In that Precarious Exilic Realm: Edward Said's Andalusian - IEMed

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In that Precarious Exilic Realm:
Edward Said’s Andalusian
Journeys
Tabea Linhard. Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Edward Said travelled to Andalusia on several occasions during his life, and wrote about his most
personal impressions in the article “Andalusia’s Journey”. Said’s vision is highly conditioned
by the multicultural past of the region, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together for
centuries. The idealisation of this co-existence, as well as the most famous myths of Andalusian
culture (Carmen, King Boabdil, etc.) are very present in the traces that Said discovered in the
places he visited, and that make up a nostalgic past. Moreover, the author recognises the conceal-
ment and denial of numerous Jewish and Muslim elements in contemporary Spanish culture,
with the aim of creating a stereotypical image in order to please the tourist.
This article is an exploration of Edward Said’s Spanish coasts in makeshift boats, clinging to
vision of Andalusia as both an origin and a life and the hope of a better future.
destination, as a picturesque site to be toured, However, while Said speaks from the glossy
and as a location where the interaction between pages of a high-end travel magazine, the text’s
violence and tolerance demands new reflec- contradictions (which also are Andalusia’s
tions, particularly vis-à-vis recent migratory contradictions) reveal that the author does not
flows between Southern Spain and Northern divert from the tasks of a public intellectual
Africa.1 Said’s “Andalusia’s Journey,” a brief – tasks which Said defined as the intellectual’s
essay published in Travel + Leisure in 2002 responsibilities in the 1993 Reith Lectures,
does not specifically refer to these flows, as it is later published as Representations of the In-
geared to a very different sort of traveler than tellectual. While Said clearly states that these
the immigrants who continue arriving along lectures are not to be taken as a form of au-
1. This article has previously appeared in the collection Edward Said and Jacques Derrida: Reconstellating Humanism
and the Global Hybrid (Mina Karavanta and Nina Morgan [eds.], Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008) and
is reproduced with the editors’ permission. I first found out about Said’s “Andalusia’s Journey” from María Rosa Menocal
during a lecture at Washington University in the fall of 2006.
170 In that Precarious Exilic Realm: Edward Said’s Andalusian Journeys Tabea Linhard
tobiography (1994: xii), the critical voice that often violent conflicts in different parts of the
comes across in “Andalusia’s Journey” belongs Mediterranean world, may make it easy to reify
to the role that the author reassesses in the the Medieval co-existence of Arabs, Jews and
final chapter of Humanism and Democratic Christians into a nostalgia for an impossibly
Criticism: “The intellectual’s role is to present harmonious future. I will later return to the
alternative narratives and other perspectives on issue of co-existence or convivencia in order to
history than those provided by combatants on argue that Said’s vision of Andalusia relates to
behalf of official memory and national history connections between a multicultural – yet not
and mission” (2004: 141). necessarily harmonious – past and an uncertain
present. Third, immigration from Northern Af-
A number of sites, restored and rica is radically changing contemporary Spain
re-imagined city quarters, monuments and its relationship to its postcolonial legacies.
and museums have turned both Arab and Said does not discuss migration in Andalusia
Jewish Spain into an accessible in this particular text, yet its causes and conse-
and popular travel destination quences should remain in the background of
the analysis that follows.
In light of Said’s stated role, his “Andalu-
sia’s Journey” is here read as far more than
a short piece of travel journalism. While the Specters of Carmen
text initially displays a nostalgic vision of
Andalusia, turning the region into an anach- Every Andalusian journey, including Said’s,
ronistic model that would ideally aid in solving should begin with a story. Possibly, the same
contemporary conflicts in the Mediterranean statement could be made about any form of
world, Said’s writing ultimately reverses such travel literature: good travel writing may be
a one-dimensional understanding of the re- more about good stories than about the places
gion and its history. Instead, in this succinct themselves. Drawing a boundary between
text, Said calls for an ongoing interrogation fact and fiction in certain travel narratives can
of the meanings that cultural heritage attains indeed become a futile exercise: “Like certain
within the Spanish –and also in a global and forms of investigative journalism –another
postcolonial – context. A close reading of the member of the genre’s extended family – travel
text is timely and relevant for three additional writing enjoys an intermediary status between
reasons. First, a number of sites, restored and subjective inquiry and objective documenta-
re-imagined city quarters, monuments and tion” (Holland and Huggan, 1998: 11).
