Here-and-there-ing in Portugal in 1929: The Perspective of an American “impression-gatherer”
Maria Zulmira Castanheira Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Abstract. In 1929 Alexander Lawton Mackall (1888–1968), an American journalist, author, and gastronomy expert, visited Portugal in the company of his wife, “impelled by curiosity to discover what the Place Where Nobody Goes might be like.” The literary result of this seven-week trip was the publication, two years later, of a 354-page travel book titled Portugal for Two (New York, 1931) which includes his impressions on Portugal, at the time under the Ditadura Nacional regime initiated by the election of President Óscar Carmona in 1928 (whom Lawton Mackall actually met during his stay), as well as reflections on the very condition of the traveler and the act of moving between different cultures.
Keywords: Twentieth-Century American travel writing, cultural mediation, literary representation, Alexander Lawton Mackall, “New State” Portugal
Travel writing, a long-established literary genre and which, in our increasingly global era, has met with growing popularity,1 constitutes one of the most fertile fields for imagologic research. In fact, emphasis should be placed on the cultural mediation carried out by such a textual corpus and on its contribution to the construction of mental images of the Other. These depictions, not infrequently stereotyped (and perpetuating themselves over time), may promote an understanding of that self-same Other or, conversely, lack of understanding, repugnance, and even hatred. Travelers who go abroad and tell the story of their experience of otherness organize their narratives around two major binary oppositions, I/the Other and the Familiar/Strange. The difference that Other represents may be conveyed by a narrative presented as predominantly impersonal, centered on the objective description of places, peoples, customs, and events; or based on a strategy that combines factual data with more personal and autobiographical information. It is important to bear in mind that the reading public may consume travel accounts as faithful representations of reality, unaware that, no matter how factual the account is, it is nevertheless a textual construct molded by the upbringing, ideology, biases, sensibility, interests, and expectations of the author, that is, by his/her subjectivity. Therefore, Imagology, in terms of travel writing, brings to bear operational concepts such as “hetero-image” and “self-image” with which to study the
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representation of the “foreigner” in a given text. Moreover, it analyzes the dynamics between “self-images” and images of the Other, addressing the fact that interpretation will be crucial not only regarding what is said about the Other but also what the observer/I says about him/herself when confronted with a space of geographic and cultural difference, which very often the traveler endeavors to grasp by means of analogy and contrast. Looking at the history of travel writing allows us to understand that, from the nineteenth century onwards, recreational traveling became increasingly widespread, after centuries of travel based essentially on utilitarian and functional factors.2 This evolution is closely related to the development of the means of transport and the increase in disposable income, which made traveling more comfortable, quicker, and now accessible to the middle classes. This democratization of travel—allowing for an ever increasing number of individuals to satisfy their curiosity about the diversity of the world, and the ensuing growth of the tourist industry—impacted the demand for and production of travel writing. As argued by Casey Blanton, starting in the Romantic period, travel writing stressed the subjective dimension of the personal response to the world:
Indeed, both European and American travel writing after the Romantic period becomes resonant with the interactions between traveler and world. This complex interplay between self and world, between the empirical and the sentimental, signals the beginning of the richest period of travel writing: the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Blanton 19)
Blanton signals the apogee of travel writing between 1850 and 1930, a period that covers the traumatic events of World War I (bringing leisure travel to a halt), after which Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), Graham Greene (1904–1991), and Robert Byron (1905–1941) would publish their landmark travel accounts. These authors were analyzed by the late North-American historian and critic Paul Fussell in his groundbreaking study of travel writing, Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars (1980). If during this period countless Europeans set out in exploration of other continents, Europe too was widely visited by many American travelers (intellectuals, writers, journalists, and others) who admired the culture of the old continent and who traveled as on pilgrimages to the places and monuments accounting for Europe’s civilizational riches, namely to countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain.3 In “Americans in Europe from Henry James to the Present,” however, William Merrill Decker draws our attention to the changes brought about by the Great War of 1914–1918 in the way Americans began to view Europe:
Those who crossed the Atlantic between the wars did so with an attitude altogether different from that of previous generations. Formerly even the best-prepared Americans had traveled as the overawed students of an old and sophisticated civilization, but the notion that US entry into World War I had “saved” Europe diminished the American’s sense of cultural inferiority. (Decker 136)
