'Limpidly and lovingly, Norman Lewis has caught the helpless, unwitting, often foolish but always hopeful village in its dying summers and saved the tragedy with sublime comedy' Observer
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.35
Trade in Voices of the Old Sea for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.35, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Card, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more
|
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
"Lewis really goes deep, like a sharp, polished knife."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
After the war Norman Lewis returned to Spain and settled in the remote fishing village of Farol, on what is now the Costa Brava. Voices of the Old Sea describes his three successive summers in the almost medival community where life revolved around seasonal sardine catches, the Alcalde's bar and satisfying feuds with neighbouring villages. With affection and sorrow Lewis records the villagers' struggle to sustain their precarious existence and to defend it against the enticements of an inexorable tourist development. 'I will wager that Voices of the Old Sea will be a classic in the literature about Spain' Mail on Sunday 'A marvellous, iridescent epitaph' The Times 'Here once again we see what a magical storyteller Mr Lewis can be' Daily Telegraph
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
WHEN I WENT to live in Farol the grandmother who owned the house gave me a cat. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
WHEN I WENT to live in Farol the grandmother who owned the house gave me a cat. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 45 people found the following review helpful
By C. Nation
Format:Paperback
Travel writing has become a major sub-section of the publishing industry. These days, anyone from gloomy UK who has bought a ruin somewhere somewhere hot and inconvenient, surrounded by dodgy but colourful locals either swindling them rotten or turning out to be diamond geezers, might be able to pay for the fosse-septique or the pruning of the orange grove by knocking out a slim volume - and even a sequel or two. One thing that characterises many of these books is the inadequacy of the writing.
Not so with Norman Lewis. It is the wonderful writing that makes it inevitable that we are drawn completely into the world he describes. How can such simplicity of style produce such colour and tone? How can he be at once at arm's length and yet entirely immersed in the world he describes? It makes for sublime and delicate description. Lewis is present but barely so. This in itself is a major difference from today's solipsistic potboilers. The world he sees is what he writes about: he himself does not "do" anything. He does not rebuild a farm, buy a tractor, hire a plumber... Those that he finds there are the principle characters: he does not take the stage himself.
He writes about a Spain that was virtually mediaeval, even after WW2. Now a 14 hour run from Calais by car or 2 hours by no-frills airline, this community were then living "behind God's back". Tourism was as far as Franco was prepared to unbend: a few thousand foreigners for three or four weeks on an otherwise useless stretch of coast and the Guardi Civil to arrest anyone in a bikini ....
On all sides, the world was rushing forward into the material world of the second half of the 20thC. In Spain everything was stultified or going backwards.
... Read more ›29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This travel book explores the life of an impoverished fishing village in the far NE of the Spain during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It documents without sentimentality the gradual decline and destruction of traditional ways of life under pressure from the arrival of mass tourism and environmental decay. The way of life of the people and their beliefs is so extraordinary you'd think they lived on another planet. A wonderful book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By corsario
Format:Paperback
Yes, too short! How I wish there could have been perhaps as much again! The plots are clever, amusing, yet real life...the characters and rivalries are hugely entertaining, and you just know that this account is written from close, first hand surveillance.
How sad, in a way, to trace the last years of innocence, custom and folklore, to the first days of mass tourism on the costas, and see what was destroyed along the way...yet, how amazing to have this first-hand account of that astonishing transition.
I won't spoil your pleasure by revealing anything more, but if you have read the seminal South From Granada, by Gerald Brennan, and yearn for such tales again, in a slightly lighter vein, this book will delight...
How sad, in a way, to trace the last years of innocence, custom and folklore, to the first days of mass tourism on the costas, and see what was destroyed along the way...yet, how amazing to have this first-hand account of that astonishing transition.
I won't spoil your pleasure by revealing anything more, but if you have read the seminal South From Granada, by Gerald Brennan, and yearn for such tales again, in a slightly lighter vein, this book will delight...
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By D Bird
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Not Spain as we know it. An excellent description of North Spain and it's people before tourism took it's toll! An excellent read.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Rossi
Format:Paperback
This is Spain as it was before the advent of multi storey hotels. When the peseta was the currency
and life there was a bit slower. Very well written.
and life there was a bit slower. Very well written.
Format:Paperback
A charming book detailing the authors 2 summers spent living in a Spanish fishing village (Farol) on the cusp of momentous change. Lewis lovingly describes the inhabitants of the village and the rigid customs and traditions that dictated their lives for centuries. Lewis is an obtrusive visitor who gently integrates himself into village life and the confidence of the villagers. However Farol is on the cusp of change and traditions is about to be turned on its head with the advent of mass tourism development along the Spanish coast. Lewis observes with sad resignation the loss of an ancient way of life that was once dictated by the rhythms of the sea replaced by one where the demands of tourism dictate life in Farol. As more hotels are built and more tourists arrive the tunny and sardine boats do less fishing. Proud traditional fisherman find that the rewards working as waiters or taking tourists on pleasure boat rides far exceed those that can be earned fishing and a connection is lost forever. A beautiful book about sad but perhaps inevitable change.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Nudge
Format:Paperback
This book was bought as a present. It was received with a big smile and lots of thanks by someone who loves all things Spanish and is in the suitcase to provide reading during the next holiday.
4 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By S. Schwarz
Format:Paperback
The UK edition is a miserable production. For much the same price get the US edition published by Carroll & Graf through Amazon 'used and new' list, or Abebooks. It has a larger format with proper margins on nice paper and opens properly, but type only slightly bigger and still rather squidgy.
How fictional is the book? Reviews talk about Farol and Sort as if they're real places, but I can't find them. Does anybody know?
How fictional is the book? Reviews talk about Farol and Sort as if they're real places, but I can't find them. Does anybody know?
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 10 reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > History > Europe > Spain
- Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Europe > Spain > Cities & Regions > Catalonia
- Books > Travel & Holiday > Travel Writing
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
