Customer Reviews

Duende: A Journey Into the Heart of Flamenco

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I think the problem that some of the thumbs-down reviewers had with this book was that they got sidetracked by the subtitle, "a journey into the heart of Flamenco." They apparently thought that it was going to be a didactic work. (The author is an Oxford graduate, so we must use words like "didactic"). Instead, it's a very personal story, a "tell all" about the author's experiences as a foreigner (i.e., non-Spaniard) trying to lead a flamenco life, and I don't find that it was represented as anything other than that. And insofar as that story goes, it was generally well written

What is clear is that Jason Webster came to Spain in search of flamenco without doing any prior research or study, not even having touched a guitar previously - rather odd for an Oxford grad, but maybe that was part of what he was running away from. That's what got him into all the strange and sometimes funny scenes he relates because seemingly every flamenco aficionado he ran into was a self-proclaimed "expert" who told him something different.

Poor Jason also came to the wrong places: Valencia and Alicante on the southeast coast of Spain, two venues that are well outside flamenco's incubators: southwest Andalucía (Cádiz, Jeréz and Sevilla province in particular), and Madrid, the capital where most of the best artists end up because it provides the best means of earning a living. That's just about analogous to someone coming to the United States in search of jazz and blues but starting out with a flat in Des Moines, Iowa, then moving on to Butte, Montana. He did get to Granada, which has a much smaller but increasingly thriving flamenco scene, but only after a good deal of trial and error - and then he went back to the southeast coast anyway. And that was after living in a poor suburb of Madrid without ever visiting the thriving dance studios where he could have met and learned to play with some really good artists instead of stealing cars and doing lines of coke.

Those missteps probably lead the author to the main title, "Duende." Many an experienced flamenco groans when they hear that word. Federico García Lorca started the craze for "duende" back in the twenties, and Donn Pohren enshrined it for all English-speaking aficionados through his work, "The Art of Flamenco", first published in the early sixties and which for many decades was the only book in English on the subject. "Duende" literally means an elf or gnome, and can include poltergeists as well. It did imply "soul" or "spirit" within some circles in flamenco, but overuse caused such word inflation that its original meaning was greatly devalued, and many flamencos came to avoid it. "Aire" was the principal word used instead of "duende" when I lived in Spain in the early seventies, and now one also hears "pellizco" which may or may not mean the same thing. "Duende" is today more often used by promoters in the tourist trade rather than artists. Of course, the use of that word in the title might well be due to the publisher rather than the author, but that would be consistent: "Duende" once again being used to sell something rather than describe it.

The one serious bone I might have to pick with the author, however, is his intimation that drugs are an integral, even necessary, part of being a flamenco. True, drugs became very pervasive in the post-Franco era, but they have never been anything close to "necessary." For over a hundred years flamenco did quite well fueled solely with nicely fermented grape juice, perhaps a bit of distilled spirit, but that was it. Weed, coke, hash are strictly optional and mostly detrimental. He seems to have swallowed the drugs-are-necessary idea hook, line and sinker, but the fact that the particular Gypsies he hung out with had to steal cars to make ends meet attests to their lack of success as professional flamenco artists. Drugs and thievery are dead ends, not roads to the heart of flamenco or anything else. Yes, Camaron de la Isla, one of flamenco's greats, used lots of drugs and smoked like a house on fire. He also died at the age of 42. (But if you do enough drugs you just might see a few duendes.)

The back jacket cover says that the author still lives in Valencia. If he harbors any hope of writing a sequel, he better start thinking about moving to where there's at least a flamenco road to follow.

After finishing the introduction to this book I was despairing. The narrator/author came across as a real prat, and combined with the fact I am quite sick of the `I took an extended holiday and justified it by writing a book' genre, I thought I was almost guaranteed not to like this book. Luckily, I was wrong.

That is not to say Duende is a great book. There are faults - the conclusion is a mess, and occasionally the author makes trivial facts out to be momentous ones. There is also the problem that some of the characters feel as though they have not been properly thought out - the prime example for me is Grace, who appears in the Granada section of the book. However, this is a very good book. It is the story of an Englishman who decides to move to Spain and pursue his love of flamenco. This is quite amazing when you consider that he has never learned guitar before and has now decided to take on a rather complex and complicated form of playing. You have to admire his pluck.

Through his searches for `authentic' flamenco, the author falls in with a bunch of gypsies, never sure whether he is truly accepted or just there for novelty value. After a shocking incident, he moves on, and leaves Madrid for Granada, reassessing his life as he goes.

This book is an interesting narrative - it has love, passion, interesting characters and well described, evocative settings. But it is more than that - using flamenco as the medium, Webster explores what happens when we use an outside `thing' (in this case flamenco) to try and run away from internal forces (feelings of inadequacy, searching for meaning). We follow Webster down the false leads he chases to find this `thing', the true spirit of flamenco that he feels will answer his quest, all the time questioning his reasoning and motivations.

There have been some criticisms that this is not a very good book about flamenco. I don't think that it was intended to `write the book' about flamenco; rather, it is using flamenco as a medium to explore various themes. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been fortunate enough to see a live flamenco performance, but this book has made me interested enough to want to seek out more. And I would say that means it has done its job.