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Portugal, situated in the extreme southwest of the European continent, was not on the so-called beaten track sought by Americans.4 For this very reason, the occasional choice of this Iberian country as a tourist destination—rather than for professional reasons as had been the case, for instance, in the late 1800s, of the diplomat George Bailey Loring (1817–1891), the author of A Year in Portugal: 1889–1890 (1891)—was a major novelty, although it was not unknown.5 Alexander Lawton Mackall (1888–1968), an American journalist, writer, and food critic who visited Portugal in 1929, is well aware of this fact:6
In miles on the map, Portugal is the country of Continental Europe that is nearest to North America. Yet when we announced our intention of going there, it was as though we had said Borneo or Baluchistan. “Portugal? Of all countries on earth, how did you happen to pick that one?” “Portugal! Why, I haven’t heard or thought of that place since I gave up collecting postage stamps.” “Portugal, eh? That’s going off the beaten path with a vengeance. I suppose, though, it must be quite picturesque—early-primitive hotels and that sort of thing. But not for me, thank you! When I travel for pleasure I prefer countries that are ‘spoiled’ with a few modern comforts.” And so on. But we went—impelled by curiosity to discover what the Place Where Nobody Goes might be like. We were bound for Seville, and we decided that we would land at Lisbon, which is geographically on the way; stopping there a few days, even at the hazard of Visigothic discomforts, we would have a look at the Unknown Country. (Mackall vii)
These opening lines of the 354-page work which resulted from Mackall’s seven-week visit, supposedly with his wife, titled Portugal for Two and published two years later (1931), conjure up an image of Portugal as a backward country, excluded from progress, exotic in its primitiveness, which had become fixed in the Anglo- American imaginary to a large extent through the abundant British output of travel writing on Portugal.7 Mackall does not, however, maintain his readers’ suspense as to a possible confirmation of this stereotyped image. Rather, he immediately declares how untrue it is:
We did so—and hardly got to Seville at all! For Portugal proved to be the most entrancing country imaginable: a colorful garden land with a Riviera climate; with medieval castles, superb Gothic abbeys (among the finest in the world); with delightful bathing beaches and smart pleasure resorts, and glamorous, clean cities that one could linger in forever. As for expected discomforts, we encountered none! The hotels were good: in some cases even sumptuous. The railroads were excellent, with well-appointed trains which ran on time. And the reasonable cost of everything was a revelation. (Mackall vii–viii)
The individuality of his gaze thus takes over from the beginning of the narrative when he brings to the fore the danger of badly informed received wisdom with respect to mutual perceptions among nations. Throughout the text Mackall constructs a positive and at times enthusiastic representation of Portugal, deploying a suggestive and humor-laden prose which inscribes him in the tradition of jocular
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American travel narratives like The Innocents Abroad or the New Pilgrims’ Progress (1869) by Mark Twain (1835–1910). In Portugal for Two, the traveler-narrator even defines himself and his female companion as “pilgrims from America” (Mackall 84). Although he was writing at a time when literature—and not just travel writing— reflected, in the aftermath of World War I, “an ironic vision of the modern world as disconnected and fragmented” (Blanton 22), Mackall’s humor is seldom bitter, and never where his vision of Portuguese reality is concerned. We are more likely to find sly irony at times of self-reflection such as, for example, when he acknowledges, on visiting an industrial Exposition in Estoril, that the Portuguese are great craftsmen and realizes that burgeoning Portuguese industry may harm American economic interests. Mackall is also aware of the hypocritical interests of tourists in search of the picturesque of under-developed societies but whose conviction it is that theirs is the superior civilization:
Yes, the Portuguese have the instinct of craftsmanship; and they are now applying that skill to the machine. With a few more machines they’ll be an industrialized nation like the rest. Which seems selfish of them, not to say crass. They should be content to remain picturesque and buy everything from us and let us spend some of the profits on enjoying their quaint country which is “much too good for them.” (Mackall 165)
Mackall gives voice to the crisis of faith in progress which marked the post- war period, and Portugal—with its rusticity—leads him to ask: “Why should we runaway slaves of civilization (so-called) ever return to the fret and fever we have escaped from?” (Mackall 17).8 On several occasions he encounters Portuguese people who are dazzled by the American Dream, which triggers observations shot through with sad irony: “Yes, we have progress in America, and high windows which people jump out of when it gets to be Too Much . . .” (Mackall 293).9 Although Mackall does not show the same pessimism to be found in other travelers’ writing between the world wars, there is nevertheless in his writing a glimpse of some anxiety, uncertainty, and disenchantment. He is well aware that the same technological and industrial progress which had provided better infrastructures for traveling—and therefore an unprecedented mobility—had also facilitated war itself. Portugal, on the other hand, stimulates in him a happy, benevolent smile which we find reflected in his good-humored remarks and in verbal fun. Instead of presenting the physical physiognomy of mainland Portugal by means of the usual dry description of natural geographical conditions in terms of a typology of physical relief, number of miles in terms of length and breadth, etc., he opts for personalizing the face of this country in a creative way: “So, studying his physiognomy, we note that he is about 300 miles long from tip of beard to roots of hair, and that his cheekbones are about a hundred miles in—which is as far as Portugal extends. To locate Lisbon is easy: it is right under his nose” (Mackall 47). Portugal is constantly praised for the beauty of its natural landscapes (among which the unmissable Sintra), to the extent that he gaily feels sated at contemplating such
