Synopses & Reviews
An open-minded and clear-eyed reexamination of the cultural artifacts of Francos SpainHistory is written by the victors: Its a cliché, but a reliable one—except in the case of the Spanish Civil War. Here, it is the losers version of events that has been believed. In his groundbreaking book Francos Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936, Jeremy Treglown argues that the result has been a double distortion.
Inside Spain as well as outside, many believe—wrongly—that under Francisco Francos 1939-75 dictatorship, nothing truthful or imaginatively worthwhile could be said or written or shown. And this myth reinforces another: that there was and continues to be a national pact to forget what really happened. As a result, foreign narratives—For Whom the Bell Tolls, Casablanca, Homage to Catalonia—still have greater credibility than Spanish ones. Yet La Guerra de España was, as its name asserts, Spains own war, and in recent years the country has begun to “reclaim” this crucial aspect of its modern history.
Francos Crypt reveals that despite state censorship, events of the time were vividly recorded. Treglown looks at whats actually there—monuments, paintings, public works, novels, movies, computer games—and considers, in a captivating narrative, the totality of what it shows. The result is a much-needed reexamination of a history we only thought we knew.
Review
Praise for
V. S. Pritchett: A Working Life“Anyone who admired Pritchetts writing will find Treglowns book astute, incisive (sometimes to the point of being trenchant), and extremely valuable in the effort to hold this great writers life up to arts defiant reflection.” —Richard Ford
Review
Praise for
Francos Crypt:
“This is the most comprehensive, most perceptive book on Spain that I have read for a long time. Im full of admiration for the scale of Treglowns undertaking, for its fine balance between storytelling and reflection and its subtle and deep political and aesthetic judgments, which touch on practically everything that irritates or pains me most about my country. Normally these matters are presented abroad with exasperating stereotypes and, at home, with intolerable factionalism. Spain, so obsessed with memory, is extraordinarily forgetful. This is a book that must be read, in Spain and abroad, by anyone who wants to understand the countrys history, her present and future.” —Antonio Muñoz Molina, author of Sepharad and two-time winner of Spains National Narrative Prize Praise for V. S. Pritchett: A Working Life
“Anyone who admired Pritchetts writing will find Treglowns book astute, incisive (sometimes to the point of being trenchant), and extremely valuable in the effort to hold this great writers life up to arts defiant reflection.” —Richard Ford
Synopsis
An open-minded and clear-eyed reexamination of the cultural artifacts of Franco's fascist Spain
True, false, or both?
Spain's 1939-75 dictator, Francisco Franco, was a pioneer of water conservation and sustainable energy.
Pedro Almodovar is only the most recent in a line of great antiestablishment film directors who have worked continuously in Spain since the 1930s.
As early as 1943, former Republicans and Nationalists were collaborating in Spain to promote the visual arts, irrespective of the artists' political views.
Censorship can benefit literature.
Memory is not the same thing as history.
Inside Spain as well as outside, many believe-wrongly-that under Franco's fascist dictatorship, nothing truthful or imaginatively worthwhile could be said or written or shown. In his groundbreaking new book, Franco's Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936, Jeremy Treglown argues that oversimplifications like these of a complicated, ambiguous actuality have contributed to a separate falsehood: that there was and continues to be a national pact to forget the evils for which Franco's side (and, according to this version, his side alone) was responsible.
The myth that truthfulness was impossible inside Franco's Spain may explain why foreign narratives (For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homage to Catalonia) have seemed more credible than Spanish ones. Yet La Guerra de Espana was, as its Spanish name asserts, Spain's own war, and in recent years the country has begun to make a more public attempt to "reclaim" its modern history of fascism. How it is doing so, and the role played in the process by notions of historical memory, are among the subjects of this wide-ranging and challenging book.
Franco's Crypt reveals that despite state censorship, events of the time were vividly recorded. Treglown looks at what's actually there-monuments, paintings, public works, novels, movies, video games-and considers, in a captivating narrative, the totality of what it shows. The result is a much-needed reexamination of a history we only thought we knew.
About the Author
Jeremy Treglown is a British writer and critic who spends part of every year in Spain and has written about the country for Granta and other magazines. His previous books include biographies of Roald Dahl, Henry Green (which won the Dictionary of Literary Biography Award), and V. S. Pritchett (which was short-listed for the Whitbread Biography Award and the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize). Formerly the editor of The Times Literary Supplement and a fellow of the New York Public Librarys Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he has taught at Oxford, University College London, Princeton, and the University of Warwick, and has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review.