Caroline's Reviews > As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Beautifully written book about Laurie Lee's experiences as a nineteen-year-old walking through Spain just before, and as, the Civil War started. As much poetry as prose. Part of the effect is that he spends all but the last few pages describing rural (and even urban) Spain in 1934 as still living in medieval times, a state of serfdom, ignorance, poverty, disease, and filth that he observed but did not question. Suddenly the rise of the republican movement is an awakening for him as well as a connection for the reader with what the day to day life was like that gave rise to it.

I must say I don't believe that he was quite as politically naive as he claims, but generally he communicates very clearly what it would have been like to experience the countryside and people without the preconceptions of a student of Spain's culture. He lived rough, and was able to see what life was like at dirt level.

The language is truly beautiful--this will repay rereading. The Norton edition I read (1985) is bountifully illustrated with color and black and white paintings and drawings of Spain from centuries of famous artists