Customer Reviews

The Spanish Bow

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've gained a certain appreciation for novels from Spain recently, though they have to be translated into English for me to read them I'm afraid. I enjoyed the Shadow of the Wind, and I'm a big fan of Arturo Perez-Reverte. So when someone handed me this advance copy of this book, I approached it with high expectations. Those expectations were fulfilled: this is a wonderful, intelligent, unusual first novel, with a fascinating cast of characters, a strange plot, and interesting settings.



The main character starts out being misnamed. His mother wanted to call him Feliz, but the notary wound up writing Feliu instead. He grows, and at an early age, when his father dies in Cuba (then a Spanish colony, soon to be liberated by the U.S.) the mother receives a box of gifts from the dead father, and distributes them among the children. Feliu winds up with a bow, the thing you draw across the strings of a violin or a cello to make music. When an adolescent, his Catalonian village is visited by a pianist who performs. Justo Al-Cerraz is a child prodigy who's grown up, and still performs around the country. When Justo visits the village, Feliu is playing the violin, trying to learn it, but one of Justo's trio-mates is a cellist, and that puts Feliu into sort of a trance where he feels he must play only that instrument. He winds up going to Barcelona to learn.



From there the novel takes many turns, with Justo and Feliu eventually becoming partners, then meeting up with a third player, a violinist who's an Italian Jew. By now, the plot has worked its way forward to the thirties, and the inevitable confrontation between the Nazis and the main characters comes very much at the end of the book. While the plot's important to the book, and the ending is fascinating, it's the journey that's the most enthralling thing about this book. The author enfolds you in the world of music in the 20s and 30s, and does a wonderful job of recreating what it's like to be a musician, at least from the point of view of the traveling, performing, and working.



I really enjoyed this book. The characters especially are very well-drawn and interesting, and the story is fascinating. I would recommend it to almost anyone interested in the period, in music, or interested in novels about life.

Feliu Anibal Delargo's mother's first words after he was born were, "Let him cry...It's the most beautiful music in the world." His father dies when this boy is quite young but leaves his son a out-sized cello bow, a source of pride for Feliu. But oh, how his world is transformed when he hears two famous musicians play at a local concert. One he admires and one he wants to literally become because the vibrational beauty of that music has touched something essential in this boy's musical sensitivity.
In 1907 Feliu travels to Barcelona, Spain for the beginning of his music lessons. From that point on the book seems to fly as Delargo learns at the hands of two formidable music masters. So talented is he that he for a short time becomes the favorite musician and friend of Spain's Queen, is befriended by a famous Spanish pianist and adores a young Jewish-Italian violinist woman searching for her lost daughter.

The plot thickens with history and its consequent chaos, ranging from Spain's war in Morocco all the way through to Hitler and Goebbel's desire for fine music. Feliu throughout it all rejects the use of art through music for political or romantic purposes, and the surprise ending of this novel makes the reader realize just how potent and poignant such a choice was in reality.

The Spanish Bow is a beautifully written, sensual, sensitive, passionate, poetic, epic story that will make the reader want to listen to beautiful classical music and canvas the world of music to learn more about its classical musicians.

Just lovely, Andromeda Romano-Lax!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on September 12, 2007

Sometimes, fiction is so well researched and so well written that you have to remind yourself it's fiction. That's the case with The Spanish Bow. I started reading the book, and then when I hit the end of the fifth chapter realized more time had gone by than I had planned on. I had to get back to work!

Reluctantly, I put it down. But then a thought struck me. Why was someone named Andromeda writing an autobiography of a person named Feliu DeLargo? Puzzled, I turned to the inside jacket cover only to remind myself of what I had already known. It was, indeed, fiction.

The story begins with the birth of Feliu, who entered the world backwards and was initially mistaken for stillborn. That troubled birth foreshadows other events that would unfold in his native Spain and beyond.

One reason this story seemed so real is the characters are well developed. For example, each character has a unique way of speaking. When an author does dialogue well, you can tell who is talking just by reading what was said. It wasn't long before I was able to follow the dialogue that way.

The characters also have their individual quirks, their personal demons, their own agendas, and their own world views. As befitting good fiction, these had areas of overlap and of conflict. If Romano-Lax didn't develop a detailed profile or back story on each of the characters, I would be surprised.

