My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

by Russell Hoban

Phil Ockerman has fallen hard for Bertha Strunk after meeting her at a tango lesson held in a church crypt. Phil and Bertha are each recently separated, and both their Suns are squared by Neptune. Bertha also bears a strong resemblance to the 17th-century Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi€”with whom Phil happens to be obsessed€”to the point where Phil is no longer sure where Barbara stops and Bertha begins. On their first serious date, Phil and Barbara watch The Rainmaker, a tale of a battered wife and the murder of an ex-husband. Phil begins to suspect as to whether Barbara€™s choice of film is entirely innocent, however, when afterwards he finds himself carrying around a potential murder weapon. Navigating several subway lines and considerable planetary activity, this intriguing romance tangos its way through a world of infidelity, artificial eyeballs, baseball bats, and music without missing a daring, seductive s

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Russell Conwell Hoban was an American expatriate writer. His works span many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magical realism, poetry, and children's books. He lived in London, England, from 1969 until his death. (Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Berengaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

short review for busy readers: a metafictional tale of a lonely male writer who meets a woman at a tango course whose facial features immediately put him in mind of the Renaissance composer Barbara Strozzi, who he's hot for. The literary equivalent of collage art made from pics cut from magazines, the novel is about how these two fall into a romantic relationship. Largely plotless, full of bizarre coincidences and actions. Fast read, some funny lines, very much down to taste.

in detail:
My Personal Pet Peeves that Russell Hoban uses in this novel:

a) English characters speaking in American English, aka no, it's not a baby carriage, it's a pram and no, you bloody well don't have a driver's license, you have a driving licence! British English is gorgeous- USE IT! (vice versa bothers me, too, just to be fair)

b) a strange double-edged view of women: on one side respectful, on the other blatant sexualisation and objectification. Example: treating rape as "just another quirky thing that happened in this quirky novel, ha ha!" but domestic abuse is somehow unforgivable.

c) pointless scenes where the character goes on an outing to a real place for no real reason and we get a journalistic travelogue of it, who knows why. (Nice that you got to visit the HMS Victory at Portsmouth, Russell, and wrote a blow-by-blow account of your experience, but why is it in the novel??)

d) an author throwing random facts, hobbies, personalities and the kitchen sink into a narrative simply because they find them interesting, not because they fit the story. Rather like a little kid running up to show you the pretty rock it just found and expecting you to be equally amazed.


Again, like I said in my reviews of BS Johnson's two novels, Hoban does some very interesting technical stylistics and literary acrobatics, no complaints there...but what content and details he chooses to fill the story with is eyebrow raising.

Not as eyebrow raising as Johnson, but in the same postal code. Except Hoban was the far better writer of the two.

Something surprising Hoban does in this novel is include what must have been critique of his own novels as critique of the novels of his fictional alter ego Phil Ockerman. Here are some of them....

'Actually, Hope of a Tree had quite a few good things in it. You can’t expect strong plots from Ockerman, his novels are mainly character-driven.’ (Yes, for this one and Riddley Walker )

'(This novel)...does not develop organically from its original impulse; it’s a put-together thing trying to pass itself off as a novel.' (Hell yes, for both this novel and Riddley)

'I think you may be running out of ideas' (what Hoban's fans said at the end of his career)

Funny lines:
(Said to ex-wife while she's leaving) ‘Please,’ I said, ‘be a stranger.’
'I was in Cowcross Street but there were no cows crossing.'

And the best line of the entire novel: 'I’m only forty but I’ve got November inside me with grey skies, rain, brown leaves and bare black trees.'

Don't think I'll be reading any more Hoban.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Failing writer goes to tango lessons and meets the love of his life, he just doesn't know it yet.

Resting artist goes to tango lessons and meets the love of her life, she just doesn't know it yet.

A whimsical love story full of quirky and flawed characters and implausible meetings which nonetheless gels together. I am normally infuriated when huge coincidences occur to move a plotline along. Here they happen often but somehow it seems natural.

As with many of his other books Hoban also shows us arcane corners of history and culture. I love this. Besides Barbara Strozzi my favourite mention is Victor Noir, a tragic French poet, whose tomb is an unlikely Parisian fertility aid.

Not a must read book but well worth a try if you are into Hoban.

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barbara Strozzi Redux
A review of the Bloomsbury Paperbacks eBook (June 18, 2012) of the Bloomsbury Publications Ltd. hardcover original (2007).

