A book a day: Edgar-Max: The pagan path

In The pagan path, Profusely documented and illustrated, Edgar-Max offers a very personal tour of Northern Spain, as well as covering the history, mythology, legends, traditions, fauna, etc. of the region.

Obviously, I was more interested in some parts of the whole than others. Edgar-Max, our guide, has a soft spot for several topics (the relationship between man and the sea, alcohol, etc.), and sometimes he gives too much focus to some of them. I admit that I skimmed the section dedicated to lighthouses, which was too detailed for my taste.

In any case, Edgar-Max does not hide his affinities. Nor his biases (or “filters”), which he proudly displays to a certain extent; on page 24, for example, he makes it very clear that he will claim “monuments that have sought to capture (…) man’s wonder at (…) nature (…) and to honour the work of fishermen and whalers, watchmen or seigniors, net-makers, warners, sardine-makers, cargo-men, tow-men and boat-men”, and will ignore, instead, “statues of marquises, dukes and admirals”.

Clearly, the greatest advantage of having Edgar-Max as a guide is that he accompanies his text with a multitude of ink illustrations made by his own hand. Some are copies of landscapes, buildings, animals, ships, sculptures or various instruments. Others, in my opinion much more meritorious (although equally successful in terms of the graphic section) are those in which he uses his imagination to reinterpret some mythological creature, compose a scene (that explosion of the bow of Cabo Machichaco on page 87 is great, Edgar) or map the coasts of the northern peninsula.

We’ll see if in the future it will be useful for me to plan a trip to lands stained by tragic massacres, dotted with gloomy lighthouses and plagued by legendary creatures.

Also from Edgar-Max at ULAD: Long Bill and the Cursed Inn