museums have turned both Arab and Jewish Bearing this in mind, I would like to briefly
Spain into an accessible and popular travel consider a literary heroine who embodies most
destination. The offerings are plentiful for Andalusian fantasies: Prosper Merimée’s Car-
those who yearn to wander the streets of the men. The gypsy seductress first appeared in
rediscovered Jewish quarters in cities like Gi- print in 1845: the author published the first
rona and Toledo, or to admire the intricacies of three chapters of the novella in the Revue de
the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque in Deux Mondes, a journal that “had originally
Cordoba – two monuments that Said eloquently been founded as a bi-weekly travel journal
describes in his text. Second, the fact that the depicting, for the civilized ‘world’ of France,
three cultures that once coexisted in the Iberian exotic landscapes and adventures in what today
peninsula remain involved in wide-ranging and we call the Third World” (Robinson, 1, qtd. in
Quaderns de la Mediterrània 16, 2011: 169-182 171
Clark, 2000: 198). Since the novella appeared of Andalusia as an exotic and sensuous locale.
in a journal specialized in travel narratives, Ultimately, Carmen’s ghost can be seen as an
many of his readers probably took the torrid invitation to learn to “live with the ghosts” of
love story between Carmen and Don José to al-Andalus in a Derridean fashion. “And this
be another fact-based travel narrative. The being-with specters would also be,” writes Der-
publication was, after all, devoted to this type rida, “not only but also a politics of memory,
of prose, and the author had already published of inheritance, and of generations” (1994: xix).
narratives of his travels to Andalusia in simi- The inheritance at stake here is found in the
lar magazines (Revue de Paris, L’Artiste). To remainders of Arabic culture in Spain, which,
make matters even more illusory, “Mérimée in spite of the mechanisms of erasure that the
did everything to encourage this reading of his Spanish empire put in place already in the 15th
tale as a vérité vécue” (Clark, 2000: 189). The century, stubbornly refuse to disappear.
plot of the novella is said to be based on an
anecdote – a jealous lover kills the unfaithful Said’s Andalusian journeys are haunted
Andalusian gypsy woman he adores – narrated by the fantasies of what Andalusia was
to Merimée by the Countess of Montijo, with once imagined to be, including both the
whom he became friends in one of his trips to vision of the co-existence of Arabs, Jews
Spain. Finally, Merimée himself was fond of and Christians as an idealized form of
literary hoaxes and games that questioned (or multiculturalism
even mocked) authority and identity: his first
collection of plays, Le Théâtre de Clara Gazul The Spanish empire saw its birth with
(1825) was supposed to be written by a Spanish the Reconquest of the Kingdom of Granada
actress, and the book’s cover features a portrait by the Catholic Kings in 1492, the Expulsion
of a cross-dressed Prosper Merimée “wearing a Edict that initiated the Sephardic diaspora,
mantilla, a necklace and a frilly dress” (Raitt, and the conquest and colonization of the New
37-44, qtd. in Clark, 2000: 189). An interroga- World. In spite of its vastness, the empire was
tion of identity and authority also is at stake short-lived and was followed by an enduring
once Edward Said travels as a Palestinian Arab political and economic decadence, as well
to Andalusia on four different occasions, begin- as a rhetoric of loss and despair. In “Span-
ning in 1966. Even though he does not mention ish Nationalism and the Ghost of Empire”
the figure of the fiery, Flamenco-dancing se- Ángel Loureiro explains what this decadence
ductress, Carmen’s specter still becomes a useful implies: “A nation beset with problems of
trope for the understanding of Andalusia this self-understanding and self-esteem, Spain has
analysis aims to convey. been haunted for two centuries by the specter
This specter should not be taken for a repre- of its former colonies. Consequently, in the
sentation of a subaltern, female subject – a real- late nineteenth century – and in both Spain
life Andalusian gypsy that Merimée may have and Latin America – an obsessive discourse
encountered on a quest for exotic and sensuous about Hispanismo begins to develop around
adventures in Southern Spain. Instead, Said’s the subject of the conquest and colonization of
Andalusian journeys are haunted by the fanta- American and ensuing heritage left by Spain
sies of what Andalusia was once imagined to be, in that continent. […] The Spanish discourse
including both the vision of the co-existence of on America is linked to a historical analysis
Arabs, Jews and Christians as an idealized form conceived in terms of loss, decadence, ruin
of multiculturalism, and the orientalized vision and even degeneration” (2003: 65).
