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THE WEDDING, by Anqel M. de Lera (242 pp.; Dutton; $3.95). Spanish writers from Lope de Vega to Garcia Lorca have had a fascination for blending love and death in scenes of grotesque horror. In this tale by Spanish Novelist de Lera. the characters are cliches, and their talk is monotonous. But the novel comes powerfully alive when it reaches the love-death climax of a wedding night. The groom-to-be. Luciano, settles in a small, primitive town, picks a local beauty to marry. He has no trouble bribing her parents to let her go, but the rest of the townspeople fiercely resent an outsider taking one of their girls. They regard him with a "hatred steaming with hot blood and entrails." On his wedding day, he tries to appease the townspeople with a band he has hired, fireworks and 120 gallons of wine. But no sooner has he retired for the night with his bride than a band of hooligans show up. At first they behave in the traditional manner. They serenade the bride with dirty songs impugning her chastity. They hold a "cats concert," in which cats and dogs are tied up and encouraged to fight to the death, snarling and whining, under the bridal window. But then the pranksters smash the windows. Luciano is stabbed, staggers back to the bedroom, and dies deflowering his bride. As a commentary on the modern Spanish scene, The Wedding provides tourists with a useful tip: rural weddings can be as bloody as bullfights.
SOME HUMAN ODDITIES, by Eric J. Dingwall (198 pp.; University Books; $6) and GHOST AND GHOUL, by T. C. Lethbridge (156 pp.; Doubleday; $3.75).
In bygone days in Merry England, no one thought twice about seeing ghosts; they were as common a household item as chairs and tables. Today an estimated one out of every five English men and women still sees ghosts or experiences "psychic phenomena," but in keeping with the times scrutinizes them scientifically. Researcher Eric Dingwall analyzes some classic ghosts and ghost see-ers with the latest tools of his trade, including psychiatry and statistical research. Most famous is the 19th century Scotsman Daniel Dunglas Home, who set up a salon in Paris where he produced table rappings, voices, visions, and even floated out the window, and numbered among his fascinated visitors Trollope, Hawthorne, the Brownings, Napoleon III and his Empress Eugénie. With proper scientific detachment, Dingwall refuses to say whether these supernatural doings were real or imaginary; evidence points both ways. No such doubts trouble Author Lethbridge, an archaeologist who has often seen ghosts and has even sketched a few in his book. Ghosts are plentiful, he believes, because they are natural phenomena. "A ghost, ghoul, or uncanny sound," he writes, "is far more likely to be thought projection from one of your fellow men, still living on earth, than it is to be a broadcast from the outside." In other words, a ghost is simply a television picture, minus the sound, which is transmitted from one person to another.