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charms, as is the case in Braga when his driver/guide suggests that they climb to the top of a hill to better appreciate the view, and he replies:
No thanks. We’ve had our montes. But this . . .—THIS is the finest view in all Portugal! That’s why we couldn’t stand it. We’re groggy with gorgeousness, frazzled with being dazzled. (Mackall 333)
In lively and imaginative prose, of a Modernist bent, Mackall even coins two witty verbal forms to better express his experiences of pure delight in Portugal: what-a-viewing and boa-vista-ing (Mackall 134 and 330, respectively). It is worth noting the swift transition from one topic to the next, following the traveler’s meandering, the description of places and objects mingling with dialogue, historical facts, and anecdotes; the profusion of Portuguese words, at times followed by a translation (e.g., São Vicente de Fora/St. Vincent Outside; Seteais/Seven Ahs) or attempts at phonetic transcription (e.g., Cidade Baixa/SeeDAD BAIshus; caixeiro/caiSHAYR; criado/creeAHdoo; Queluz/KayLOOSH; 5 volumes/sink voLÜMSH) which endow the account with local color. Capital letters are used as an emphatic process. The frequent use of dashes to suggest that much more could be said, as in the visit to Sintra (“Up here it’s like being on the roof of the world! We have an eagle’s eye view of—But eagles don’t catalogue.” Mackall 216), displays the awareness of the limitations of words to convey emotion aroused by beauty. We could define Mackall’s travels in Portugal as an aesthetic educational tour.10 His gaze is above all that of an aesthete who seeks and analyzes the beauty of forms, the contrast of volumes, the play of color and light. The view of Lisbon—the city where he lingered the most—appears to him, in the morning light and in its geographical and architectural configuration, as being almost unreal, “An imagined city, looming above still water” (Mackall 180). In the footsteps of Washington Irving (1783–1859), one of the first Americans to publish his impressions of a journey through Europe, Mackall too, like his compatriot a century before, defines himself as an “impression-gatherer” (Mackall 19) and, like Irving, he shows a special eagerness to discover the artistic treasures of the past of an old nation boasting a centuries-old tradition. Mackall observes the living portraits of the present, wanders the streets alive to their movement. He finds it quaint that a Bank should be called Bank of the Holy Ghost (Banco Espírito Santo). Further, he goes to the theatre and listens to fado, to popular saints’ day celebrations and markets, to a bullfight, describes the women selling fish on the streets and the washerwomen, enjoys the cuisine and the excellent wines, interacts with the local population despite the limitations of his “Portuguese Simplified” (Mackall 78). He always ends up meeting Portuguese people who can speak English and help him (some of these had been immigrants in the US, others still were).11 Every door opens to him on account of his being a privileged traveler: Adolfo Gonçalves, to whom he dedicated Portugal for Two “in gratitude and affection,” gave him a letter of introduction which facilitated his
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access to personalities, cultural institutions, and monuments.12 He concludes, on the basis of his visit, that the Portuguese are warm-hearted, hospitable, well- mannered, hard-working, honest, and very talkative and that Portugal, “this sunset corner of Europe” (Mackall 106), is “the most romantic country of Europe: the Land of The Troubadours” (Mackall 67), with one failing to which he often refers: it is a “Land of Unpunctuality” (Mackall 128) but with the peculiarity which is unpleasant for a tourist such as himself, i.e., that trains depart punctually, “which, in the early morning, makes it ‘very difficult’” (Mackall 258). All these are views formed over a relatively brief sojourn with regard to day- to-day life in Portugal, showing no sign of wishing to go much beyond the appearance of things.13 Had he done so, the image he projects would surely not have been so idyllic. Travelers reveal themselves as much by what they choose to include as by what they omit. True, here and there he makes passing reference to the poverty of the Azorean peasants and to the paltry wages of Portuguese working women, but the causes of this situation are not probed; he even whitewashes the situation by opting to comment that nevertheless they are happy: “Brave Amazons to sing on thirty cents a day!” (Mackall 325). What most enraptures Mackall is the constructed and inert heritage that resisted the depredations of time. From a present vantage point that had endured the chaos and destruction wrought by the Great War, and virtually on the brink of a new world conflict, the author looks back at the past, seeking in it examples of beauty, order, permanence. Portugal is a great museum of the “Old World” which he visits with the dazzled eyes of a