172 In that Precarious Exilic Realm: Edward Said’s Andalusian Journeys Tabea Linhard
Yet the colonial specters that remain from return Spain to the apex it had reached in
the conquest of the Americas and its conse- the fifteenth century with Catholic Kings”
quences on both sides of the Atlantic may just (2003: 66). Orientalism moves in two oppos-
be a different incarnation of other specters ing directions in the Spanish context: while
that also resulted from the Spanish imperial imperial discourse in Spain undoubtedly
formation. This understanding of the Spanish was constructed on an Orientalized vision of
empire draws from Américo Castro’s historical Latin America and North Africa, Spain itself
thought. Said mentions Castro in “Andalusia’s becomes a sensuous, exotic and conquerable
Journey,” and I will return to the historian’s “Orient” in texts like Merimée’s Carmen, as
work later in the essay. Before the loss of the Ignacio Tofiño-Quesada argues in “Spanish
colonies across the Atlantic was even conceiv- Orientalism: Uses of the Past in Spain’s Colo-
able, Islamic and Jewish Spain were pushed nization of Africa” (2003: 142-143).
towards the borders of the Iberian peninsula,
and its remainders – individuals, monuments, Traveling to and in Andalusia also means
literatures, traditions, sounds, words, flavors – negotiating the different meanings that
were disguised, silenced, acculturated, hidden, the Andalusian cultural heritage attains in
tortured, or re-written. diverse contexts – not only in fancy travel
Any journey to Andalusia, as a matter of fact magazines
any literal or virtual excursion into past and
present Spain (and the nation’s diverse forms Thus, traveling to and in Andalusia also
of literature, art, architecture, languages, or means negotiating the different meanings
cuisine) will reveal that these remainders have that the Andalusian cultural heritage attains
by no means disappeared. Said’s text mainly in diverse contexts – not only in fancy travel
centers on the traces of Arab culture in An- magazines. Speaking from the pages of a pub-
dalusia, referring to a “composite Andalusian lication like Travel + Leisure may be an unfa-
identity anchored in Arab culture [which] can miliar location for a thinker like Edward Said;
be discerned in its striking buildings, its tiles it may seem that here the author’s own notion
and wooden ceilings, its ornate pottery and of “traveling theory” is taking him literally and
neatly constructed houses” (2002: 2). But the figuratively to new discursive positions, which
term “composite” is key here – while the loss ultimately do not lead him safely back “home”
of al-Andalus often evokes a lost paradise in (which is where tourism always finds its happy
Islamic culture, Said’s text reveals the limits ending) but instead point to something closer to
of such a discourse. the “intellectual’s provisional home” a location
Coincidentally, Loureiro shows in the the author defines in Humanism and Demo-
above-mentioned essay that in the Spanish cratic Criticism. Such a home, Said explains at
context a potentially comparable discourse of the end of a complex reflection of Humanist
loss and decadence begins with the articula- critical praxis, “is the domain of an exigent,
tion of an imperial and Orientalist nostalgia resistant, intransigent art into which, alas, one
in the eighteenth century, which lasted well can neither retreat nor search for solutions.”
into the Francoist years: “One of the better- He concludes these thoughts suggesting that
known early formulations of Spanish-his- “only in that precarious exilic realm can one
tory-as-decadence can be found in the late first truly grasp the difficulty of what cannot
eighteenth century in José Cadalso’s Cartas be grasped and then go forth to try anyway”
marruecas, in which he proposes remedies to (2004: 144).
