Customer Reviews
A forgotten style - By: palace pier, 24 Jul 2008 
A style of writing that we dont see much these days. So much description that you almost feel heady. The warmth of the sun & the total atmosphere of old Spain were almost tangible.
A very relaxed writing by a young man with a zest for life & discovery.
Also a great book for anyone studying the Spanish civil war & the mood of the country beforehand,not from the politician's & historian's point of view,but an ordinary person's.
One of those books I would read again just for the descriptive narrative.
'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' - By: J. Dee, 15 May 2008 I first read this bookin 1970 & just like one reviewer said,'Beware though as this book may make you want to give it all up & set off with your knapsack', well I did just that. In 1973/74 I travelled through 'Laurie Lee's Spain & it was just as I imagined it would be. This book for me evoked the essence of Spain of that time. Lee is an excellent writer, not only of novels but of poetry. I have re-read it many time since & it still evokes those feelings of wanting to go & explore. I'm thankful that I did do just that.
An odd little book - By: A. Bristow, 31 Dec 2007 
I managed to finish reading this the second time I picked it up. It was a case of putting it to rest, or else, sometimein the future I'd feel compelled to try again - & then, maybe I'd have to start from scratch. And I haven't got the energy to do that again.
While I enjoyed the honeyed recollections of 'Cider with Rosie', 'As I walked..." is by far a more difficult read. For a start it's oddly balanced. Why - I wonder - bother with the time spent travelling to & stayingin London, when the pertinent focus of the book is his time spentin Spain? The end is a terrible cliff-hanger, which I suppose would encourage the interested reader to pick up the next installment 'A Moment of War'. Not me, I'm afraid.
In comparison with the rosy recollections of his childhoodin Slad, Lee's vision of Spain is on a par with Dante's Hell. Everywhere isin a state of physical decay & moral decline. Throughout his journey he accepts the generosity of impoverished folks across the country, but shows little gratitude or appreciation on the printed page for this qualityin the Spanish people. He appears quite dispassionate about what he sees. I find the claim that he mastered a fluencyin Spanish after only a short time into his year-long journey, little short of a miracle. I understand there is a controversial idea that Lee did not,in fact, do all that he said he did, which includes his alleged later involvementin fighting Fascistsin the Civil War. The growing presence of the impending Civil War arrives too latein the book to save me from boredom. I personally found this book a pompous, self-satisfying bore.
Another Lee Masterpiece - By: T. Purnell, 22 Oct 2007 If you enjoy descriptive writing that sucks you right into a novel then this is definitely a book to add to your list. Part bildungsroman - part historical, the novel follows the path of the young Laurie as he makes his way out into the worldin search of fortune & life experience. I found the writing style timeless & the story itself fascinating & gripping. A very enjoyable read.
enjoyed this book lots but there is a whiff of the disingeneous - By: N. W. Osborne, 11 Jun 2007 I enjoyed this book a lot but like his other writings there is a whiff of the disingeneous about it, I don't know how much of it I can believe, it's often rather arch, for example he loves ending passages with a short sentence that leaves the reader wanting more explanation, more honesty - "what really happens next?" we are left asking... Most of the reviews here strike me as somewhat naive, they take him at his own words... eg "a 19 year old country boy" - He wasin fact 20 or 21 when he left for Spain, he says he was 19 when he left Slad... He was hardly a country boy, he was a poet who had already had a least one poem published, he must therefore have been making inroads into literary London society, he was having an affair with a wealthy London woman... hardly the innocent country boy he half encourages us to believe he was. But at the end of the day he may be a phoney & much of what he claims happened may be baloney but it's a rattling good read, soin a sense who cares if he invented it 30 or 40 years later!
