9 - Conclusion

Summary

One of the purposes of this book has been to reinvigorate the meaning of the word Spain as a term of more than simple convenience for academics. What that term means, of course, is another matter altogether. Given the case studies outlined here, the term resonates in different and often opposing ways. While both the films of del Toro and the novels of Torrente Ballester look to recover a Spain apparently lost, the Spains they imagine to be lost are very different, as are the reasons why recuperation is desirable. As regards the Basque Country, considered in Chapter 4, there are landscape traditions used to figure a different space wherein Spain may be resisted but must nonetheless be taken into account. The Spain stitched together through a restoration of the law of the land appears different depending on whether you are a local man taking on international crime lords and a corrupt local government or a woman juggling the spaces of work and home in a city. The porousness of borders can affect home life very differently if you are earning money through catering to foreign tastes for Spain as exotic and pleasurable, or if you feel threatened – or attracted – by the thought of foreigners coming to share your space on a more permanent basis. The explicitness of these characters' commitment to Spain varies, too. While in the earlier chapters an avowed struggle for a certain sort of Spain – or, indeed, against a certain sort of Spain – takes place, in later chapters characters are more likely to prioritise personal over patriotic concerns.