man from the “New World.” He enthuses over the beauty of Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon, the Convent of Christ in Tomar, Batalha Monastery, the tombs of Peter and Inês in Alcobaça, the tile-craft which he regards as unique. He gathers information on the episodes and historical figures associated with places and monuments, jokingly bestowing new name-tags on certain kings such as D. João V/John the Spender, D. Afonso VI/Afonso the Great Disappointment, or D. Manuel I/Spice-King Manuel.14 He consulted bibliography to find out about Portuguese architectural styles, as attested by the six pages of references which appear at the end of the book. In fact, this list is extremely interesting since it was not usual for travel accounts on Portugal to carry a systematized bibliography. Although it is a fact that travelers sought to read about the places they were setting out to visit, which, to a greater or lesser extent, conditioned their view of the ‘foreign’ reality, this network of intertextualities is not always very explicit, which makes of Mackall’s final bibliography, up-to-date as it incidentally is (it comprises English-language travel accounts on Portugal; works on Portuguese history, the economy, and art; and guide books), in and of itself deserving of a separate study.15 Some of the titles listed were published between the departure of the author from Portugal and the date of publication of his book two years later, which highlights the distance, in travel writing, between the experienced and the narrated, and the close relation of the genre to memoir writing. Clutching his Baedeker, more specifically the 1913 English-language Spain and Portugal, his camera at the ready to snap “human interest photography” (Mackall
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122), Mackall, the tourist (meta-reflections on his condition as such recur in his narrative), composes a book for prospective tourists and suggests a trajectory based on a standard of visual consumption of the beauty of the country. For this reason, unlike other travelers of his time, his narrative is more outward-looking than inward- looking, since it is the outcome of a more physical than psychological journey, more external than internal. Thus, Mackall’s attention to the detail of places, peoples, and things very often takes on the shape, not merely of subjective impressions, rather of a descriptive realism aligning it with nineteenth-century travel writing, albeit without the dry didacticism which had characterized a great deal of the earlier century’s practice. In Portugal for Two, the author’s gaze becomes crucially important: it is not simply the visual perception which gathers the data on which the narrative is structured, it is the fact that, the work presenting itself as an eye-witness account, this endows the narrative with credibility and consequently the author gains the status of an authority. The question of the author’s gaze further appears at the level of the two instruments the tourist carries: his travel guide and his camera. Some of the photos Mackall took were included in his book (photos of monuments, landscapes, streets, costumes), which in addition to providing proof of his presence in the places about which he writes and of the scenes he describes, represent another form of contemplating Portuguese reality, complementing the written word and/or replacing it when it proves insufficient or inadequate. Guide books, by definition, privilege sight inasmuch as they fulfil the function of turning the tourist in the direction of what should be seen; when consulting his Baedeker and other guide books, Mackall allows his gaze to be directed by the gaze of others who had previously defined what there was to see in Portugal.16 The educational benefits Mackall gained from his journey to Portugal—“I, glutton that I am for self-improvement” (Mackall 43–44)—and which justify publication itself and the sharing of the impressions he gathered, do not signify merely an acquiring of knowledge of that country. He also comes to the perception that there are in circulation stereotyped ideas about Americans and America—“all Americans are Loaded with Money” (Mackall 86), “the land of Washington and the National Geographic Magazine” (Mackall 323)—, and he realizes that the strangeness he feels on encountering practices and customs with which he is not familiar works both ways and that the Portuguese look upon him and his female companion with the same strangeness and curiosity.17 Above all, he learns that his ambitions and viewpoints can differ completely from those of the native population without adopting an overbearing attitude of ethnocentric superiority vis-à-vis the Other. A native of the US, a bulwark of industrialism, he finds himself faced with a small country on the periphery of Europe where material progress takes its time in coming and the rhythm of life is slow. This provokes in him a certain nostalgia for a closer relation with nature and for a simpler, truer, less mechanized, and vertiginous society. However, on several occasions he has the opportunity to witness the fact that the industrial development which tires him somewhat is the dream of modernity for many Portuguese, for whom the picturesque does not bring prosperity. Significant in
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this respect is the episode during which the couple wander enthralled along the old streets of Lisbon and suddenly realize that the locals have congregated to see a type of attraction completely different from what they seek out, an American pressing machine:18
