Sails & Winds

by Michael Eaude

The towns of Valencia's long coast and privileged climate, in particular Benidorm, southern Europe's skyscraper capital, are famous beach tourism destinations. Country of fire, fireworks and long meals (often featuring the renowned paella), Valencia is a Mediterranean land where people know how to enjoy life. This book tells the story of today's Spanish provinces of Valencia, Castelló and Alacant (Alicante), with their profound Moorish legacy. The Moors designed the intricate system of irrigation that still nourishes Valencia's prosperous horta (market garden). They brought, too, the silk, paper and orange industries. The area is rich in monuments, many from its golden fifteenth century, when the capital became the wealthiest city on the Western Mediterranean. Sails & Winds discusses Sagunt's Roman theatre and castle; Gandia, home to the ill-reputed Borja (or Borgia) family of popes; Elx, embraced by 200,000 palms; and Alcoi, anarchist stronghold. Michael Eaude discusses Valencia's art, literature and the painters Ribera and light-filled Sorolla; the great medieval poet of anguish Ausiàs March. Santiago Calatrava's architecture, conjuring the sensation of soaring flight from steel, has given Valencia city its new trophy buildings. Despite the continuing holiday boom, there are still deserted beaches, sinister and beautiful marshland, orange groves and a depopulated mountainous interior. Sails & Winds seeks to explain this contradictory and divided land, its identity pulled between the Spanish state and Catalonia.

388 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2019

Reviews

[Chris Pidgeon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sails and Winds – A Cultural History of Valencia by Michael Eaude

Fresh from reading the author’s magnificent book on Barcelona, I was keen to read Michael Eaude’s work on Valencia. It does not disappoint.

Like his previous book, it draws heavily on his own experience living in the city, and weaves his knowledge of the local and vast area with the expert opinions and views of others. He writes, “history is not just a record of the past” and builds up the stories to present intelligent and interesting discussion with a relevant modern take.

He is well-read, quoting from both international and local authors (Ted Walker discussing the Moors to novels by Jason Webster and Rafael Chirbes). There are sights and festivals described in such flowery detail that it makes me want to travel and see them for myself. There is a Nougat museum in Xixona (Museo del Turrón) or the Nit de Foc festival (Las Fallas) added to my own list.
It is the history (Flood of 1957 in Valencia, mad emore relevant by recent tragic happenings in the region), the culture (painters Rusiňol and Benlliure, de Jaunes, Ribalta and Il Spagnoletto as well as my own favourite, Sorolla), paintings (The Bearded Lady), museums (Casa Benlliure) and novelists (Gabriel Miró, Blasco Ibáňez and Arturo Barea) and poets (W. H. Auden’s Impressions of Valencia).

In fact it was the Baroque painter Ribalta who said his homeland was “a loving mother to foreigners and a cruel stepmother to her own sons”, a fantastic yet horrendous phrase to describe Valencia and his images, inspired by Caravaggio offered a gloomy outlook. But it is Ribera, Il Spagnoletto, whose superb and original colour of Spain best reflect Eaude’s illuminating work. If “the heat of the sun and the chill of the sea” were felt in words, they would have been written by Eaude, just as no-one has painted “the light, breezes, women and children” like Sorolla and I can pay him no higher comparative compliment than that.

[Simonas Puškorius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect book for those who want to learn more about the history and the present of Valencian region: Valencia, Alicante, Benidorm and others. If you plan to visit this part of Spain - it's a must read.