unguided tour

Granada is fit for dream and daydream, and it borders everywhere on the ineffable. … Her tender personality is hidden away inside her houses and her landscape. Her voice comes down from a little mirador, or rises from a dark window. … To hear that voice, one must enter the tiny chambers and corners of the city, live the city’s unpeopled interior and well girded solitude. And, what’s even more admirable, explore one’s own intimacy, one’s own secret, taking a definitely lyrical perspective on things. One must make oneself a little poorer, forget one’s name, renounce what people call ‘personality.’ (FG Lorca, Granada, Paradise Closed to Many)

I love to read this passage — the whole essay — over and over again. I wish this was the Granada I know. But it isn’t.

The more I learn about this city closed to many, the more I’m led to believe it wasn’t  Lorca’s Granada either. Lorca’s Granada is a daydream. The nightmares she gave him he fought by feeding the dream. His poetry is a declaration of love to his native city. Granada didn’t love him back. A homosexual and Republican, Lorca wasn’t worthy of her love.

The tourists who come to Granada today are in love with Lorca’s dream.

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Tags: granada, lorca

Posted: September 14th, 2009