But as we descend homeward, flattering ourselves that we have been diligent today, and seen a great deal, we suddenly discover that there is a marvel we have missed, but which the local citizenry—at least twenty or thirty of them—are gazing at enthralled. Curious as to what this traffic-blocking sensation can be, we too manage to get within peering range of the open doorway through which the Thing of Things is glimpsable. It is an American suit-pressing machine tss-tss-ing a pair of trousers. (Mackall 135–136)
It is not without sadness that Mackall concludes that modernity threatens to destroy that which is picturesque, exotic, in a word, distinctive, in the Other. His farewell words to Portugal in Portugal for Two clearly point to the links of affection he had established with a country which until recently had been virtually unknown to him:
Dusk comes on as we near Valença, the last stop in Portugal; and, as there is quite a wait there, the international bridge is crossed in the dark —convenient for covering any betrayals of feeling. Preposterous to be upset at leaving a country we’ve known only seven weeks. Maudlin. Idiotic. But some day. . . SOME day— If we have to swim! (Mackall 347)
Just as it did for Southey, the first British Lusophile, Portugal, at the outset the object of a leisure tour, remained in the life of Mackall,19 as witnessed by the fact of his having become a correspondent of the Portuguese Archeologists’ Association. He was also decorated with the Order of Christ, and through The Lawton Mackall Foundation (1957) funded as of 1960 scholarships and prizes for Portuguese pupils who achieved excellence in certain secondary schools chosen by the Foundation. The text of directive no. 17811 published in Diário do Governo, page 1721, signed by the Minister for National Education, Francisco de Paula Leite Pinto (1902–2000), illustrates the close relationship which the American author nurtured throughout his life with Portugal and “New State” authorities:20
The Lawton Mackall Foundation, corporação organizada nos Estados Unidos da América, com sede em Nova Iorque, por iniciativa do escritor e grande amigo de Portugal Sr. Lawton Mackall—para, conforme palavras suas, assinalar “os meus 30 anos de afecto por Portugal e pelo povo português e o meu desejo de que as suas excelentes escolas possam abrir-se à gente nova que o mereça, rica em talento, mas impedida de o fazer por falta de meios”—, destina parte das suas receitas a bolsas de estudo e prémios a distribuir por alunos de diversos estabelecimentos de ensino portugueses por ela expressamente designados.
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[The Lawton Mackall Foundation, a body organized in the USA, with its head office in New York, as an initiative of the writer and great friend of Portugal Mr Lawton Mackall— in order to, in his words, celebrate “my 30 years of affection for Portugal and for the Portuguese people and my desire that its excellent schools should be open to deserving young people, rich in talent but constrained due to lack of means”—designates part of its income for scholarships and prizes to be distributed among pupils of several Portuguese teaching establishments expressly named by it.]
This closeness began to emerge precisely in 1929, as attested by Portugal for Two. Throughout the narrative, Mackall signals his approval of the Portuguese regime, as when, in describing President Carmona’s reviewing of the troops in Avenida da Liberdade on 4 October 1929—which he was able to witness—he remarks that “the present Dictatorship got things under control and set [about] rehabilitating the country” (Mackall 100); or when, in a later passage, he refers to “the present revivification of the country” (Mackall 158). On the former occasion he had his first glimpse of “the man by whom peace was effected” (Mackall 101), expressing his admiration for the President of the Republic’s low profile and for his courage in facing the crowd, without fear of assassination attempts:
A tame performance? Rather, a cool one. For there have been two attempts on General Carmona’s life—and here he stands calmly, deliberately offering himself as an easy target for an assassin. Remarkable man. As he finally turns back to the crowd, I am happy to take my hat off to him again, even though it means spilling both guide-books. (Mackall 102)
Significantly, Portugal for Two closes with the text of an interview given by the President of the Portuguese Republic to Mackall, an event whose authenticity is reinforced by the fact that the book includes—among 80 illustrations complementing the written narrative—a photograph of Óscar Carmona (1869– 1951) with the following inscription: “Ao Exº Sr. Lawton Mackall, Lisboa, Novembro de 1929, General Carmona” [To Mr Lawton Mackall, Lisbon, November 1929, General Carmona] (Mackall, between pages 66 and 67). When they speak, it is the President who raises the issue of Portugal’s image, expressing his hope that the American traveler will publish a true portrayal of what he has seen, without distortions: ‘“If you should see anything wrong or unjust, don’t hesitate to tell people in America. If you write about Portugal, I hope you will write exactly what you see’” (Mackall 345). The head of a military dictatorship which had seized power three years earlier, Carmona proves to be aware of the importance of foreigners’ accounts for Portugal’s image on the international stage and, therefore, he asks Mackall outright if he had witnessed signs of oppression:
“Have you noticed,” he inquires, “any signs of tyranny since you came to our country?” I am unusually dumbfounded. “The reason I ask,” he explains, in the same pleasant, cordial tone in which he asked if I would have a cigarette, “is because certain individuals in Paris who do not like what we are trying to do here, have assured the French, and the world in general, that we are tyrants. They say we are oppressing the people and doing all sorts of dreadful things.
