My Tango With Barbara Strozzi
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Review
'I urge anyone who thinks of arming or improving themselves with this year's Booker shortlist to tuck up instead with the collected works of Russell Hoban and a bottle of Glenfiddich. He is fun, shrewd, humane; and unique' Spectator 'Hoban is that rare bird: a writer whose voice is utterly his own. For my money, his wonderfully original novels will endure long after most current high flyers have hit the dust ... This is an eccentric, sharply observed, kind book. We need writers like Hoban' Salley Vickers, Independent 'My Tango With Barbara Strozzi is a haunting: exasperating, funny, sad and elegiac. Catch it before it disappears' Guardian 'A deceptively complex novel of ideas, about reality, identity and ontology, that is only masquerading as a sweetly simple boy meets girl story' Independent on Sunday
Review
'Hoban is the best sort of genius ... long indeed may he linger' Guardian 'Russell Hoban is unclassifiable ... he is an original; imaginative and inventive' Sunday Times 'Darkly funny' Daily Express 'Hoban's writing is always a delight - exhilarating and inventive ... a treat to read' Daily Mail
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Russell Hoban is probably incapable of writing badly. No matter what subject he tackles, he finds amusing if improbable new facets to it. This novel is a case in point. You might even regard it as a pot-boiler, but it's so well written and fascinating that it's hard to care. The protagonist, Phil Ockerman, is himself a novelist who has temporarily lost the thread. According to his ex-wife Mimi, his latest book "Hope of a Tree" is "a put-together thing trying to pass itself off as a novel". It would be unfair to say anything quite so strong about this book, but it certainly is eclectic and lacks a strong central theme.
Phil meets Bertha Strunk at a tango class for beginners, and is struck by her startling resemblance to the brilliant 17th-century Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi, whose best-known portrait adorns the cover. Strongly attracted to her, he soon learns that she is on the run from a violent husband - but there is much else that he still does not know. The book is told in the first person, with alternate chapters from Phil and Bertha's point of view, which provides an interesting stereo effect. Bertha is depicted as self-willed but attractive - fascinating, even - and the action revolves around the open question of whether she and Phil have a future together. Along the way we get plenty of banter as well as lashings of art, literature, music, a baseball bat, astrology, London, Paris, HMS Victory, artificial eyeballs, a serious brush with the law, and cleverly sustained sexual tension.
There! I've tried to avoid any actual spoilers, while telling you enough to tempt you. It's not great literature, but I expect you'll enjoy reading it.
Phil meets Bertha Strunk at a tango class for beginners, and is struck by her startling resemblance to the brilliant 17th-century Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi, whose best-known portrait adorns the cover. Strongly attracted to her, he soon learns that she is on the run from a violent husband - but there is much else that he still does not know. The book is told in the first person, with alternate chapters from Phil and Bertha's point of view, which provides an interesting stereo effect. Bertha is depicted as self-willed but attractive - fascinating, even - and the action revolves around the open question of whether she and Phil have a future together. Along the way we get plenty of banter as well as lashings of art, literature, music, a baseball bat, astrology, London, Paris, HMS Victory, artificial eyeballs, a serious brush with the law, and cleverly sustained sexual tension.
There! I've tried to avoid any actual spoilers, while telling you enough to tempt you. It's not great literature, but I expect you'll enjoy reading it.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Divorcee Phil Ockerman is a stagnant novelist whose search for inspiration leads him to seventeenth-century Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi, and from her to tango lessons at which he meets and woos Bertha Strunk, a painter of artificial eyeballs with a history of bad choices in men.
But to describe the plot of a Russell Hoban novel is to miss the trees for the wood. The interest, humour and richness arise in the ramifying details. As usual in Hoban's 'London novels', the characters are arty types who encounter one another while standing in galleries, and whose stories link on lightly from those of characters in previous novels. As usual, the narration flits between protagonists and unlikely loves arise and fall, expressed and understood in the texture of the world around them. A more satisfying affair than his previous novel, "Linger Awhile" (the frequent critiques of Phil Ockerman's previous novel herein may be a wry jest at the author's own expense), this is a funny and thoughtful exploration of what two people can be to each other.
(Hoban died in December 2011 incidentally, and I think he only wrote one more after this, "Angelica Lost and Found".)
But to describe the plot of a Russell Hoban novel is to miss the trees for the wood. The interest, humour and richness arise in the ramifying details. As usual in Hoban's 'London novels', the characters are arty types who encounter one another while standing in galleries, and whose stories link on lightly from those of characters in previous novels. As usual, the narration flits between protagonists and unlikely loves arise and fall, expressed and understood in the texture of the world around them. A more satisfying affair than his previous novel, "Linger Awhile" (the frequent critiques of Phil Ockerman's previous novel herein may be a wry jest at the author's own expense), this is a funny and thoughtful exploration of what two people can be to each other.
(Hoban died in December 2011 incidentally, and I think he only wrote one more after this, "Angelica Lost and Found".)
Format:Paperback
Any new book by Mr Hoban is a treat for the discriminate reader. It's like entering a well known world , nearly minimalistic in its elements : a guy , a girl , the streets and subways of London , and an invisible design of destiny that speaks with subtle signs , omens, clues , hints and mirrored images. Subtle humor and always , always , always a benign , reassuring and skillful navigation through the complexity of human feelings into the safe harbour of the fulfilled destiny. Mr Hoban's books are apotropaic , healing , reassuring , kindly and benefical. He's a real gentle,natural master.
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