Quaderns de la Mediterrània 16, 2011: 169-182 173
Significantly, if only momentarily as “An- trips to Andalusia, as it is a reflection on what
dalusia’s Journey” appears in a publication in these trips mean for Said as an intellectual, a
which Southern Spain may be reduced to an writer, and an Arab.
exotic travel destination, Said’s text moves be-
yond its venue, revealing also that Andalusia is The most obvious distinction between
always more than the sum of its parts. For the tourism and other forms of travel is a
foreign tourist, traveler or armchair traveler binary opposition between the authentic
who visits Andalusia, a city like Granada still (travel) and the inauthentic (tourism)
may be “one of the exotic locales par excellence
in Romantic culture, a geographic, cultural and The distinctions between traveling and
temporal elsewhere far removed from the mun- tourism have been widely discussed in such
dane aspects of contemporary reality” (Saglia, fields as anthropology and sociology. Rather
2001-2002: 194). Said’s text, however, makes an than reproducing these debates here, I would
attempt to connect Andalusia’s exoticism with like to focus on two issues that are central to
contemporary reality, navigating the shifting my analysis of Said’s text, namely, a quest for a
meanings Andalusia attains within Spanish, cultural experience considered to be “authen-
Arabic, British and American traditions. Or tic,” and the multiple meanings that returning
it may just dance around these meanings, just home attains when traveling. Possibly the most
like Carmen’s ghost: “And what could be more obvious distinction between tourism and other
Andalusian,” writes Said, following the earlier forms of travel is a binary opposition between
citation “than the fiery flamenco dancer, ac- the authentic (travel) and the inauthentic
companied by hoarse cantaores, martial hand- (tourism) (Curtis and Pajaczkowska, 1994: 202).
clapping, and hypnotically strummed guitars, Tourism may have been initially understood to
all of which have precedents in Arabic music?” function as a “quest for authenticity” (Rojek
(2002: 2). and Urry, 1997: 11), that is, tourism was to pro-
vide the means to escape the daily routine of
work and conventional life; touring unknown
Travel + Tourism grounds would provide a way of finding again
one’s true subjectivity. Rojek and Urry write:
Said’s brief 2002 essay on Andalusia can “The world of habitual life is so ordered and
be examined alongside his 2004 collection managed that authentic feelings are subdued
Humanism and Democratic Criticism in or- or choked off. Through tourism we are said to
der to mark some important distinctions in have the expression of real feelings.” Yet the
Said’s observations, analysis, and work. With authors concede that considering a location
“Andalusia’s Journey”, Said is writing for an like Las Vegas reveals that, “tourist sights are
audience whose understanding of “travel” – at increasingly using extravagantly inauthentic
least when choosing to pick up this particular accessories to attract tourists” (1997: 11).