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Have you noticed any signs of intimidation?” I assure him, in all sincerity, that I have seen nobody’s style being cramped. In fact, as a citizen of a country still oppressed by the clammy hand of Volstead—(Mackall 345)
As we can see, the traveler’s response is in the negative, and his narrative lacks references to oppressive measures taken by the Portuguese authorities or any mention of António de Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970), by then already an all- powerful Finance Minister; likewise Mackall makes no mention of the devastating stock market crash which had happened in the US while he was in Portugal. On the contrary, in his characteristic humoristic and ironical vein, he comments on the tyranny of the Volstead Act that ushered in Prohibition in the US. But the astuteness of President Carmona’s questions does not escape the author’s notice. Carmona is an apparently simple man, but the author sees the strategist in him: “For General Carmona is a mixture of the simple soldier and the polished statesman; he carries Portuguese Suave cigarettes (which cost nine cents a pack and are very good) in an exquisitely-wrought gold case” (Mackall 345). Mackall focuses essentially on Portugal’s past, its antiquities, and traditions, not the contemporary political situation. The chronicler was made to feel welcome, and given access to all the places he wanted to see as well as to prominent figures in the political, cultural, and scientific spheres—including a meeting with the journalist and writer Reinaldo Ferreira (1897–1935), and another with Gago Coutinho (1869–1959), the aviation hero. MacKall reciprocated this hospitality by writing a travel account which disseminated in the English language an attractive image of a country rich in history and cultural heritage, with beautiful landscapes, full of the picturesque, a pre-modern country as yet untouched by the aggression of the excesses of progress which he often criticizes. Thus, in his conversation with Carmona he soon departs from the topic of politics to highlight instead the endearing aesthetic experience Portugal had to offer tourists:
I try to express to him my astonishment at the beauty and charm of Portugal, so little known in the country I come from; suggesting that if Americans had the least inkling of what this corner of Europe was like, they would flock here by the ship-ful. “I hope they will come,” says General Carmona, graciously. “You may tell them, if you wish, that I will—as the Portuguese say— ‘carry them in the palms of my hands.’” (Mackall 346)
For a man like Mackall, who seems to have relished the finer aspects of life, including cuisine, Portugal proved to be an excellent morsel. It is worth noting the gastronomical connotations of the title he chose for his book, suggesting the context of a restaurant and a fine experience of food enjoyment for two. His enthusiastic words may thus have been of great service to Portugal, drawing other Americans to this Iberian country. Regrettably, it has not been possible to find data on print runs and the critical reception the book had in the US, which would allow us to gauge its impact. Up to the present date, attempts to chart the evolution of Mackall’s relations with Portugal in the three decades following his visit, notably in the archives of the
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Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have drawn a blank. The information already provided as regards his links with the Association of Portuguese Archeologists and the bestowing of the Order of Christ allows us to conjecture that Mackall may have visited Portugal on other occasions and that he may have remained in close contact with figures of the Portuguese regime, but no data was yet found to substantiate this. The scholarships and the prizes he endowed to benefit Portuguese pupils do, however, point to his having acted and not just written in favour of Portugal, and that his affectionate gaze, not in the least haughty or phobic, had a follow-up in a generous financial gesture. Without depreciating, antagonizing, or rendering the Other (the Portuguese land and people) inferior, as did other foreign travelers, Mackall—with his selective gaze, drawn above all to natural and architectural beauty—built up an image of Portugal as a country with great tourist potential. A traveler is a mediating figure and Mackall’s openness to the unfamiliar, and the way he challenged old stereotypes regarding Portugal, is a good example of how travelers’ accounts can contribute to shaping one nation’s view of another in a positive manner.
