Customer Reviews

Tango: An Argentine Love Story

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this book proves the reverse
may also be true---words can be as richly evocative as any image.
TANGO's words march across the page like vivid snapshots. It takes
you deep inside the culture of the dance, of Buenos Aires, a very
Italian city, to exotic corners of Argentina, like Iguazu and
Patagonia, to gaucho country, and barrios (or neighborhoods) all over
Buenos Aires. It never lacks for some visual detail to keep your
kinesthetic interest--whether the author is describing tango dancers
in La Boca who dip their soles in paint and dance on a huge canvas or
what the exotic parts of Argentine cattle taste like or what her many
dance partners smell like--(be thankful it's not scratch-and-sniff).
Be prepared for every known sense and some not yet named to be
aroused when you read TANGO, a love story with many facets.

The book opens when life takes some unexpected turns, and the author
rises to the challenge. She packs up a few suitcases and with only a
bare bones plan, takes off for Buenos Aires, Tango Mecca, Paris of
South America, a city that never sleeps. Her love life has fallen
apart, the gauntlet is thrown. That's the bad news. It's also where
the good news starts. She shows how we all rise from the ashes, new
life is always on the bud. There are a thousand and one ways to
redeem ourselves. Just hop on the bus, Gus. Slip out the back, Jack.
Try a new dance, Lance.

TANGO is a story about sudden travel---not the carefully planned
sort--- to a foreign place literally and figuratively. That is,
sometimes that foreign place is our self. The author is never at a
loss for finding the hidden psychological/spiritual meaning in the
mundane: her residual Oedipal complex in a partner's torso, the
double meaning of tango's precept that we maintain our own "axis" in
tango. Everything goes many layers deep. Indeed tango is more than a
dance, it's a metaphor for everything in life, from internal conflict
to external peace.

TANGO, the "love" story, is occasionally about ordinary romance
between a man and woman; it has forays into sexual love as well as
Platonic idealized love with strangers you meet in a specially
designated place for tango, called a milonga, whom you may never see
again, who "come and go like ripples in a stream."

It is also about love beyond the conventional man/woman type. It's
about love in a community of people who share a passion, in this case
for a dance and its music, which have survived more than a hundred
years through much, including Argentina's last military dictatorship
prohibition of public gatherings. It is also about the kind of self
discovery and bliss that occur when you give yourself over completely
to anything that you love and that requires total presence.

The writing is an exercise in the glorification of the commonplace---
a rundown rickety old monastery, a dying cat, the milonga itself, all
play out poetically in the author's experience. For this reason, at
times it reads like a well-crafted novel.

But even the author admits that, after all, tango is just a dance and
she guides the reader to understanding that the rapture and bliss she
derives from tango is everyone's birthright: "Every `body' has got
tango," she writes. You don't have to know a thing about the dance to
enjoy this book. And if you do, you'll love it because it offers a
measure of one woman's multi-faceted experience and interpretation,
against which to measure your own or another's. There is so much to
ponder and take away---one of my favorite chapters is called Church
of Tango, one in which there is very little tango, but a lot to
contemplate.

TANGO is pure lyricism. Go learn a few steps in a class, but then
pick up TANGO and experience tango like you never have and never will
on a dance floor. Then, realize that all your life, every action,
reaction, interaction, is tango, a dance between two forces, two
polarities--the true currency of life. Savor it, savor it--just like
the dance---in total presence.

This book was a delicious read, well written and satisfying on many levels. For starters, it is my favorite kind of travel writing because it penetrates the underlying character of a place and its people, in this case Buenos Aires and the world of tango. But the book is also an absorbing story of the author's personal journey, one in which she heals her troubled soul/heart as she toggles between the pursuits of tango and zen meditation. Her exploration into these two mind-body disciplines and the bridge she finds between them is fascinating. Occasionally she tosses out nuggets of hard won wisdom that she extracts from both, but never takes herself too seriously. She is in fact quite funny with her self-deprecating humor. Yet when she talks of others she does so in a spirit of kindness and generosity.

This book is a very quick read, and I must say that it kept me wanting to read it all the way through. I loved every bit of the book that was about dancing and Buenos Aires. I absolutely love Argentina, and reading this book was like re-visiting my time there. On the downside, this book is the typical type of "memoir" that has recently become popular where someone has a unique experience, then decides to write about it (Eat, Pray, Love is the perfect example of this, and I thought that book was nearly worthless). I think there has to be some level of egotism involved to think that others would want to read about your experience, and that ego often shows up in an annoying sort of way in the book. As other reviewers pointed out, the author is a bit excessive in her self-praise. Clearly, she is a good dancer, but it would have been much more enjoyable to read if this part had been understated. I admit I don't know much about the whole Zen thing, but I always thought modesty was an important part of that way of thinking. The combination of these two (ego vs. Zen)makes for an incongruous narrative.