publication – might exclude the forms of theo- One does not need to look at Las Vegas – or
retical maneuvers, displacement, exile and di- Disneyland – and its excesses to grasp that tour-
aspora on which Said has written throughout ism nowadays often has become synonymous
his career. While undoubtedly informative with simulacra and in-authenticity, with rec-
about the region’s history and contradictions, reation and restoration not of what certain loca-
the text also depicts the author’s inner journey: tions like Granada are or might have been, but
the essay is as much a description of several of what these are expected to signify. Traveling
174 In that Precarious Exilic Realm: Edward Said’s Andalusian Journeys Tabea Linhard
off the beaten path has become the norm liter- authentic experience, or not embarking on any
ally and metaphorically so that only the beaten form of travel in the first place. The opposite
paths may be left. The crucial issue here would of tourism would be “the involuntary travel
not be to locate the exact barrier that divides associated with the predicament of the immi-
the so-called authentic from the simulacra, or grant. If the tourist travels, for the most part,
to establish once and for all where traveling backwards in time, then the immigrant, the
ends and tourism begins, but to look instead exile and the diasporic travel forwards with
for other variables that allow us to understand no promise of a restored home” (1994: 202-
where the differentiation between travel and 203). The ambivalent sense of “home” which
tourism shifts, and why understanding this comes across in Said’s text also suggests that
shift is relevant. “Andalusia’s Journey” oscillates between travel
backwards and travel forwards, between tour-
Tourism oscillates between a quest of the ism and other, much more complex meanings
authentic and the perfect simulation that, of displacement. This ambivalence, ultimately,
at least temporarily, fills the gap for an also is what accentuates the above-mentioned
authenticity that can neither be restored critical voice in the essay. In a discussion of the
nor recreated predicaments of intellectual exiles, which also
is part of the Reith Lectures, Said explains what
Andalusia is a highly popular destination, the impossibility of returning home implies:
and in the past decades Andalusian cities, or- “Exile for the intellectual in this metaphysical
ganizations and private companies have made sense is restlessness, movement, constantly be-
possible different forms of travel focused on the ing unsettled, and unsettling others. You cannot
region’s multi-ethnic heritage. These include, go back to some earlier or perhaps more stable
for example, the Fundación Tres Culturas in condition of being at home; and, alas, you can
Seville, and the Casa de Sefarad-Casa de la never fully arrive, be at one with your new
Memoria in Cordoba. This does not mean that home or situation” (1994: 53). While at first it
visitors who tour Alhambra in Granada, or the may seem that a search for an ancestral home,
streets of Cordoba and Seville, are going to be that could provide both answers and comfort,
merely confronted with nothing more than a motivates Said’s earlier journeys to Andalusia,
miniature Las Vegas or, to use George Ritzer the text reveals that rather than encountering a
and Allan Liska’s term, a “McDisneyization” of “restored home,” the author ends up facing his
Andalusian cultural heritage. Rather, tourism own nostalgia for a place that never existed.
oscillates between a quest of the authentic and This nostalgia is apparent in Said’s descrip-
the perfect simulation that, at least temporarily, tions of his consecutive journeys to Andalusia,
fills the gap for an authenticity that can neither which begin in 1966, during the Francoist
be restored nor recreated. dictatorship. He admits that at the time An-
Similarly, Said’s text oscillates between a dalusia was “wonderfully picturesque” but he
travel narrative, tourist guide and a philosophi- contrasts his vision of Granada with the ways
cal interrogation of what “home” may mean for in which mass tourism has already changed
a writer like Said. In these Andalusian journeys other Spanish cities, that is, “the burgeoning
the expected meets the unexpected, and return- and quite sleazy mass tourist trade that had
ing home from this journey is both possible and put down roots in Malaga (not to mention the
impossible. Curtis and Pajaczkowska argue that ghastly neighboring village of Torremolinos)”
the opposite of tourism would not be a largely (2002: 1). Moreover, Said, at least in the initial
Quaderns de la Mediterrània 16, 2011: 169-182 175
moments of the text, still seems to yearn for “essence,” the Arab invasion in 711, together
the restored home to which Curtis and Pajacz- with the Jewish presence, largely tolerated in
kowska refer: “But for me, and indeed for many Arab Spain, is part and parcel of the Spanish
Arabs, Andalusia still represents the finest flow- history and civilization of a country that never
ering of our culture. That is particularly true was and never will be monocultural.
