Alastair Reid

"I live by writing and curiosity." A man to be found asking penetrating questions in untraveled places, Alastair Reid, the individual who so characterizes himself, is a poet and a European correspondent for the New Yorker. That this laconic and bushy-browed Scotsman has a lively curiosity is evident from first meeting; that he has been quick to follow its lead is implicit in his present affiliation with Spanish affairs.

Although he has achieved distinction as a poet, Reid's intimate knowledge and interpretation of Spain have set him apart as a correspondent with few equals. During the six years he has lived in Spain (first in Madrid, then in Barcelona) the amplitude of his friendship with political, intellectual, and artistic leaders has given him a knight's-eye view of the joustings of Franco and his challengers.

Perhaps because his own interest and involvement have been spontaneous, Reid's letters from Spain have captured very tangibly the people, the politics, and the spirit of the place, as well as the tension and maneuverings behind the portly figure of the Caudillo. The style of his reporting is vividly fresh. Reid takes the reader into open cafes and closed discussions, where he allows him to have a glass of wine and eavesdrop. The speakers are Basque seamen and financiers, Catalan laborers, Castillian artists. The mood is apprehensive, comic, and speculative by turns. Reid is very enthusiastic about this method, which he calls "creative reportage." With it, he tries to convey "how it feels to be alive in a particular place in a particular time."

"You go and live in a place and read everything about it; then you proceed to try to forget what you have read. You listen to what the inhabitants have to say and to what other people have to say; then, at a remove, you write about it." Although this approach combines elements of history, sociology, and even of fiction, its main ingredient is personal involvement. "It is a very good occupation for the right hand, assuming poetry is written with the left," Reid interjected with characteristic good humor.

Because events in Spain have taken a new turn, it is very likely that Reid's right hand will soon be busier than ever. Since last spring's sweeping strikes in the mines of the north, the activities of the anti-Franquistas has increased markedly. The success of those work stoppages acted like adrenalin on the groups opposing the regime, which had passed a number of years in a wilderness of frustrated possibilities. Representing all conceivable shades of the political spectrum, they have once again begun to consider practical programs aimed at the overthrow or attenuation of the Franco government.

"The strikes in Asturias made an enormous difference in the mentality of the obrero and the intellectual," Reid said. "They gave the workers a sense of consequence and led the intellectuals to see that no amount of theorizing would replace the economic realities." What seemed remarkable to everyone, he added, was that the strikes were spontaneous, that they sprang from the immediate misery of the workers, rather than from any preconceived plan of action.

Reid admits that it was a cursory turning of life which bound him up with the Iberian peninsula. He spent his childhood and youth on Arran, an island off the western coast of Scotland. After World War II years in the East Indies, where he served "in what we call the Royal Navy," he returned to Scotland and entered the University of St. Andrew's. Then, after a number of years in France, he came to the United States, where he taught "off and on" at Sarah Lawrence. He first went to Spain in 1952, primarily to find sun and relaxation. As he learned Spanish, he began to spend increasing amounts of time there and found himself drawn into intellectual and literary circles. Since 1956 he has lived in Spain the year round.

Apart from his New Yorker articles, which, together with additions, will soon be published in book form, Reid has published four volumes of verse. He is presently at work on a novel; but this he declined to discuss, with a chuckle and an admonition that such was "bad luck."

Although tied as closely as ever to Spanish affairs, he recently purchased a house in the French mountain village of Canfranc, a stone's throw from the Spanish border, near the notheastern corner of Catalonia. For some reason such a purchase seemed very characteristic of the man, as was his description of its place in his life: "I wander over Europe from there."

Alastair Reid will speak tonight at 8 p.m., in the Kirkland House Junior Common Room.)