Chris Stewart (1) (1950–)

This was a random secondhand bookshop purchase a while back, and I'm still scratching my head a little over what I thought of it.

Chris Stewart, a young (we think) nomadic Englishman, decides to buy a remote farm in Andalucia with his wife. Rural is not the word. The farm is cut off on one side of a river such that the only way to access it is via a handmade bridge made of a single log which is only expected to last for a few months of the year before it's consumed by the river. When they first move in there's no running water to the house, with 'house' sounding an overly grand way to describe it - a few barely habitable outhouses would be closer. It's primitive beyond belief, and Stewart's book is about their first years living there, as they become accepted by the local peasants (who all seem to be invariably drunk on cheap wine from early hours of the day and dirt poor, subsisting almost entirely on the fruits of their land).

Stewart writes of interesting characters and the challenges of adapting to the environment as they get in tune with the topography of the area and work to find a balance between modern methods of farming and the ways that have served the locals well for hundreds of year. In many ways it's a warm and charming tale, but yet it feels full of glaring gaps.

The book jacket tells us that Stewart was the original drummer of Genesis, yet at no point in the book does he refer to this. By the end of the book he's as elusive as he was at the beginning. We're not entirely sure what age group he falls into or what drove his decision with his wife to embrace not just a life in a new country, but a peasant-like existence on a remote shack of a farm. Beyond a few lines about sheep shearing in England and writing a bit for Lonely Planet we know nothing about him, and that makes the book difficult to fully engage with. He writes enthusiastically about the local shepherds, but who is he, our protagonist and narrator? And who is his wife? It takes a very unique woman to embrace a home with no basic creature comforts which is chock full of uninvited creature guests of various crawling guises, but we never get to know her. What drives her to want to live this cut off life? Even the photos that commence every chapter beg more questions as opposed to answering some. They're tiny close ups which leave you wishing they were larger and showing more of the periphery to fill in some gaps. What did the house really look like? What was the view like from the house? Who are Mr and Mrs Stewart?

3.5 stars - enjoyable yet perplexing. Christ Stewart, in seeking this life off the beaten track, obviously closely guards his privacy and wishes it to remain that way. A shame, as this book would have worked so much more had he let us have a glimpse of who he really is.… (meer)