5 APRIL 1957, Page 24

A Train to Tarragona, by Anthony Carson (Methuen, 15s.): difficult

to describe, unless you A Train to Tarragona, by Anthony Carson (Methuen, 15s.): difficult to describe, unless you know Mr. Carson already; this is far more than a straight travel book about a visit to Spain, a country peopled as much by his imagination as by the 'suckling women, beggars, lottery sellers,

mineral-water vendors, soldiers, freaks, saints, dwarfs, heroes and pickpockets' he likes to intro- duce us to. If you know the style already, you

will be prepared for the mixture, which is at times almost hysterically amusing, at others' saddening,

at all entertaining. A piece of brilliant autobio- graphical fantasy more than a guide to the ways

of Tarragona; and very r r r ococo, as the guide in Burgos Cathedral always Says.