Watching these characters interact in a messy, true to life way made the story real and engaging. That realness, and the complete departure from the formulaic writing that characterizes most of today's fiction releases, made it easy for me to ignore this book's size. The story takes up 541 pages, and every one of them just whizzes by. In fact, I started this book Monday at lunch and finished it on Thursday at lunch. With the typical book half that size, I normally take longer.

Why so many pages? It's an epic tale, which means it takes place across a stretch of time. In this case, about 50 years. The story takes us from the Spanish-American War through the Great War and on through the political, economic, and social upheaval that eventually broke out into WWII.

During the time leading up to WWII, Feliu and his longtime friend (and antagonist) Justo Al-Cerra form a trio with Aviva, who is a young woman searching for the baby she was forced to give up for adoption. Her search is the basis for a double-twist ending, which was surprising but entirely plausible. The relationship between Feliu and Justo is complex, and it matures as the story progresses. For much of the story, Feliu resists being manipulated by Justo. The chess game between them is intriguing.

Feliu, who struggled with his self perception of being weak, decided to take a political stand as he was approaching middle age. The result was disastrous, and it created a lengthy rift between him and Justo. That rift would not heal until many years later. After it does, the chess game of manipulation and resistance picks up again, but with more intensity and complexity than ever because Aviva is a third player and Feliu has grown in the interim.

The story, like its characters, has its moments of humor and its moments of sorrow. And sometimes, as in life, the moments mix together. This sophisticated "scene painting" is rare in first novels, because it's hard to do well. Andromeda-Lax seems to have a knack for it.

One way to sink a book is to fill it with factual errors. This is one reason you read about authors who visit the settings they write about, interview subject matter experts such as doctors or police,

Romano-Lax gets the details right when bringing the reader into contact with one historical figure or occurrence after another. The historical accuracy adds greatly to the value of the book and the enjoyment a discerning reader can derive from it.

So, where does the Spanish Bow come in? The main characters, Feliu and Justo, were born in Spain. Feliu's father bequeathed gifts to his children, and one of those was a cello bow. Feliu's mother allowed the children, beginning with Feliu, to choose which one item they wanted. Feliu chose the bow, and that choice formed the basis for all that would follow. What follows is a page-turning epic you'll find hard to put down until you've finished reading it.

This novel, inspired by or loosely based on the life of Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, starts brilliantly with an evocation of a young, fatherless child in a poor Spanish village in the late 19th century. I found the opening chapters quite riveting. The setting was brilliant, and the boy's character and his family were convincingly conveyed.

The boy tries to learn the violin but an early experience withe the cello transports him to another place. He realizes there is a special bond between him and the instrument and that playing it will become his life's work. He and his mother move to Barcelona to begin lessons and he's later sponsored by the Spanish royal family in Madrid. he begins to rise through the ranks, touring Spain, France and eventually the world as part of a trio, then a duo and finally as a soloist.

Somewhere along the line, unfortunately, the author lost me. The characters, which breathed life in the early pages, turn into cardboard caricatures. Their predicaments failed to move me. Then, in the ultimate exploitative gesture, the author throws in a doomed love affair and the Holocaust.

At this point, I totally lost my appetite for the book.

The author has some talent and great ambition. In her next novel, she should try to make them match.

Readers are well served by this author's choice of the life of Pablo Casals as inspiration for her debut novel. Journalist Romano-Lax is a cellist herself, thus her love of and passion for music is evident in her narrative as we meet six-year-old Feliu Delargo who lives in a small Catalan village, Campo Seco. He accompanies his mother to the train station to pick up a box sent to them by his father who lost his life in an explosion just before the Spanish-American War.

The box contained gifts his father had gathered on his travels and Feliu was allowed to choose which he wanted. He chose a "glossy brown stick," a bow which would determine the course of his life. There is not a cello in his village, only a piano and a violin which is too small for the bow. When at last Feliu attends a concert and hears a cell, he "never looked at the violin or piano again."

When he was 14 his mother took him to Barcelona where he was able to study the cello, and from there he earned a position at the Spanish court in Madrid where he continued to learn. When it became necessary for him to leave the court he joined forces with former piano prodigy JustoAl-Cerraz. Although poles apart in personality the two wouldl play together for 25 years as the world was torn by war. The pair were eventually joined by a beautiful Italian violinist, Aviva, who aroused feelings in both of the men.

