Customer Reviews

Aleph Bravo Tango

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every tango dancer should read this book. Beautifully written, it contains astutely perceptive observations and sensitive insights about the often so elusive intricacies of tango. In intelligently interwoven vignettes ranging from a couple of sentences to a couple of pages, we follow different fictional characters in various international locales on their journey to Buenos Aires. Perspectives switch constantly to reveal varying gender views, including those of gay couples, and the characters' secret thoughts, their emotions, their attempts to grasp the many joys and some of the shadows of tango. A marvelous read.

This book is like a Pedro Almodovar film, exposing the conscious and unconscious yearnings, failings, fears, frailties, strivings and triumphs of 30 different characters who have come under the spell of Argentine Tango. If you are already a tango addict, this book will let you see tango from different perspectives than your own. If you haven't yet been exposed to tango, be assured that this fictional account will open your eyes to a sub-culture of intimacy, creativity, sensuality, beauty and joy.

i loved this book and every tango dancer can find many stories that they can relate to... either through personal experience or from the experiences of the members of their tango communities. thank you for the incredible journey!
jackie

Aleph Bravo Tango is a feast of character, passion, dance, lust, sensuality, jealousy, frustration and dream spiced with wisdom, humor and the occasional culinary gem that combine together to give us a tantalizing taste of the complex and often bewildering "inner" world of tango. Like a master chef, Dyv Saraza has drawn from an international cast of characters and cooked up a scrumptious tango bouillabaisse lovingly created from the feelings, dances and aspirations of the individuals who populate the tango world and are obsessed with attaining a sublimity and perfection that not only is rare and evanescent but almost totally out of reach. Like tango itself, the characters cross national, racial and sexual boundaries in their quest for this holy grail, frequently "losing" themselves in the process. Chapter by chapter, as I took delicious bites from this book, not only did I relive the agony and the ecstasy of my own tango experiences, but I came to realize that I truly do love this dance of the emotions and once again felt the desire to master it and to master and lose myself in the process. Let Aleph Bravo Tango take you into its embrace, close your eyes, dance and let yourself be swept away

I have been dancing tango for about 5 years. It turned out to be more than just a hobby. It takes over my life, it keeps changing for me and I don't know where it goes. I don't know why tango took me in, I don't need a reason. The book is exciting as a candid talk with girlfriend after milonga when you both elated by the magical night and can talk for hours. The stories of people in the book bring them to same place and time that is both a final destination and the beginning of the new exciting journey. Loved it!

This book will tell you everything you never knew about the people you dance tango with. And about yourself. It is cleverly written, it will make you laugh, it will make you blush, and it will make you mad at some points at the characters that are just all too human.
In a milonga, you very rarely get to know they people you are dancing with beyond the few seconds in between songs. That might be a good thing, or it might be the loss of a more interesting connection. If you were ever curious about those people, then this is the book for you. It really is everything you never knew about tango dancers.
If you don't dance tango, it will give you an insight into the world often misportrayed in the media and in other "tango" books. In it is a fishbowl of a social scene centered around beautiful music of the Argentinean culture. It might even inspire you to see what this tango thing is all about.

This is the book to read to "feel and sense" Argentine Tango. I have Tango friends who say, "It's so accurate sometimes I have to stop reading it. How do they know how I feel dancing!" I adore this book. I give it to my friends and tell them to read it so they will know why I dance Tango. Read it whether you dance Tango or not. You'll love it. You'll want a sequel so you can find out what happens to these people.

I heard a couple of excerpts from this book read by the authors recently at a local milonga... after that, I couldn't wait to read it. Within the first couple of pages I was literally laughing out loud every few minutes. But this book didn't just make me laugh. It also made me feel mad, happy, nostalgic, empathetic, represented, respected, proud, and a whole array of other feelings in between. This book moved me. It gave me goose bumps. It made me fight back tears both of joy and of sadness. It broke my heart and then mended it.

I think tango is such a multifaceted experience for each dancer that to cover all the aspects of it would be a daunting task... and yet the authors achieved just that, beautifully, brilliantly. They absolutely nailed it. The characters capture what tango is for us dancers, and the way the book is constructed is both original and captivating. The authors have created something very special... I take my hat off to them. And even though I loved this book, my heart sank a little when I finished reading it because I didn't want it to be over...

I found this book darkly funny. OCT should be a recognised psychological condition!
Obsessive Compulsive Tangueros/as. The writing is beautifully observed, and well crafted. Tango has become a dance onto which the yearnings, failings, fears, frailties, strivings of the human condition are projected. Women who have intmiate emotional dances with men who are indifferent; the choice of dances, the ass-holiness of self-styled milongueros who wont dance with women who ask, taking the codigos (Milonga etiquette) to extremes.

As one character observes. "It is only a dance"

I read this in a few hours, it was so much fun - I think I have been, or known, or experienced everyone and everything in the book. I don't know if it would make sense to non-dancers - but it is a great read for those of us who have been bitten by the tango bug......