Jason Webster's first book about Spain and flamenco is a gorgeous first effort. It's a story about Webster's travels as flamenco student and touring guitar-player, his doomed loves and the impulsive choices, and living life on the margins of gypsy society. This well-written book is fresh, honest, and emotionally unkept. There are no neat endings or resolutions. But it hardly matters. What a book, what a ride!

A number of above readers have been critical about this book because it is not a definitive text on flamenco or duende (which as pointed out is a term subject to personal interpretation) or Gitanos, or anything else...it is just a collection of experiences of a young (and bright) Englishman who goes to Spain in the usual sense "to find himself". I personally found it very good, moves right along and even tho' I am also an aficionado, there were a couple of new things that I picked up. His comments on the so-called "nuevo flamenco" were right on (it's a big topic in Spain today) and even tho' he leaves out mention of some all-time "grandes figuras" his musical taste is his own and very honest. His descriptions of scenes down on the Costa Blanca (Alicante) almost had me in tears, having lived there for many years...

Jason Webster's a decent writer, but don't expect to learn much about flamenco here. Duende is a melodramatic account of an illicit love affair, drug abuse, car theft and life on the road with a 5th-rate band. There are far too many memoirs of this type already; do we really need another?

The good -- though extremely brief -- discography is one of the few segments of the book that's worth reading. In all, a huge diasppointment, especially given the publisher's claims of authenticity. Do yourself a favor: buy (or borrow) some flamenco CDs. They'll give you far more insight into the music than Webster's book ever will.

Interesting story about a young Englishman trying to fit into the world of flamenco. It seemed realistic and didn't idealize the lives of the musicians. It was easy to see why he got into drugs. The story kind of fizzled out at the end leaving the reader wondering what happened to the author. The elderly lady in Granada could have used more explanation. How did she know so many people and get around so much? I'd like to read a sequel.

I have been the Flamenco correspondent for Classical Guitar magazine for a decade, and for Guitar International for a decade before that; and everything Jason Webster says about Flamenco here seems to me absolutely accurate, with the piffling exception of a couple of misremembered names. (I think the Pedros Habichuela and Pinto should both be Pepes, but that could just be my ignorance).

But if your object is to find out about Flamenco, then this is not the book to read; the classic in that regard is Donn Pohren's The Art of Flamenco.

The present book is less about Flamenco than it is about the author, but I don't regard that as an obstacle. What is certain is that he is a born story-teller; and if his narrative ends up portraying him as rather self-centred, at least he has the grace to realise it and the honesty to admit it.

Jason Webster is not the first to have found life in the anglophone world empty, and to have sought its meaning in Flamenco. He is, however, the first (as far as I'm aware) to write such an account after the Spanish way of life changed so drastically (following the death of Franco).

If your budget will run to it, read Gerald Howson's The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay first, and then this. Both are unputdownable.

Being a Flamenco artist (painter) and dilitante Flamenco guitarist, I found this book to be interesting because of the subjet. The first part of the book was good reading,about a love affair with a married woman and things about Flamenco. Soon after, the author shows his true character, writing about the depravity of the Gypsies and himself. There are examples of unsavory people every where. Humanity is full of the good and bad where ever you look. The Gypsies have had there share of disdain. Why the author writes about the lowest class of Gypsies is unfortunate. The book should be called the journey into depravity. The author tries to illustrate that the Flamenco of the Gypay is souless and does not compare with the Flamenco of non Gypsy artists. Every example of Gypsy life is negative. Even if he write from true experiences, his motive seems to be one of hatered.
He is a dispicable person, using the excuse for taking drugs and robbing cars to become part of the Gypsy Flamenco world. Then, the first part of the book takes on true meaning, he runs around with a married women and portrays the husband as an idiot, showing his true character. The main problem with this book is the unwarented dipiction of the Gypsies as barbaric.
As a very talented population, such a negative picture is destructive.

My daughter bought me this book as she knows how much I love anything to do with Spain and Latin America, and, oh boy! did it deliver. It tells the story of the writer's experiences in the Flamenco underworld, with everything from a love story with a flamenco dancer to car chases and a real Gypsy wedding. I couldn't put it down, in fact I read it in just two days. Wow! The most exciting thing I've read in months.

This book is very interesting, but don't expect to find the real duende or understand flamenco any more than you might already, after all, it's not something that could be described in books anyway. Jason gives an excellent perspective of an outsider in relation to flamenco and how guiris like us relate to it, and that's the beauty of his story.

There aren't that many white boys and girls looking for the real stuff, that which is not sold at tablaos for foreigners. His encounters with people, his search for flamenco action, and his ultimate lessons about the culture of the gypsies and their invariable connection with flamenco make this book worthwhile.

This book is a very light read; it's entertaining, frustrating, sad and funny. But above all, it's one man's adventure, it's his diary, and being a devout fanatic of flamenco myself, I feel fortunate that someone as crazy about flamenco as I has shared his experience.