Notes
* This study was carried out in the framework of project PEst-OE/ELT/UI4097/2011, hosted by CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies) and funded by FCT- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal. 1 We can recall the success enjoyed by Anglo-American authors such as Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989), Paul Theroux (b. 1941), and Bill Bryson (b. 1951). 2 On these developments, see Buzard, The Beaten Track, and Hulme and Youngs, The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. 3 In 1926 Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) published his The Sun Also Rises, to a very large extent based on his extensive travelling in Spain, more specifically to Pamplona, where his fascination with bull- fighting was born. 4 Significantly, The Cambridge Companion to American Travel Writing (Bendixen and Hamera), spanning from the pre-revolutionary period to the late twentieth century, makes no mention of Portugal. 5 Such is the case of Elizabeth Williams Champney (1850–1922), who narrated her leisure journey through Europe, including Portugal, during 1874–1875, in her Three Vassar Girls Abroad. Rambles of Three College Girls on a Vacation Trip through France and Spain for Amusement and Instruction. With their Haps and Mishaps (1883), or that of Philip Sanford Marden (1874–1963), the author of A Wayfarer in Portugal (1927). 6 Born into a family which descended from one of the pioneers, the Scots James Mackall who landed in America in about 1655 (which immediately suggests the centrality of the journey in the construction of American identity), Alexander Lawton Mackall was born in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 23 May 1888 and died in West New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, in 1968. He graduated from Yale University, where he was a Fellow in English between 1910 and 1911. At this same time he began writing for newspapers. He held the post of editor at several New York publications, among which Century Magazine, Vanity Fair, and the satirical magazine Judge. In addition to the many articles on literary criticism, chronicles and social critique, gastronomy and oenology (he became a specialist in European wines), he wrote literary works in the shape of short narratives in which he cultivated the humor which characterized him. His 1948 restaurant guide titled Knife and Fork in New York is a classic in its genre. 7 In Portugal for Two the author never refers to his traveling companion as “my wife” but as “the Other Person” or, even more often, as “a Senhora, as we say in Portuguese” (Mackall 2), the use of the personal pronoun “we” evincing a strong link to Portugal. Mackall had three years previously (22 April 1926) married his second wife, Ruth Dexter MacMillan (1891–?). His first wife had been Virginia Woods, with whom he had one son, Robert Lawton Mackall (1915–1932). The fact that he was traveling with
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a companion also singles out the author of Portugal for Two at a time when many geographical travelers preferred to travel on their own. 8 “One needs to account for the anxieties, uncertainties, and increasing dissent of those years [1880– 1940], the fragmented, haphazard, contentious nature of imperialism, the profound doubts about the continuation of Western progress, indeed doubts about the possibility of progress at all” (Carr 73). 9 “Ironically, one of the most pervasive moods in travel writing of the inter-war years is a certain world- weariness, springing from disillusionment with European civilization and dismay at its impact on the rest of the world” (Carr 81). 10 Mackall’s trajectory, which he narrates chronologically, imbuing his account with the traditional structure of an itinerary, was as follows: Açores, Lisboa, Estoril, Cascais, Lisboa, Setúbal, Mafra, Évora, Lisboa, Sintra, Santarém, Tomar, Batalha, Alcobaça, Leiria, Figueira da Foz, Coimbra, Buçaco, Viseu, Porto, Viana do Castelo, Braga, Porto, Lisboa, Odivelas, Queluz, Sevilha, Lisboa. 11 At Solar da Alegria Mackall was able to hear the famous Portuguese guitar player Armandinho (1891– 1946), which he found fascinating; he was in actual fact the first foreigner to describe the virtuoso nature of the player’s performances. 12 It has not been possible to glean biographical data on Adolfo Gonçalves, whom Mackall describes as follows: “. . . ‘our friend and encyclopedia,’ Senhor Adolfo Gonçalves, a gentleman who has proven himself to be quite the most thoughtfully kind person on whom two strangers ever pinned themselves with a letter of introduction. . . . Indeed, it is largely his fault that we who came to skim Portugal are now up to our ears in it” (Mackall 222). 13 He defines himself, as well as his traveling companion, as “strange birds of passage” (Mackall 15). However, he presents himself as a traveler “In pursuit of Knowledge about Life as People of Another Nation Live It” (Mackall 297) and declares his interest in finding out “What It Really Looks Like” (Mackall 59). 