Romano-Lax traces the course of history between 1892 and 1940 as she imagines the lives of her fictional characters. Those with an interest in classical music and Spain will be especially intrigued by this journey.

- Gail Cooke

I'm about halfway through The Spanish Bow and I am enjoying it so much that I felt compelled to share my opinion before even finishing this novel. It's the perfect pace, moving quickly enough that you never get bored but slowly enough that the characters are well-developed.

I've enjoyed quite a few historical fiction novels, but I've also seen bad ones. Many times the historical part weighs down the story, but in this case I never felt that to be true. I don't have a lot of knowledge of Spanish history or politics, but after reading this novel I would like to learn more. When a work of historical fiction pushes a reader to search out non-fiction accounts, I think that is a mark of success. The story is told through the life of Feliu, a boy who is destined to become a cellist after receiving a bow from his father, who has died in Cuba. The story follows him as he grows from an innocent boy into a not-so innocent adult and an accomplished musician. It's the perfect blend between intrigue and music, and thoroughly entertaining.

I read this novel on a recommendation from Booksontheknob - it was listed as a bargain. Sometimes the free/cheap books are worth what you pay for, sometimes not. The Spanish Bow was definitely worth the $.93 that Amazon is charging for it, and I would read other novels by the author even at non-bargain prices.

This author wrote a book about the Sea of Cortez, following in the footsteps of John Steinbeck. I enjoyed the book, and went looking for some more of her work. I happened upon "The Spanish Bow", and loved it. She has managed to write a compelling story that is unique and almost feels like a biography. I liked the book so much I emailed her, and she answered! She said she originally started to write a biography of Pablo Casals, but then branched out into a novel of fiction. The result is excellent.

Can art save us from ourselves? In her elegant debut, THE SPANISH BOW, Ms Romano-Lax ponders this timeless question through the ambitious tale of Feliu Delargo, a gifted cellist born in turn-of-the-century Spain who receives the unexpected gift of a bow from his dead father and sets himself on a resolute path to mastering his craft. His journey takes him from performing in the defiant streets of Barcelona to the confidences of the queen of Spain and a tumultuous partnership with flamboyant pianist Justo Al-Cerraz, who introduces Feliu to the rigors and joys of life as an itinerant musician as well as the eventual deception of fame. As civil war decimates his homeland and fascism spreads across Europe, Feliu finds himself increasingly conflicted over the relevance of music in a crumbling world--until he meets Aviva, an Italian violinist whose inexorable quest to redeem her past plunges Feliu into destructive rivalry and ultimate sacrifice. From the hypocrisies of the courts of Madrid to the terror of Nazi-occupied Paris, Romano-Lax weaves the upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century into an elegy to the simultaneous power and impotency of art, and the contradictions of the human spirit. (This review was first published by The Historical Novels Review)

I initially picked this book up from the library and enjoyed it so thoroughly that I bought one for me as well as one for our son. He loves classical music but usually not novels about classical musicians. He's been as entranced by the book as I was.

I spent my sophomore year of college in Valencia Spain in 1973-1974, when Francisco Franco was still at least nominally in power. Ms. Romano-Lax captures the feel of Spain in a more limited scope than Michener did in Iberia, but just as true to the culture. I loved her use of the Spanish language for a few concepts that can't be captured in English. Other reviews here summarize the story line well. I hope Ms. Romano-Lax continues her fictional pursuits. She's found her calling.

I picked this book up at the library before traveling to Spain. I read it while I was there. Those facts have nothing to do with the very positive nature of this review.

I am a historian by passion.

A good book is many things. It will have a time frame to reference and become familiar with, it will have characters who will be so real that you care about them too much and it will be more, so much more than the historical time frame that those characters inhabit. "War and Peace" fulfills these criteria and so does "The Spanish Bow". "The Spanish Bow" is all of these things and so much more. In certain ways I liken this book to "Kite Runner" in it's emotional impact as you move along and it is full of surprises. From the beginning where you laugh to the end where you weep the journey is well worth taking. The Barcelona scenes were just wonderfully written. It's evocation of the Spanish Civil War is masterful as it describes a country and society in free fall. So much detail and so little time to write about it all. The pursuit of the love triangle is simply delicious. Who will win? Who deserves to? If they succeed is their happiness assured? A first book I see... A tour de force for all of that.