|
Richard Jernigan -> RE: Flamenco Literature (Apr. 1 2016 22:55:07)
|
I finished "The Wind Cried" night before last, and slept on my response for a couple of nights.
The book isn't long, 197 pages. It's out of print, the first place I found it was at Danzeffguitars.com, in hardback, $27.95 plus shipping--if pages per $ is important.
It is chiefly a memoir of Paul Hecht's time in Spain in the early 1960s. Hecht was thirty years old in 1957 when he made his first trip to Spain. He had studied Spanish at university and lived in Mexico for a while, so he was reasonably fluent in the language.
The book narrates Hecht's fascination with cante and the social phenomena of the peña as they were at the time, and their effect on his own struggle to overcome alienation and inhibition in order to become a writer.
He tells of his first serious contact with cante at the Peña Juan Breva of Malaga. His emphasis throughout the book is that the validity of a cante performance depends upon the cantaor's ability to access and convey with sincerity and purity the emotions of the palo and letras, and the reciprocal sincerity of the responses of a small group of listeners, maybe only one real aficionado among several listeners.
He finds in this experience something foreign to his own culture as an American academic from New York, and sets out to become an aficionado. We get an account of the journey over a period of several years.
Along the way we get several good character sketches of cantaores and aficionados, and penetrating observations of the culture composed of flamencos and of aficionados of all social classes, as it was in the early 1960s.
Hecht points out the forces of modernization in Spain at the time, which tended to destroy the culture he was bent upon joining.
The book is well written, and it engaged me. In only one chapter does Hecht emphasize his personal quest to overcome alienation and inhibition.
You won't get any technical info about cante or guitar, though these are among the main subjects. This is true of every book about flamenco I have read, addressed to a general readership.
The present edition came out in 1993, 25 years after the first edition. Hecht says he corrected a few factual errors, but did not otherwise update the main text. He added an epilogue, saying how things had changed in the intervening 25 years, and giving a warm sketch of his friendship with the family Peña of Lebrija. This family includes El Lebrijano, Pedro and Inés Bacan, and had connections with Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, as well as many other historical figures of the arte. He describes the personal stamp each member gives to palos from the family tradition.
There is an appendix of letras accompanied by Hecht´s translations. He says he is not well satisfied with the translations. The letras themselves may interest the reader.
All in all, I liked the book. I enjoyed the many character sketches, and Hecht's perceptions of how the society of flamencos and aficionados functioned. Hecht figures as a character in the book, as he must in a memoir. I found him sympathetic.
Whatever you may think of Hecht's quest for personal authenticity, it can't hurt to be reminded to pay attention to what we are trying to convey when we play, and whether we are making that connection, at least to some of the listeners.
RNJ
|
|
|
|
