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My Tango with Barbara Strozzi | 
 enlarge | Author: Russell Hoban
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £5.99
You Save: £2.00 (25%)
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1656437
Media: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 0747592713
EAN: 9780747592716
ASIN: 0747592713
Publication Date: November 17, 2008 (In 113 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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| Customer Reviews:
Vastly entertaining, well written, but desultory June 21, 2008
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, artifical 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.
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