14 A good example is that of the tomb of Baltasar de Faria, Comendador da Ordem de Cristo, which he saw in Tomar and gave him a chance to comment ironically on the Inquisition: “. . . a grim sarcophagus with a peep-hole in the lid permitting inspection of the mummy inside, which is totally nude. An inscription announces him to be Baltasar de Faria, the ambassador of João III who brought back from Rome the papal bull which set up the Inquisition in Portugal—resulting in the torturing and burning to death of thousands and thousands of ‘heretics’ who happened to be human beings, though the fact was overlooked at the time. Perhaps we should feel compassion at the spectacle of Baltasar’s shriveled nakedness. But we don’t” (Mackall 256). Religion had been a virtually compulsory topic in Protestant, English-language travel writing on Portugal in earlier centuries. Mackall does not describe scenes of Portuguese religious fervor but he does mention the dissolution of religious orders in 1833 as a positive step and succinctly narrates the apparitions in Fátima in 1917. 15 “Rather, travellers have already been influenced, before they travel, by previous cultural representations that they have encountered. Thus, they never look on places anew or completely independently but perceive them instead through an accretion of other’s accounts” (Youngs 9). 16 “Museums, Baedekers, and Grand Tours are cultural enterprises, linked by shared notions about ‘what really matters’ in art and history” (Russell 56). 17 The following is an example, when his wife went to a hairdresser’s in Rua Garrett, Lisbon: “‘Ingleza?’ they asked her. Learning that she was not merely American, but from America of the North, there was a flutter throughout the establishment, patrons as well as employees eager for a glimpse of the rara avis that had strayed in” (Mackall 227). 18 Two other episodes confirm this difference in expectations: one in the Azores, when he is told that many Azoreans who emigrate to the US and later, on returning, no longer feel at home in their native land after sampling “American ways and American conveniences,” whereas he, Mackall, would be happy to live there (“But a lemon-colored house with bewitching balconies and a private garden would suit me rather well.”) (Mackall 36); and another, set in a hotel in Monte de Santa Luzia (Viana do Castelo). The author is dazzled by the rustic beauty of the place, while the hotel owner dreams of modernity: “‘What this place needs,’ says our host, ‘is a good hotel.’ Dear me! Is there something the matter with—‘Insufficiently modern,’ he sighs. With a location like this there should be a hotel absolument du premier ordre. Possibly several. And a casino, of course. He glows with enthusiasm as he paints the future. Sounds wonderfully Biarritzy, but somehow we like Saint Lucy as she is now” (Mackall 323–24).
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19 The topos of a lasting bond with the recondite country of Portugal, enunciated by Southey in Letters Written during a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1797), recurs as well in Lady Catherine C. Jackson’s Fair Lusitania (1874). 20 ‘New State’ (Estado Novo): the name given to the authoritarian, conservative, nationalist, and corporatist regime that emerged from the military coup of 28 May 1926 and took over Portugal in 1933 until its overthrow by the “Revolution of the Carnations” on 25 April 1974, thus putting an end to the 48-year dictatorship. This period was presided over by António de Oliveira Salazar, who was President of the Council of Ministers between 1932 and 1968 and promoted the new regime, whose slogan, “God, Fatherland, Family” sums up its ideology.
Works Ccited Baedeker, Karl. Spain and Portugal: Handbook for Travellers. 3rd ed. Leipzig, London, and New York: K. Baedeker/ T. Fisher Unwin/ Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913. Print. Bendixen, Alfred, and Judith Hamera, eds. The Cambridge Companion to American Travel Writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Print. Blanton, Casey. Travel Writing: The Self and the World. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002. Print. Buzard, James. The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature and the Ways to ‘Culture’ 1800–1918. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1993. Print. Carr, Helen. “Modernism and Travel (1880–1940).” The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Eds. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 70–86. Print. Champney, Elizabeth Williams. Three Vassar Girls Abroad. Rambles of Three College Girls on a Vacation Trip through France and Spain for Amusement and Instruction. With their Haps and Mishaps. Boston, MA: Estes and Lauriat, 1883. Print. Decker, William Merrill. “Americans in Europe from Henry James to the Present.” The Cambridge Companion to American Travel Writing. Eds. Alfred Bendixen and Judith Hamera. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 127–44. Print. Fussell, Paul. Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1980. Print. Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York, NY: Scribner’s, 1926. Print. Hulme, Peter, and Tim Youngs, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print. Jackson, Catherine Charlotte, Lady. Fair Lusitania. London, UK: Richard Bentley and Son, 1874. Print. Loring, George Bailey. A Year in Portugal: 1889–1890. New York, NY: G. P.Putnam’s Sons, 1891. Print. Mackall, Alexander Lawton. Knife and Fork in New York. New York, NY: Robert M. McBride, 1948. Print. ---. Portugal for Two. With 80 Illustrations from Photographs. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1931. Print. Marden, Philip Sanford. A Wayfarer in Portugal. London, UK: Methuen, 1927. Print. “Portaria nº 17811. Ministério da educação Nacional.” Diário do Governo 11 July 1960: 1721.
Maria Zulmira Castanheira holds an MA and a PhD in Anglo-Portuguese Studies. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Cultures and Literatures at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal.