Books: Saintly Sinners ; Amanda Hopkinson Hails the Satirical, Subversive Spain

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A Cock-Eyed Comedy

Juan Goytisolo,

trans. Peter Bush

Serpent's Tail

pounds 10.99

177pp

ANYONE WHO can remember the dark days of the Franco regime can recall something of the neo-medieval cult of mystery and authority that cloaked the Generalissimo. How better to forestall any international interest in, say, the fate of Republican prisoners than by a panoply of government spokesmen whose task was to obfuscate? Franco's style was well-suited to a Catholic church that had, by dint of its zeal in forming the Spanish Inquisition, been rewarded by the Vatican with the unique authority to appoint its own bishops.

For 35 …