Andorra! 🇦🇩
A positively petite post for a picturesque pint-size postcard of a (co)principality.
(Why yes, I am having fun.)
And as my photo props suggest, this project is a month old! (Counting from posts, not from the first day of reading, or the many days I spent trying to convince myself this was not an overly twee or self indulgent project by pitching it to several very encouraging friends and Morgan.)
This is the first time this project I’ve had to contend with a real difficulty to find books! There is an established literary tradition in Catalan but it is not largely translated into English, and both of the books (and the extra, more on that later！）are really not what I hoped for. Alas, we go onward. The upside is that if there are more countries with only a few accessible book options, it will help me balance out my tendency to assign myself a pile of reading up to my ears.
BOOKS READ:
The Road to Andorra by Shirley Deane (memoir/travelogue)
A travelogue flashback from the pre-internet age, this book is honestly the exact type of thing I was looking to avoid. No real shade on Shirley Deane (who, by the way, seems to have nearly disappeared from public record. This was not her only published work, but she doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, or even a bio on Goodreads. I think if Andorra had more accessible translated works for the people doing “read around the world” style challenges to choose from, this book may been as forgotten and inaccessible as all other information about her,) I just don’t get a lot from the Plucky World Traveler Exploring All Those Funny Local Customs style of vintage travel books.
The writing style is reminiscent of the domestic memoirs Shirley Jackson published, and the style of humor writing that was common in women’s magazines in the 20th century. A lot of older travel books have this kind of tone, and it is kind of interesting to read something that’s so emblematic of a fairly dead style of formerly popular writing. While Jackson’s lightly fictionalized memoirs are based in a more normative domestic setting that keeps them feeling pretty fresh, The Road to Andorra is about Australians living abroad and has the alienating tone that older travel fiction often has. There’s a very “wow aren’t these people all so quaint and backwards” tone that I just don’t care for at all. It reminds me of my issues with the bizarrely popular No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, with both having almost a “noble savage” approach. The Road to Andorra also has a persistent feeling that the locations and people they’re observing aren’t really part of the “real world,” that they’re part of some timeless enclave out of step with reality, and are less fully realized people than the observing Deanes.
It’s also really only 1/3 to 1/2 about Andorra, despite the title; the center of the book is about Ibiza.
Not good, but readable. 2 out of 5 stars
Andorra Revealed (anthology)
“Andorra is a country of silences… They have the power of keeping quiet the way rocks keep quiet, the way the river that hones the rocks doesn’t share it’s views and the monotonous noise of the wind never answers a question.” - from “An Ode to King Boris”
This is a very odd anthology, entirely written by ex-pats who live in Andorra. It’s a slapdash mix of essays, short stories, and short tourism information sections, with every essay or story ending in an inexplicable (and uniformly terrible) limmerick. Oh, excuse me, there’s like three haikus also. I think the tone of this thing is a mess, and largely pretty boring and touristy. Not my thing at all. (Also, ex-pats who identify as being ex-pats and are in ex-pat communities are fucking annoying.) “An Ode to King Boris” is the best story with the most actual insight into the country, and it feels significant that it’s also from the only writer who seems to have married an Andorran and is raising an Andorran child.
1.5 out of 5 terrible limmericks
“The Gravedigger’s Son” - extract from Miss Keaton and Other Beasties by Teresa Colom (short story, fiction)
“Death was expectant. It was the moment of birth.”
Even with the last two books being stinkers, this entry represents the biggest bummer of the whole reading list for me (despite this story actually being quite good!)
Teresa Colom is an Andorran poet and author who had published a book of gothy short stories and a science fiction novel, Consciència, that sound frankly awesome and I would LOVE to read them, but are absolutely not available in English. There is one single short story from her short story collection is available to read from some kind of special feature the Guardian had, 9 years ago.
Death itself is the protagonist of a darkly evocative short story from a new collection by Andorran writer Teresa Colom, which is Tim Burton
This story is quite short, and I’m unclear if this is an entire short story with a kind of strange ending or a section of a longer piece of writing. Honestly, even if it’s just a micro-story that ends abruptly, it’s still the best thing I read for this country. I would like it even if the other books had been good! There’s some very good images, and it’s a fun little bite of nastiness. I will keep looking at her books pleadingly online until I give in and add Catalan to the list of languages I’m trying to learn.
4 out of 5 creepy little details.
DISH COOKED:
Trinxat - Potato, cabbage, and bacon hash
I actually only used one recipe for this! I did cross reference it with several other recipes, including some from official tourism resources, and since they were all largely the same I just used this one for its clarity.
Trinxat is a traditional Andorran side dish that can be made as indiviudal servings or one big potato hash. Whichever way you make it you wi
This is very simple, but really genuinely delicious. The cabbage isn’t terribly noticeable but does add something that makes it much tastier than just fried potatoes (an already delicious starting spot.) It’s kind of a pain in the ass to make, especially flipping it, and you really do need to use a mold for it to come out well, but it’s well worth it if you have 2 potatoes, a wide spatula, and a reasonable frustration tolerance.
BONUS CONTENT
Playlist!
Andorran music seems to have a surprising density of metal bands and Eurovision song entrants. I am not a Eurovision person, because I hate nationalism and when people sing on TV, but I do like a good metal band (and a Eurovision song did sneak on here anyway. So sue me, I’m a softy for pop punk.)
Andorra
Marked with the flag = Andorran, the rest are music I was reminded of by the Andorran songs
🇦🇩 Niflheim (The Eyes That Hold The Edge) - Persefone
🇦🇩 And The… The End - Likantropika
Soothsayer - Buckethead
🇦🇩 Salvem El Món - Anonymous
LIKED U BETTER - Jeff Rosenstock
🇦🇩 The Beholders - Nami
Sarniezz (Live on KEXP) - Angine de Poitrine
Location!
Somehow not from Atlas Obscura this time!
Some background details is that one of the searches I do whenever I’m doing book research for these countries is “country + comics” because I am a big old dork, and while I wasn’t able to find any Andorran comics to read, I did find that Andorra has an apparently quite lovely comics museum!
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g2385361-d2385103-Reviews-Museo_del_Comic-La_Massana_La_Massana_Parish.html
Anyway, that’s my exploration into Andorra, and I apologize to the Andorrans for not speaking their languages well enough to read any of the good books published in your country.
NEXT COUNTRY: Angola!🇦🇴