I decided to do some re-reads of my Russell Hobans after GR friend Berengaria's recent reviews of Riddley Walker (2 stars) and My Tango with Barbara Strozzi (3 stars). Hoban (1925-2011) was an American-English author whose most popular works are his Frances the Badger (1960-2010) series for children. Of his novels for adults, the post-apocalyptic Riddley Walker is the best known, followed by Turtle Diary (1975) which was adapted as the same-titled film (1985) starring Ben Kingsley and Glenda Jackson. I read a considerable number of Hoban's works in my pre-GR and pre-reviewing days. I did write a memorial for one of my copies of Turtle Diary when it was damaged due to a water leak.

I'm unlikely to change my opinion of Riddley Walker (5 stars), but I do have to agree with Berengaria about My Tango... which is only moderately amusing in its fantasy world of unlikely coincidences, where sometime novelist Phil Ockerman has various on and off encounters with dance partner Bertha Strunk, a lookalike for the baroque-era composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677).

My Tango... is a a late work, and certain nods to the reader do make you think that Hoban is borrowing several aspects from his own life for its plot. There is the American ex-patriot who has lived in England for several years (as Hoban did after 1969), there is the failed marriage to a first wife (as Hoban had with Lillian Hoban, the illustrator for many of the Frances books) and the deprecatory comments about his novel (although Ockerman has apparently published only a single book called Hope of a Tree, compared to the prolific Hoban).

It still merited a 3-star like from me.

Soundtrack
Various tango recordings are mentioned in the novel, one of the first being the classic La Cumparsita performed by Juan D’Arienzo y su Orquesta Tipica, which you can see and hear on YouTube here.

You can listen to a selection of Barbara Strozzi's works at a YouTube playlist which begins here.

[Loyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Peter Gabriel's So album was released, and Sledgehammer hit the top of the charts, I had been a fan of Gabriel's for years, especially his more adventurous forays into world music and theatrical progressive rock. Sledgehammer felt more like a garden variety pop single, and I felt really let down at first. In hindsight, however, I grew to see it as one of Gabriel's finest hours.

Likewise, I'm a huge Russell Hoban fan, and even though I like My Tango With Barbara Strozzi, it feels a little warmed-over. Hoban is able to pull together an incredible array of disparate elements and somehow make a coherent story from them. Tango performs the same juggling act but parts of it feel like Hoban's done it before, especially borrowing from his own Turtle Diary. But even on a less-than-perfect-day, Hoban is still hands-down one of the brightest thinkers and humorists publishing right now. Maybe that's the rub; I'm so used to such a high level of originality from him, when he revisits familiar territory it somehow feels like a (minor) letdown.

Hoban sets the bar really high. Let's see how I feel about My Tango With Barbara Strozzi in a couple of years.

[Jayne Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure how to review this, really, given that a lot of the things that irritated me about it were cleared up by the ending, but I wouldn't want to give the ending away of course. It's an odd book, original for sure, and one where Tchaikovsky and Domino's Pizza can be happily namechecked on the same page. Mostly it read like Nick Hornby with a dash of Oscar Wilde, except that whoever was adding the Oscar Wilde forgot to say 'when'. I'm glad I read it, there were parts that were entertaining and parts that were highly informative, and the author writes extremely well. It was interesting, but to say I thoroughly enjoyed it would probably be going a bit too far.

[Ben Thurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Russell Hoban is one of my favourite authors, and My Tango with Barbara Strozzi is another little delight of metafictional play, offbeat humour and emotional turmoil.

Novelist, Phil Ockerman, forms an obsession with a painting of seventeenth-century Venetian composer, Barbara Strozzi, and then begins a relationship with Bertha Strunk, a woman he meets at tango lessons. Gradually, as their relationship undergoes a series of disturbing shifts and Bertha's violent ex-husband makes a return to the scene, reality and fantasy, fact and fiction, begin to merge both in Phil's mind and in the narrative voices of the novel.

One of the remarkable things for me, in Hoban's writing, is the way he manages to marry metafictional tactics of unsettling and indeterminacy with a warm human-ness in his story-telling.

Lovely.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy Russell Hoban's voice and it is loud and clear in this, one of his late novels. Phil Ockerman, a failing novelist with a failing marriage and an addiction to astrology decides to learn the tango after falling in love with the voice of Barbara Strozzi. When he arrives, he is instantly attracted to a woman who is mysterious, probably dangerous and in a way he can't put his finger on, reminds him of Barbara. The plot is bonkers and the tone is knowing. It reminds me in some ways of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books.

