Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of God

by Steven Nightingale

Overview

Andalusia: ancient homeland of the mysterious Iberians, birthplace of Roman emperors, seedbed of modern Anarchism, and unmarked gravesite of Spain's greatest lyric poet. Perhaps most importantly, Andalusia is home to the city of Granada, where a hybrid culture composed of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions gave rise to an intellectual vanguard whose achievements can be compared only with those of classical Athens, Ming China, or Renaissance Italy.



Granada resident Steven Nightingale excavates the rich past of his adopted city and its surrounding countryside, finding there a lavish story of utopian ecstasy, political intrigue, and finally anguish. Part of that region in southern Spain named by its Islamic rulers "Al–Andalus," medieval Granada witnessed a flourishing of poetry in several languages, the first modern translations of Greek philosophy, the birth of algebra, and the construction of architectural masterpieces such as the Alhambra and the Generalife. Yet with Ferdinand and Isabella's sack of Granada in 1492, regarded as the culmination of the Reconquista, which sought to reclaim Spain for the Vatican, a Catholic mythology of Spain began to erode Granada's centuries–old reputation as an artistically vital haven for multiple ethnic and religious groups.



Linking the disastrous afterlife of the Reconquista to the Catholic nationalism of the Franco regime—whose execution of Granadan poet Federico Garcia Lorca symbolizes the suppression of Andalusia's cultural heritage—Nightingale demonstrates the extent to which this Catholic triumphalism also obscured the source of much cultural wealth bequeathed by Al–Andalus to Christian Europe. Nightingale's own account of the region's medieval zenith recovers the intellectual pageantry and aesthetic splendor of this astounding period in Western history and the marvelous city that was its cultural center.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619027015
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	02/09/2016
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Steven Nightingale is the author of two novels and six books of sonnets, as well as numerous essays. His poetry has been widely anthologized, and he has taught poetry in more than fifty schools and universities. He lives in Woodside, California, with his family.

Table of Contents

One Afternoon in Granada 1

The Carmen of Our Serendipity 9

The Time Travels of a Garden 25

Where Walking Is Like Flying 49

Al-Andalus: Notes on a Hidden, Lustrous, Indispensable Era 109

Al-Andalus and 1492: the Plate Tectonics of History 177

A Few Notions of Geometry and Revelation 237

The Lucid Work of Love and Helpfulness 261

On Flamenco, Poetry, Genius, and Murder 277

The Secret in the Labyrinth 307

Recommended Reading and Listening 313

Acknowledgements 317

Notes 321

Bibliography 351

Editorial Reviews

"His book is not only a memoir of one family's communion with a dream house, it's the unearthing of a long–buried dream of civic harmony, a reawakening. Even if you have visited Granada and walked the labyrinthine ways of the Albayzín, Nightingale makes you want to go there again, to see it with new eyes."—New York Times Book Review

"An exuberant and beautifully written book and as packed with information as a pomegranate is with seeds…Nightingale possesses a keen tactile sense of the place; his approach is refreshingly sensuous."—Wall Street Journal

"Armchair travel enthusiasts and those who are interested in Spanish and Islamic history will enjoy this tale."—Library Journal

"[I]n poetic prose,...Nightingale's intimate reflections and succulent style present a textured picture of the city and its people, culture, and antiquity. Armchair travelers will find themselves easily lured through the portals of history hidden in brick and mortar, tiles and tilled gardens." —Publishers Weekly

"…rhapsodic paean to the Spanish city…A romantic…homage to a city "perfected by catastrophe" and transformed into a place of "concentrated joy.""—Kirkus

"…an unabashed love song to Granada…a fascinating historical overview…"—Booklist

"Steven Nightingale's Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of God is the rarest delight –– a book that is as wise as it is vibrant and alive. To read its pages is to be transported back in time through centuries, interwoven with folklore, history and with the dreams of mankind. I recommend this book most highly. It opens a window into a magical world, an Andalucian garden all of its own, one inspired by Paradise." — Tahir Shah, Author of The Caliph's House

"One of the delicious literary genres is the book about a writer's love affair with a city. Mary McCarthy's Stones of Florence and Edmund White's Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris come to mind. Steven Nightingale's Granada takes its place in that radiant company." —Robert Hass, author of What Light Can Do and The Apple Trees at Olema

"In flowing precise poetic speech, Stephen Nightingale bequeaths us the beautiful and tragic essence of Spanish history, philosophy and literature,…None since Gerald Brenan in the 50's has so lovingly mastered Spain in its Gothic, Muslim, Jewish, and Spanish faces. Who reads this book relives all Iberia, from medieval convivencia to Franco nightmare. El cante hondo, the deep song persists. A profound delight." —Willis Barnstone, author of Sunday Morning in Fascist Spain

"Opening Steven Nightingale's lyrical Granada is to split a pomegranate that pours out a galaxy of seeds. Take the book with you to a garden. There, as you read, the seeds will give forth branches of poetry, music, science, mathematics, philosophy, agriculture, medicine, and all the marvels of Andalusia. Twining, they stretch up toward the brilliant sun—maybe beyond, to the divine. Yet even as they transport you on their various journeys they remain rooted in a family garden in Granada—a beautiful garden that, thanks to the author, you will know and love as he does." —Thomas Christensen, author of 1616: The World in Motion

"This is a highly sensitively written book written by a very fortunate American author who records his visit to Andalusia (Spain) with his family to discover the immense gift to civilization the earlier Spanish community has been. I can certainly recommend this book to all who have yet to learn how vibrant and productive the integration of Judaism, Christianity and Islam can be." —Keith Critchlow, author of Islamic Patterns and The Hidden Geometry of Flowers

