36 AIREVIEW To Catalan Story Short ______«)______

Barcelona, by Robert Hughes new and hitherto ignored material: let­ But that meant looking at Catalan his­ (HarperCollins/Harvill, $39.95). ters, journals and other primary sour­ tory, too, and its relationship to the Reviewed by Jose Borghino. ces relating to the convict experience broader history of Spain, Provence, in Australia between the arrival of the Languedoc and the western Mediter­ A forum entitled 'Unlocking the First Fleet and the end of transporta­ ranean all the way back to the found­ tion in 1868. The expatriate art critic ing of the small Roman fortress of Academies' opened to much had not only popularised the preexist­ Barcino in about 15 BC. And then there fanfare in Melbourne earlier ing work of musty professors (the only are the economic links with the New this year/ as part of Donald function begrudgingly allowed the World (especially in the 18th and 19th Home's latest pet project, the 'non-specialist' or 'journalistic' centuries), the Catholic connections, Ideas for Australia summits. To writer); Hughes had actually beaten the artistic and philosophical interac­ the credit of the organisers, the them at their own game. tions with Paris Impressionists and Russian Anarchists, the web of 'unlocking7 was conceptualised With his latest book, Barcelona, Hughes popular myths and legends, and so on. as a two-way process. Not only has once again stolen a march on the does academia need to open it­ unsuspecting. This time, however, he The result is breathtaking. Barcelona is self up more to general con­ hasn't just outsmarted the slow- 573 pages long and ranges across more sumption by rethinking the moving manatees of academe, he's than 2/)00 years of cultural and politi­ problem of specialisation and also one-upped the sleek sharks of the cal history, from the Bronze Age travel and tourism publishing world. oysters that once inhabited Barcelona arcane jargon, but popular cul­ Bay to the still unfinished saga of ture and its most potent agent of 1992 has already been dubbed The Gaudi's spectacular toffee cathedral, consumption, the media, need Year of Miracles'; the quincentenary of La Sagrada Familia. Along the way also to realign themselves in Columbus' encounter with the New Hughes introduces us to the Hispano- relation to the knowledge- World is competing for attention with Roman writers Seneca and Martial, to making machines of academia. the imminent unification of the EC. the Vandals, Visigoths, Moors and However, the Spanish have snatched Franks—and to Wilfrid the Hairy, the legendary unifier of Catalunya. As the forum investigated how best to the Triple Crown: Culture (Madrid is the current Cultural Capital of promote two-way traffic between the There are chapters on Barcelona's Europe), Commerce (Seville is hosting technical and the journalistic, the focus medieval empire (stretching across the World Expo '92) and Sport (the Bar­ fell on the position of the 'public Balearic Islands to Sardinia, Sicily and celona Olympics). The last of these intellectual' in contemporary society. Naples) and tantalising digressions on events will attract the most intense and It's in this context that the work of figures like Amau de Vilanova (the extensive media attention; it is es­ Robert Hughes becomes particularly chief Spanish exponent of the most timated that over 10,000 journalists important, beyond the intrinsic inter­ powerful ideology to arise between from all over the world will be in Spain est of his subject matter. Jesus Christ and Karl Marx—the for the Olympic Games. And you can teachings of the Italian mystic Joachim bet your bottom peseta that a good When Hughes' history of the de Fiore), Ramon Llull, the 13th cen­ number of them are already reading Australian convict system, The Fatal tury neo-Aristotelian who, according Hughes' book as background. Shore, appeared in 1987, there were a to Hughes, "created Catalan as a number of red faces among the serried literary language", and the 19th cen­ ranks of mainstream Australian his­ Hughes' commercial timing is impec­ tury poet-priest, Jacint Verdaguer. torians. Hughes had written an ad­ cable, but Barcelona is by no means a mirably accessible work and a trivial, fly-by-night affair. Hughes The last two chapters of the book—on runaway bestseller: that much, at least, conceived the idea for the book in 1983 late 19th century Catalan modemisme was predictable, given Hughes' back­ but by the time he began writing in and on Antoni Gaudi—are the best, ground as a prolific journalist-critic for 1987, his original idea (for a thin tome and probably contain the germ of the Time magazine and his connections on the Art Nouveau period in Bar­ original book. They display an out­ with the New York publishing world. celona, concentrating on architecture) standing ease of reference and breadth had changed. Hughes realised that un­ of knowledge, but are still full of But The Fatal Shore is also full of wit, derstanding Barcelona's architecture humour, humanity and even sadness; acuity and vision. It is well-written from 1875-1910 meant exploring the Hughes' descriptions, for instance, of (winning prizes such as the Age 1987 city's social and political history as the deaths of Verdaguer and Gaudi are Non-fiction Book of the Year Award) well as its art history. As he puts it, to quite touching. and it is very good history. What got do otherwise would have been like up some historians' noses was that "examining the foliage of the tree To say that Hughes is ambitious with Hughes had achieved a commercial without considering its trunk and Barcelona is a gross understatement' and critical success while unearthing roots". Social history, literary, economic/

ALR; JUNE 1992 ALREWfW 37

i* an4;

Gaudi's Park Giiell, Barcelona, political, intellectual, cultural, of history. Thus, Barcelona's Golden Catalans have had to fight to construct religious and art history—Hughes Age was the Middle Ages, not the 16th a national identity in opposition to the covers them all. He indulges in jocular and 17th centuries as it was for Spain centralist octopus of Madrid. Hughes asides about the centrality of images in general. The periods which else­ concedes that there that there are sub­ °f shit in Catalan humour, or of hair as where saw the Renaissance and the stantive differences between Catalans a sign of virility. Hughes weaves all Enlightenment were singularly and other Spaniards—but in the end these threads together entertainingly, boring in Barcelona—Catalan his­ he doesn't swallow the self-serving J^th a sharp eye for the dramatic and torians dubbed this period La nationalist guff beyond it being some­ •or the emblematic figure who can em­ Decadencia. And the Catalan how important for the natives to body a movement, a revolution, a dis­ Renaixenca arrived finally in Barcelona espouse it. aster. only with the last years of the 19th century and the beginning first of the As a guidebook to Barcelona, this ^here are parts of the book where I 20th. book has some drawbacks. The lack of fished Hughes had had time to slow any useful maps of the city or of ^°wn and give us more. With so much Hughes draws the parallel between Catalunya is particularly annoying, Retail and so many overlapping plots, and could have been easily fixed. But * seemed at times that characters Barcelona and Australia as secondary centres, as provinces forever relating as an example of public intellectuals J^ould barely be raised above the ruck doing what they do best—producing ^fore they suddenly had to be killed to an imperial centre. And ultimately, it was Hughes' sympathetic yet firm a useful cultural artefact—it is hard to disregard for the' self-delusions of the beat. b_is clear from Hughes' book that Catalans that I found most appealing r^rcelona's history inverts what the about this book. Perhaps because he is JOS6 BORGHINO is a freelance writer “ ®st accepts as the 'natural' direction Australian, he understands why and editor.

A IR : JUNE 1992