My three-star rating refers only to the book, and not my complaint here, but I also want to warn other customers that if you are buying this as a bargain book, you may not receive a book that looks very nice (important if you're buying it as a gift). This is probably the first time I've been disappointed in Amazon, but my book arrived looking like it had been buried in the dirt for awhile. The front and back cover had some kind of greasy dirty stuff all over, and the cover is peeling back from itself. Yes, sometimes you get what you pay for, but this book in no way seems new as it is supposed to be.

the 5- 5 star reviews of this book have got to be all five of the authors best friends. This book is two or three times longer than it has material. Verbose, self-indulgent, meandering, the author digresses as a constant literary style. How the lettuce was cut, the way in which her multiple lovers proclaimed her superiority in all things and appearances of life to any other person, the intricate details became punishing to the reader. Mr. Silverman's statement that he read it in two days must have been because he skimmed over most of the dull, wanna-be lurid details. It seems as if the book was either not edited at all, edited by the author herself (always so effective!) or edited by someone that owed the author a favor. Sadly, no favor was done for the book or the reader. If this review meanders, it is because I would like to demo the authors style.

As for credentials, I began yoga in 1963 at age 18, zen practice at 19, martial arts and dance 30 years (tango 5 years, having studied with many of the masters that the author refers to).

On the plus side, this had the potential to actually BE a VERY fine read. Probably 30-40 percent of the book is funny, intriguing and delightful to read. It really is like we are on a holiday with the author and having just as much fun as possible. If only someone had taken out the root-canal tedium. Not a re-buy for the author's other books. Get an editor!!!

A sizzling saga of romance, tango & sex ... penned with warm humour, born of heartbreak and despair. Honest, stylish & crisp writing comes from a developed inner-self, a writer with ever-more awareness; a mature woman of substance. Camille Cusumano has vision - not to mention kundalini-tango!

Cabaceos aside, the author gives a nod to her other passions, particularly yoga and zen, which she rightly weaves into a leminiscate with tango, as have other notable authors, of whom I recommend Johanna Siegmann : The Tao of Tango. "Tango, An Argentine Love Story", was written by a sexy, savvy & spirited lover of life, tango and men, whilst living in Buenos Aires. The author knows more than a thing or two about her pet subjects!

I have 50 books on tango and this is the best in its sub-genre, that of the travelogue/autobiography of a tango lover, confessing all, whilst living the life. This tasty tanguera, our Camille, has something to say that's worth listening to, and she spells it out with panache. Her book does what "Sixty, Sex & Tango" (and Joan Moran, its author) failed to do: it provides a riveting & fun read, on all of the subjects in its title - and more! Unlike Joan, Camille has a much broader range and is less self-congratulatory. She is also far more adept in her understanding, not least of political science - she can think for herself under the crushing weight of corporate media news manipulation - but especially of tango and spiritual development.

Reading these 300+ pages was an utter pleasure. I too love tango and am fascinated by interweaving it with zen, dao and tantra, for their cross-overs with tango are multifarious and profound. I laughed aloud along with Camille; I empathized with her and, I fell for her! Camille's appreciation of the finer things in life - and not least in tango - her fire and passion; her lust and her control, all
ease the way, to tempt the reader into losing herself within these steamy and sensuous scenes, described and coloured so aptly by the woman who lived them.

Camille Cusumano is as hot and, I imagine, just as watchable, as Radley Metzger's Camille! Camille 2000 (Extended Version) (Blu-ray) and without doubt as readable as the paranormal romance heroine of the same name in Tess Oliver's tome Camille This reviewer, this lover of Di Sarli and of intense, delicate & romantic tangos hopes for a chance to enjoy a Golden Age tanda with Camille one day.

Nights of passion exquisitely blended with spirituality. Who could ask for anything more! Anyone loving to dance, especially the tango, will vicariously experience the heights to which those primal feelings can ascend. Read it and see if that isn't true!

I bought this book to read on my fight to Buenos Aires for my "tango vacation". I found the book to be a charmingly written account of one woman's adventures in Buenos Aires, discovering herself in the world of Argentine tango. I actually met the author, Camille, at one of the milongas that I attended and found her to be very approachable and friendly. This book was the perfect read for my trip to Buenos Aires.

I've read half a dozen memoirs that could be called "My Tango Year in Buenos Aires." This (and "Long After Midnight in Nino Bien") are my favorites.

It's well-written, it's candid, it's bright, it's funny. It's part travelogue, part healing journey, part tango-love. There might be more rumination on letting go than some people might care for: it's my own opinion that tango doesn't offer much of a road to spiritual growth, even though it is more fun than anything I've ever tried, except of course, racquetball. I read this book in two days, and was sorry when it was over.

If you're not a dancer of Argentine tango now, you'll want to become one after reading this book. Ms.Cusamano takes on a odyssey through the bustling streets of Buenos Aires and deep into its many dark dance halls, teeming with people, all of them waiting with bated breath to attain the breathless "tango moments", those precious seconds when one transcends dance and enters a zen like trance where such things as time, gender, past and future seem to vaporize.

This is a deeply personal book, rich with profoundity, humor, and poignancy. The author is very brave to bear her soul to the reader showing a life that is full of great triumphs and glorious falls from grace. It reads more like a novel, except it's all true! Thank God!

While entertaining its own way this book is another memoir of a dancer who is swept up in the passion and uniqueness of the Buenos Aires culture. All of us who love dance and have been to Argentina could write a memoir exactly the same--all too many have. If this is your first memoir, read and enjoy. If this is number fourteen, spare yourself.