Certain cities, like certain men, have the instant power to seduce. Seville, I’ve discovered, is one. Romantic, classically handsome and oozing charm, it offers glimpses of a fascinating past, combined with irresistible joie de vivre. This is a city utterly committed to pleasure. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that it’s also the city which inspired the legend of Don Juan.
I think I’ve probably met more than my fair share of Don Juans, but I couldn’t resist the chance to meet the original. Yes, he was dead, but he has also been brought thrillingly to life in The Lost Diary of Don Juan (Orion, £12.99), which has already sold in 25 countries. Frank McCourt — himself no stranger to the bestseller list — has described it as ‘a magic carpet of a book, a picaresque adventure that will have you clawing yourself with pleasure’. Mass sales seem assured — not least since its author, Douglas Carlton Abrams, shares an agent with Dan Brown.
I’m afraid the book didn’t have me clawing myself with pleasure — not, in any case, my top leisure-time pursuit — but I can see how fans of The Da Vinci Code and its ilk might enjoy this bodice-ripping jaunt through the ancient alleyways of Seville. And as a portrait of a city, and an age, it is evocative. The novel — so punctiliously researched that drafts were checked by church historians and scholars of 16th-century swordsmanship — takes the reader on a picturesque journey, starting off at the Alcazar and continuing in the winding streets, and bedchambers, of the Barrio de Santa Cruz. It’s a journey that involves an exhausting number of romantic conquests. Our own journey, thank goodness, was a lot more leisurely, and punctuated with fortifying snacks (five- or six-course meals, actually), excellent Spanish wine and so-dry-it-makes-your-tongue-tingle Manzanilla sherry.
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