscope - for fictional (and other) purposes.

It’s possible to read this section online – Simon Ings has a list of what he calls ‘eye-openers’ – and this one is called ‘The Tell-Tale Eye’.

I recommend it.