Count Julian

Count Julian

hardcover. Estado de la sobrecubierta: Very Good. First Edition. New York. 1974. May 1974. Viking Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket With Some Very Slight Water-Marking Along The Top Inside Edge. 0670244074. Translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane. 205 pages. hardcover. keywords: Europe Spain Literature Translated World Literature. DESCRIPTION - The Count Julian of the title is a mysterious, enigmatic wanderer, also on exile, who from his refuge in Tangier observes his country, receives and sends messages, lives dreams and lies as he wanders the face of Africa. As the book opens, Julian takes a day long walk through Tangier. The sights and sounds and smells are vividly described: through Julian's eyes we see beggars and blind men and boy guides; tourists descend like Martians from air-conditioned buses; snake-charmers perform in the streets, and venders hawk their wares in the souks. But several almost surreal passages alert the reader that some mysterious cancer is eating at Julian, far below the surface of this picturesque stroll. Why, for instance, does Julian go daily to the Tangier library and squash insects he has brought with him in his wallet into the pages of various Spanish books? Why does he describe a lady tourist fatally bitten by a snake-charmer's cobra, only to resuscitate her a few pages later? The reader gradually realizes that this is no exotic travelogue and that Julian's reality is like a complex spider's web, made up of many strands: myth, history, kif-dream, reality. From the strands one gathers that Count Julian is not only an exile but a traitor, a revolutionary, one who execrates all that is false in Spain, all the blood and bullfights, repressed freedom and mummified culture, flamenco dances and ferias. It is also clear that he hates the 'new' Spain of tourist buses, sleazy suburban developments, jerry-built hotels, SAC bases, television, and plastic food-that latest level of civilization which lies atop the other. But this scathing indictment of a country, and by extension of hypocrisy and cant wherever they exist, stems from an exile's thwarted love for the land that bore him, the culture that formed him, and the language that gave him tongue. inventory #26850 Very Good in Dustjacket With Some Very Slight Water-Marking Along The Top Inside Edge. Nº de ref. del artículo: z26850

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