Grove Koger

I included a 1942 memoir by American writer Elliot Paul, The Last Time I Saw Paris, in my survey of travel narratives, When the Going Was Good. But I’ve only now gotten around to reading another book by him, The Life and Death of a Spanish Town (1937).

The town of Paul’s title is Santa Eulalia del Rio (or, in Catalan, Santa Eulària des Riu),  and it lies on the northeastern coast of the small Spanish Mediterranean island of Ibiza (ee BEETH uh).

In a foreword dated August 1942, Paul explained that when the book was written and published, “it was apparent” that his friends “of Santa Eulalia del Rio and elsewhere in Spain were to be killed, starved and enslaved.” By then, his account had become a memorial.

Paul had moved to Ibiza in 1931, left for a time, and then returned with his new wife, Camille Haynes, in mid-July 1936. The book’s first section, “4000 B.C. to 1936 A.D.,” is a slow, loving portrait of the Santa Eulalia that he had originally found, and the wording of its title suggests that the peaceful life that Paul first observed there in the early 1930s had existed, largely unchanged, for millennia. Speaking of the town’s inhabitants, he writes that he “loved them and their animals and the shadows of the trees that fell upon their houses. They divided their last pesetas and red wine and beans and gay spirit with [him].” Then he “got away, and they did not. Their land is dying.” His account, he says, is “a debt” he owes them.

The book’s second section, “July 14 to September 15, 1936,” describes the town as he found it upon his return, along with his new wife, her son, and their dog. They had sailed from Barcelona aboard a “friendly and not too elaborate” ship, but it was only subsequently that he learned that it would be the ship’s last round trip to the Balearic Islands. Some of his journalist friends, he writes, “had suspected that there might be trouble in Spain,” but they had apparently (and erroneously) assumed that he knew as much about the situation as they did.

The “trouble” that Paul refers to is the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, a  violent and bitterly divisive conflict which ended in 1939 with the downfall of the Second Spanish Republic and the installation of Francisco Franco as dictator. Paul’s readers during the years following the publication of his book would of course have been well aware of the circumstances, having read about them on what was probably a daily basis in their newspapers. For readers in the twenty-first century, however, the exact nature of the conflict is unclear.

Paul’s account of events in those eight crucial weeks in 1936 is loosely organized, even chaotic in many passages. It’s here that the list of the “Men and Women of Santa Eulalia” following his foreword comes in handy, but, nevertheless, Paul’s account of the comings and goings of the town’s inhabitants is difficult to follow. They were all living day to day, even hour to hour, uncertain of what rumors to believe and which neighbors they could trust. I noticed in particular that although he mentions three artists, he pays no attention to their works. They were apparently of less importance than those he shared red wine and beans with. One, however, postimpressionist Rigoberto Soler (1896-1968), who moved to Santa Eulalia in 1925, is worth mentioning. His View of Santa Eulària captures the calm beauty of the town, although it dates from 1943, shortly after the chaotic events that Paul describes.

In a foreword (to a later edition) dated August 1942, Paul wrote that “[w]e all know that the war we now are preparing to fight began in Spain in July, 1936, if not sooner, and that the oppressed Republican Spaniards were on our side and against our enemies.” The war that he refers to was, of course, World War II—a far more devastating conflict than the one he already witnessed.

If you’d like to subscribe to World Enough, enter your email address below:

And if you’ve enjoyed today’s post, please share!