[Ends of the Word · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book on impulse while on holiday, primarily because I was intrigued by the title's erudite reference to Venetian Baroque composer Barbara Strozzi. The 49p price tag helped as well. I have to confess I had never heard of Russell Hoban before and, blissfully unaware that he was a critically acclaimed author, I approached the novel without any specific expectations. It turned out to be an enjoyable, if flawed, rom-com romp.

Phil Ockerman is an author who has just been through a divorce and whose latest novel has fallen flat with critics and readers. To boost his morale he decides to start taking tango lessons in Clerkenwell. For reasons which are at best vague and at worst unconvincing, he believes that this will bring him in touch with the spirit of Strozzi, a composer with whom he is (for equally vague and unconvincing reasons) quite obsessed. Sure enough, at his first lesson Phil befriends Bertha Strunk, a young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Strozzi. Bertha however comes with her own baggage - including a violent ex-husband and an older lover who had once tried to rape her. Will love blossom in this unlikely scenario?

Frankly, the plot is unconvincing and the dual first-person narration (alternating between Phil and Bertha/Barbara) does not quite work, since the narrative voices are too similar. Yet the book is strangely gripping and worth reading at least for the quirky humour.

[Jason Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.)

[Terry Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this short entertaining novel by Russell Hoban that's the sixth of his books I've read now and have really enjoyed everyone so far. I like the way certain characters turn up in several different novels, it just turns out that the last novel I read by him called " Linger Awhile" preceded this one but I was unaware of that until i got in to this one, how lucky was that. Russell Hoban is very inventive, with a great imagination, and a wicked sense of humour not forgetting very naughty at times. I look forward to reading his next novel from my book pile.

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is a thought provoking novella, although it was nearly over by the time I started to get it. The hero, himself a writer, gets to know a girl at a Tango class in Clarkenwell and really thats about as far as the story goes. The vague search for what the characters are, what they want and whether the planetary alignments are auspicious is wry and interesting- once the penny drops

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An engaging, entertaining, clever, short novel narrated in alternative chapters by the two protagonists, Phil Ockerman and Bertha Strunk. Phil meets Bertha at a tango lesson and is smitten by her. She reminds him of a seventeenth century Venetian singer and composer, Barbara Strozzi. They have an intriguing romance that covers infidelity, artificial eyeballs, baseball bats, and London Underground train rides. Phil is a novelist whose books Bertha finds dull and boring. He is called in at the last minute to tutor a writing class and fulfills his contract, receiving mostly negative feedback from the students who attended. There are some pertinent, humorous comments about the art of writing a novel.

An easy to read, wacky novel with a mostly unpredictable plot.

This book was first published in 2007.

[Morgan McGuire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly disgusting. I stopped reading after the college student became the mistress of the professor who tried to rape her because she felt guilty for fighting him off and poking his eye out. All of the characters are this horrible, and the narrator is a major asshole from the first sentence on...it is hard to spend time with these people.

[Lainie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing compares to Hoban’s masterpiece, Riddley Walker.

[Irma Servatius · Rating 3 out of 5]

really meta. always love hoban's writing. this one just ended up a bit trite. i wasn't disappointed that the plot was basic, just a bit let-down at the lack of depth. definitely a fun quick read.

[Pat Morris-jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how to rate this book. I liked it and I hated it and by the end I loved it. It was a book club book and short. Plus a fellow book club reader said it was best he had read in a while. I don’t agree with last bit but I could see why he liked it. Strange book but curiously good, or ok, or something. Worth a read, maybe.

[Radiantfracture · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was playful but lacklustre, silly, and poorly observed.

In genre, this is something like Joseph Heller's _Picture This_.

I like that Hoban knots together his fictional world with literature, music, and art. Indeed, _Tango_ is mostly a catalogue of stuff he thinks is neat. There is a great deal of self-referentiality, but it feels empty of intent or effect, except that it creates moments of abrupt closure -- the narrative snapping shut on itself -- where it seems to me that openness would do the book more good.

The characters have no inner lives and no empathy: only quotations. This does not seem to be a depiction of, you know, Camusian anomie or information-age flattening of affect. It's more like it hadn't occurred to Hoban that humans have feelings. The portraits of the female characters are particularly crappy.

The reader slogs from set-piece to set-piece; it's like looking at a museum full of pictures set out haphazardly, uncurated, while trying to ignore a nagging backache you got from standing on the lousy concrete floor. You end up impatient rather than contemplative.

[Andrew Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in one day - one of the better recent Russell Hobans.

[Suzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Easy read but didn't grab me.

[Alistair Pyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was quite enjoying this but then it became all self referential towards the end which ruined it for me.

[Velvetink]

Library discard. 1 of 12 for $6.