now, when the Arab Middle East seems mired
in defeat and violence, its societies unable Everywhere he looks, Said finds traces
to arrest their declining fortunes, its secular of Spain’s Arab as well as Spain’s Jewish
culture so full of almost surreal crisis, shock heritage, echoing Américo Castro’s
and nihilism.” However, later in the text Said analysis of Spanish history and civilization
undermines this very idea, when he admits
that Andalusia, with its striking monuments The moment when Said questions why the
and watery gardens, “makes a rather too fac- Arabic heritage in Spain lingered for so long
ile, moral lesson of the place.” At this point “if Arabs had represented only a negligible
in the text Said moves away from a nostalgic phase in Spanish history” (2002: 4), Said’s An-
idealization of Andalusia and explores instead dalusian journeys do not only take him across
the region’s conflicts and ghosts, traveling with the Atlantic, from New York to Spain, but also
the baggage of a Palestinian Arab, “as someone across time. His final destination is not a re-
whose diverse background might offer a way stored home, but a location that remains both
of seeing and understanding the place beyond out of place and out of time. Said’s travels to
illusion and romance” (2002: 2). and within Andalusia are not a journey to a
In lieu of displaying the attributes of a restored home, yet still a journey that makes
lost paradise, in Said’s text Andalusia reveals him (and consequently, his readers) aware of
the constant negotiation between historical a precarious, un-restorable home.
repression of Arab culture and the persistent In “Andalusia’s Journey”, tourism coexists
remainders of this culture: “The Arabs jour- discursively with other forms of travel; the
neyed along the shores of the Mediterranean text’s contradictions also are the contradic-
through Spain, France, and Italy, all of which tions of Andalusia and what it stands for. And
now bear their traces, even if those traces are if the traveler is able to return home from
not always acknowledged,” writes Said (2002: this journey “backwards in time” the only
2). And little by little the contradictions of An- home he shall return to will necessarily be a
dalusia come about: everywhere he looks, Said “precarious and exilic realm” (2004: 141). The
finds traces of Spain’s Arab as well as Spain’s text therefore is far more than a search for the
Jewish heritage, echoing Américo Castro’s “authentic” Andalusia, or a quest for the sole,
analysis of Spanish history and civilization. For real Andalusian journey, which would reveal
Castro, these Arab and Jewish cultural traces the artificiality of other journeys to Andalusia.
are not the remnants of a foreign invasion that Instead, Said’s text also challenges the very idea
distorted a supposed national and ethnic unity of such a quest for authenticity.
of an essential and timeless Spanish identity.
Instead, the encounter between these different
cultures is what constitutes Spanish culture in An Andalusian Palimpsest
the first place. Challenging more orthodox
versions of history, Castro argues that rather “Andalusia’s Journey” may initially reinforce
than an interruption of a pre-existing Spanish the idea of a lost paradise where watery gar-
176 In that Precarious Exilic Realm: Edward Said’s Andalusian Journeys Tabea Linhard
dens and shady patios served as a backdrop for changing yet always somehow the same – a
the harmonious co-existence of Arabs, Jews unity in multiplicity.” The mosque/cathedral is
and Christians before 1492. A close reading of a palimpsestic structure, as Andalusian culture
the text, however, reveals that what Said re- as a whole may be: it is more than the sum of its
ally encounters in Andalusia are palimpsests: parts, but it also is more than what Said himself
trace upon trace and writing upon writing bear calls the “amazingly mixed Arab, Jewish and
witness to conflict rather than harmony. Said Latin cultural centers of Cordoba, Granada and
writes: “Andalusia multiplies in the mind with Seville” (2002: 1).
its contradictions and puzzles; its history is a
history of the masks and assumed identities it Said’s text reveals that Andalusian culture
has worn” (2002: 2). The term palimpsest com- is palimpsestic: the remainders of past
monly refers to a parchment or vellum from conflicts are what constitute
which an earlier text has been erased or scraped the Andalusian cultural heritage Said
in order to make room for a new inscription; the discusses in his text
fact that the remainders of the older text are
usually still noticeable has turned the palimps- Andalusia is not just a palimpsest because
est into a useful image within a poststructural the structures of its monuments are constant
and postcolonial context. reminders of the Arab and Jewish presence,
Cultural imprints tell stories that chal- instead, Said’s text reveals that Andalusian
lenge colonial master narratives, stories that culture is palimpsestic: the remainders of past
become, to use Said’s terms, histories of masks conflicts are what constitute the Andalusian
and assumed identities. The important point cultural heritage Said discusses in his text.
