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The author of this book has given us a work of applied psychoanalysis, in the strictest and most admirable sense. At no time does he depart from a psychoanalytic vision, making clear that the difficulty of steering safely into port grows with each step leading away from the relative (but comfortable) security of the consulting room into the inclemency of human events in everyday life and history. Cecilio
Paniagua's book is divided into 15 chapters that may be read in order, out of order, in a single sitting or with however many pauses one might desire, since each is an exhaustive study of the topic in question. The ‘collection of essays’ character of the book's structure, however, does not take away from the unity of the work. In my opinion, it allows for moments of reflection after each topic, without making the reader feel excessively pressured to start the next chapter in order to follow the narrative thread.
Each chapter has abundant quotations from quite diverse authors, and conceptual explanations that invite evocation, association of ideas, introspection and discussion. The 15 essays are titled: ‘Bullfighting’, ‘Casticismo’, ‘The copla’, ‘Machismo’, ‘Play’, ‘Magical thought’, ‘Witchcraft’, ‘Martyrdom’, ‘Genius’, ‘The masses’, ‘Envy’, ‘Xenophobia’, ‘Submission’, ‘Homophobia’ and ‘Nostalgia’.
Of all of them, the most authentically Spanish, and in my opinion the least comparable or interchangeable with phenomena of other nationalities, is ‘Bullfighting’. Perhaps ‘Casticismo’ and ‘The copla’ also share this exclusivity, but I believe them to be more translatable into the realities of other cultures. Casticismo, or Hispanic traditionalism (from casta, meaning purity of blood), as a phenomenon extending over the entire national territory, could be superimposed on to the chauvinism attributed to the French. As a feature more circumscribed within the capital city (the ‘Madrid-ism’ and its slang as described by the author), it seems to me c