The Spanish Scene

by Chandler Brossard

Dust jacket design by Mel Williamson. Vignettes of traditional and modern Spain.

Hardcover

First published April 5, 1968

About the author

Chandler Brossard was an American novelist, writer, editor, and teacher. He wrote or edited a total of 17 books. With a challenging style and outsider characters, Brossard had limited critical success in the United States. His novels were more appreciated in France and Great Britain.

His early works have been described as "landmarks of the postwar American novel."

Reviews

[Zachary Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

OG sensationalist documentary (a la Vice) re Franco’s Spain. Gonzo journalism published two years before Hunter S Thompson coined the term.

[Tim Nason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short vignettes based on interviews with a wide variety of individuals, including an aristocratic government official, a prostitute, a Communist, two priests, a film director, a student, a soldier in the Civil Guard; each vignette introduced or punctuated with an even briefer bit of observation or dialog. Interesting to read The Spanish Scene following Cela's The Hive, with its similarly fragmented, kaleidoscopic viewpoint, with only two or so decades separating the focal time period. Both books attempt to delve deeply into the ideas and attitudes of Spanish people, beyond political platforms and tourist-oriented marketing campaigns, in an attempt to grasp the true Spanish character, an ambitious idea that is limited in both books by the small sample size, The Hive by its attention to a single neighborhood, The Spanish Scene by the brevity of its interviews. In the denouement, Brossard turns his attention to his own reactions: to city squares and deserted streets, to American tourists, to an article in Time magazine that slams Basques, to his sense of belonging and well-being.