is that Said never specifies what lies hidden These also are the traces that reveal a coun-
underneath these masks and assumed identi- termemory Said is ready to articulate, in spite
ties. The Andalusian history he encounters of this unconventional and leisurely venue in
during his journeys that span three decades is which this text appears. I am referring here to
a history of these conflicts and their remain- a statement Said makes in the final chapter of
ders. This becomes clear in his description of Humanism and Democratic Criticism: “The in-
the “mosque-cum-Cathedral” in Cordoba: tellectual is perhaps a kind of countermemory,
“The great mosque was later barbarically with its own counterdiscourse that will not al-
seized by a Christian monarch who turned low conscience to look away or fall asleep”
it into a church. He did this by inserting an (2004: 142).
entire cathedral into the Muslim structure’s I have argued earlier in this essay that in
center, in an aggressive erasure of history spite of the inherent contradictions in “Anda-
and statement of faith” (2002: 4). Scratching lusia’s Journey” Said’s text remains engaged
the imprints on a palimpsest would then not with “alternative narratives and other per-
reveal the origin (of Andalusian culture) but spectives on history” (2004: 141). Said writes
instead display the constant interactions and that Andalusia was “a particularly lively
conflicts between cultures, within communi- instance of the dialogue, much more than
ties and among individuals. Yet even the most the clash of cultures” (2002: 1), however, the
“aggressive forms of erasure,” and even this palimpsestic nature of Andalusia that becomes
“statement of faith” end up revealing their apparent in Said’s text challenges a nostalgic
own futility, as Said explains: “The whole view of such a dialogue. In a text in which
composition is always in evidence – always tourism and travel coexist, Said the traveler,
Quaderns de la Mediterrània 16, 2011: 169-182 177
Said the tourist, and Said the intellectual way to Juan Goytisolo’s Don Julián (a novel
confront one of the tasks of the intellectual, Said also mentions in the article), and recent
articulated in the final chapter of Humanism literary texts focusing on migration and its
and Democratic Criticism: “The need now is consequences in an increasingly multicultural
for deintoxicated, sober histories that make society, it may not even be possible to fully
evident the multiplicity and complexity of grasp what Spanish literature is all about,
history without allowing one to conclude that without understanding the lingering Arab
it moves forward impersonally, according to presence.
laws determined either by the divine or by the
powerful” (2004: 141).
Don Quixote’s Ghost
It may not even be possible to fully grasp
what Spanish literature is all about, So while a palimpsestic structure of a monu-
without understanding the lingering ment like the Mosque in Cordoba needs to be
Arab presence understood in the context of religiosity, edifices
like the mosque or the Alhambra, or even street
So while the readers who pick up a copy of quarters like the Barrio de Albaicín in Granada,
Travel + Leisure may just yearn for an escape, or the Judería (Jewish Quarter) in Seville tell
to “leave behind a modern world of disillu- stories within stories – not unlike the text that
sionment, strife, and uncertainty” (2002: 1) gave birth to the modern novel, Don Quixote.
and find calm and harmony in a structure like The narrator of Cervantes’s novel, we need to
the Alhambra in Granada, Said’s text suggests remember, translates the text from the original
that those who choose to travel to Andalusia aljamiado, the Romance vernacular in Arabic
(literally or not) are bound to encounter in the script. The text’s original author is an Arab,
same time the “multiplicity and complexity Cide Hamete Benengeli. This character, follow-
of history” (2004: 141). The twofold meaning ing William Childers “displaces the idea of any
of the text also links “Andalusia’s Journey” essentialized cultural identity or preordained
to Said’s secular humanism, his critique of order to which the text could correspond”
Euro-centrism and imperialism. Said’s secular (2006: 70). María Rosa Menocal poignantly
humanism may also be what makes him so describes the genesis of the second part of the
attentive to the violence caused by religious novel in her book The Ornament of the World.