"This beautiful book is a love story: that of, first, a young family falling hopelessly in love with an old house in the medieval quarter of Granada, and their painstaking restoration of the house and its gardens.…But this is also a story of what love can do when various peoples put aside differences and work together: for nearly eight centuries, from 711 to 1492, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in productive, collaborative harmony, translating one another's holy texts and sharing collective wisdoms, from literature to algorithmic logic to color theory. Thanks to Steven Nightingale's glorious and inspiring book we can glimpse what life might become were we not plagued, as we are in these modern times, by religious fundamentalism and hyper mechanized tools of war." —Jane Vandenburgh, author of The Wrong Dog Dream

"Each page of this deeply personal book is a revelation, and a confirmation that darkness is never permanent. Darkness begets beauty. Nightingale writes that conviction into every sentence." —Robert Leonard Reid, author of Arctic Circle and Mountains of the Great Blue Dream

"Granada… is a primordial history of Andalusia, the rose and the magdalena, the throne and the cross—but more than these, it is a sinuous and searching biography of the heart of southern Spain. Nightingale has woven us in its antiquarian spell…like García Lorca, Nightingale summons the duende, the creative force that emanates from this sorrow, so that in the end, this book is really a testament to what can be possible with the spiritual attainment of peace. I cannot remember the last time I have read a story that is literally blood and truth born across two millennia of human understanding. Like a wind from the Sufi masters, it will shake the most austere and humane alike." —Shaun T. Griffin, author of This is What the Desert Surrenders

From the Publisher

…Nightingale mellifluously describes the utopia his family inhabited…His book is not only a memoir of one family's communion with a dream house, it's the unearthing of a long-buried dream of civic harmony, a reawakening. Even if you have visited Granada and walked the labyrinthine ways of the Albayzín, Nightingale makes you want to go there again, to see it with new eyes.

The New York Times Book Review - Liesl Schillinger

01/12/2015
Writing in poetic prose, Nightingale (The Lost Coast) presents a historical, mystical, and personal travelogue of Granada, Spain. More broadly, Nightingale introduces readers to the amalgamated Andalusian culture of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian roots. Contemplating the intellectual corpus of al-Andalus—an 800-year kingdom ruled by Muslim emirs and Christian kings, advised by Jewish courtiers—Nightingale sketches out the far-reaching influence of Andalusian civilization. He invites readers into his labyrinthine neighborhood in Granada, the Albayzín, and into the lush love and tender repose of his own garden and family. Weaving the two together, al-Andalus and the Albayzín, Nightingale unleashes centuries of the “uncommon energies, exploratory zeal, and systematic rigor” of Granada, presenting its poetry, philosophy, music, art, mysticism, mathematics, literature, governance, and religious pluralism as “a schoolroom where we might learn.” Nightingale’s intimate reflections and succulent style present a textured picture of the city and its people, culture, and antiquity. Armchair travelers will find themselves easily lured through the portals of history hidden in brick and mortar, tiles and tilled gardens. Photos. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2015
Many travel stories focus on a fish-out-of-water, inexperienced family moving to a foreign land and their trials and tribulations while buying and remodeling a house, but this book puts a twist on the genre and does not really focus on the family reboot of home and life. Nightingale (a writer and poet) and his family moved into the Albayzin neighborhood (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the city of Granada, Spain, right across from the historic Alhambra, bought and remodeled a home with a garden. But that's just the backstory. What the author really wants to talk about is the beauty and brutality of the history that has taken place in this area for hundreds of years among the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations. VERDICT While readers might wish for more cute anecdotes about the author and his family and their adventures in an unfamiliar country, this book takes readers on a different historical path. Armchair travel enthusiasts and those who are interested in Spanish and Islamic history will enjoy this tale.—Melissa Aho, Univ. of Minnesota Bio-Medical Lib., Minneapolis

Library Journal

2014-11-04
Poet and novelist Nightingale (The Wings of What You Say, 2013, etc.) makes his nonfiction debut in this rhapsodic paean to the Spanish city, where he, his wife and young daughter now live part of each year. For the author, Granada is nothing less than idyllic, with verdant, sun-dappled gardens fragrant with orange blossoms; enchanting labyrinthine lanes; and a "rambunctious diversity" of friendly, gentle and wise neighbors who display a "helpless love" for children: "They know that children have been recently formed in heaven and so on earth need special devotions." A "sainted notary and his equally blessed wife" provided housing for Nightingale and his family while their house was being renovated by nimble craftsmen, one "with the bearing of an Arab prince." In spring, the "garden and house embraced one another, took up an amorous life together," and sprouted grapevines and honeysuckle that grew into the bedrooms. In search of Granada's glorious past, though, Nightingale discovers brutality. While the city thrived during the "lustrous" Al-Andalus period, from 700 to 1492, when Muslims, Christians and Jews coexisted, for the most part amicably, and arts and sciences flourished, conditions changed dramatically in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella decided to purge the area of Jews and Muslims. During the Spanish Inquisition, mosques and synagogues were razed, property confiscated, more than 5,000 books burned, and those who refused to convert to Catholicism were massacred. By 1620, the once-populous city was reduced to 6,000 who lived among rubble. In the next three centuries, the deterioration worsened, and the city became a refuge for anarchists; during the Spanish Civil War, fascists took hold. Not until 1994, when it was named a World Heritage Site, did Granada begin to revive. A romantic, at times overly sentimental homage to a city "perfected by catastrophe" and transformed into a place of "concentrated joy."

Kirkus Reviews