strife in Andalusian and Spanish history as a She narrates how in the beginning of Book II
whole, long before and long after 1492. In his of Don Quixote, the narrator has traveled to
text, Said reminds us that the violent attempt Toledo, in search of the manuscript of Book
to erase Arab culture was neither successful, I, which is about to be destroyed, so that the
nor complete: “Yet, classical Mudejar art, with material on which the text was written can be
its typically florid Arabesques and geometrical reused: “The man is wandering down these
architecture, was produced after the Muslims streets because it is now the neighborhood of
were defeated. As far as Catalonia, Gaudí’s ob- the rag sellers. The old neighborhood of books
session with botanical motifs shows the Arab and the men who wrote the books and trans-
influence at its most profound” (2002: 4). The lated books for the world has become a place
influence of Arab culture hardly is limited where the books no one is supposed to read
to art and architecture. From the Medieval anymore are turned into pulp. The man sees a
romances to Cervantes’ Don Quixote, all the boy with a pile of papers he is trying to sell to
178 In that Precarious Exilic Realm: Edward Said’s Andalusian Journeys Tabea Linhard
an old silk merchant, and he can tell they are adjacent territories to very distant lands” and,
written in Arabic” (2002: 254). finally, his own upbringing and education in
The pile of papers is the first part of the ad- the US, French and British context” (1993:
ventures of Don Quixote, written, as I already xxiii). A brief and seemingly extraneous text
mentioned, in aljamiado. The narrator now like “Andalusia’s Journey” might not fill the
has to find a translator who will help him to lacunae that the author readily acknowledges
read a text written in a script that officially no in his broader analysis of culture and empire.
longer exists on Iberian soil. Similar to ladino, However, this succinct text still provides a
aljamiado is a palimpsestic language, display- missing link between the Spanish imperial
ing the remainders of the violent and tolerant expansion from the Mediterranean to the At-
co-existence of the three cultures in Medieval lantic, and the contingencies Said analyzes in
Spain. Don Quixote, emerges from the ex- such texts as Culture and Imperialism, and also
tremely contradictory and sedimented society Orientalism.
that could be found in the Iberian peninsula
in the years that followed the reconquest of Don Quixote, emerges from the extremely
Arab Spain, the expulsion of the Jews, and the contradictory and sedimented society that
conquest of the Americas. These were the years, could be found in the Iberian peninsula
briefly, when certain processes of religious and in the years that followed the reconquest
ethnic identification, either evident, concealed of Arab Spain
or falsified, acquired a whole new set of shifting
meanings, often with devastating consequences These connections do not correspond to a di-
for individuals and communities as a whole. rect and unwavering line between the moment
Said does not specifically discuss Don Quixote when the first Andalusian beach was conquered
in his essay. Yet in addition to the undeniable from the South in 711 to consequences of
Arab cultural imprints in this novel, the fact such events as 11th September or 11th March.
that Cervantes is understood to be “one of the Rather, I would like to avoid the all-too-easy
founders of modern literature and a giant of fusion between past, present and future, which
the European canon” (Childers, 2006: 77) needs often happens when the Medieval co-existence
to be considered here, particularly bearing in of three cultures or convivencia is understood
mind the importance the author places on to be a “road map” that could solve present
narrative in Culture and Imperialism. Here, conflicts in Spain, and in the Mediterranean
Said analyzes novels in order to understand world as a whole. As mentioned earlier, there
the discursive mechanisms of colonization is a slight tendency to do so in the initial mo-
and decolonization. The fact that the Spanish ments of Said’s text, which needs to be exam-
empire and its (decadent) remainders are for ined further.
the most part absent from this study is some-
what perplexing. Said justifies the limits of his
corpus in the book’s preface in the following Convivencia’s Ghosts
terms: “What I am saying about the British,
French and American imperial experience is Said himself refers to Andalusia as the site of
that it has a unique coherence and a special dialogue, rather than clash of cultures. Particu-
cultural centrality” (1993: xxii). Said also larly in the beginning of the text, Said refers
provides two further reasons for limiting his to convivencia with a longing for harmony
corpus: the “overseas rule” or “jumping beyond and tolerance: “Muslims, Jews and Christians