Product Description

Having pursued a conventional enough path through school and university, Jason Webster was all set to enter the world of academe as a profession. But when his aloof Florentine girlfriend of some years dumped him unceremoniously, he found himself at a crossroads. Abandoning the world of libraries and the future he had always imagined for himself, he headed off instead for Spain in search of duende, the intense emotional state - part ecstasy, part desperation - so intrinsic to flamenco. DUENDE is an account of his years spent in Spain feeding his obsessive interest in flamenco: he subjects himself to the tyranny of his guitar teacher, practising for hours on end until his fingers bleed; he becomes involved in a passionate affair with Lola, a flamenco dancer (and older woman) married to the gun-toting Vicente, only to flee Alicante in fear of his life; in Madrid, he falls in with Gypsies and meets the imperious Jes?s. Joining their dislocated, cocaine-fuelled world, stealing cars by night and sleeping away the days in tawdry rooms, he finds himself spiralling self-destructively downwards. It is only when he arrives in Granada bruised and battered, after two years total immersion in the flamenco lifestyle that he is able to put his obsession into context. In the tradition of Laurie Lee's classic AS I WALKED OUT ONE MIDSUMMER MORNING, DUENDE charts a young man's emotional coming of age and offers real insight into the passionate essence of flamenco.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30277 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
Few things are more beguiling than the click of heels, the harsh but heartfelt voice and the often discordant sounds of the guitar overlaid with complex rhythmic handclaps. Flamenco, a noble tradition - the gypsy equivalent of the blues - has had something of a bad press, thanks to the watered-down tourist version and its denigration by Spaniards who despised the gypsies. But now tangos and alegr as have once more captured our imagination - in Spain and beyond - as witnessed by the number of flamenco acts that have toured recently. In Duende, Webster packs his guitar and travels to Spain to mend his broken heart and discover the essence of flamenco. He practises till his fingers bleed and indulges in the lifestyle that accompanies this mysterious - and quintessentially Spanish - art form.

Daily Mail, January 3, 2003
Ladies and Gentleman , we have a new star of the genre: Jason Webster.It's his first book. The night is young

Observer, January 5, 2003
His greatest achievement is to involve the reader so deeply...a pageturner.

Customer Reviews

Unputdownable
I see the Review Guidelines forbid to me to make remarks directed at other reviewers, so I won't.

What I will do is tell you that I have been the Flamenco correspondent for Classical Guitar magazine for a decade, and for Guitar International for a decade before that; and everything Jason Webster says about Flamenco here seems to me absolutely accurate, with the piffling exception of a couple of misremembered names. (I think the Pedros Habichuela and Pinto should both be Pepes, but that could just be my ignorance).

I agree that if your object is to find out about Flamenco, then this is not the book to read; the classic in that regard is Donn Pohren's The Art of Flamenco.

I also agree that the present book is less about Flamenco than it is about the author, but I don't regard that as an obstacle. What is certain is that he is a born story-teller; and if his narrative ends up portraying him as rather self-centred, at least he has the grace to realise it and the honesty to admit it.

Jason Webster is not the first to have found life in the anglophone world empty, and to have sought its meaning in Flamenco. He is, however, the first (as far as I'm aware) to write such an account after the Spanish way of life changed so drastically (following the death of Franco).

If your budget will run to it, read Gerald Howson's The Flamencos of Cádiz Bay first, and then this. Both are unputdownable.

a beautiful, sustained metaphor
I first heard parts of Duende being read on BBC Radio 4 and was at once struck by Webster's fabulously evocative descriptions. Since many of my favourite musicians (Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Toumani Diabate, Souad Massi) have experimented with Flamenco, I decided it was time I found out more about it. And I was not to be disappointed: as well as being a thumping good read, this book proved a fascinating and informative introduction to the world of Flamenco.

What I had not anticipated is the subtext that runs through and links together Webster's narrative. I expected a travel book, but the book I read was the story of one man's search for a subtle, elusive essence - equated here with the Flamenco's 'Duende'. And there is something almost archetypal about this quest: each time Webster thinks he has found what he is looking for, it slips yet again through his fingers. He glimpses it in his teacher Juan's exquisite musical craftsmanship, but finds it won't yield to his obsessive, repetitive practising. He glimpses it in the heady world of emotional intensities that his married lover Lola opens to him, but finds ultimately that he is being used. He glimpses it in the carefree, amoral Flamenco lifestyle of the Madrid gypsies he is desperate to be accepted by, but finds himself with only a burgeoning cocaine habit, some close shaves with the police and a squalid shared apartment. Each time, his understanding of Duende is pushed further as it recedes from his grasp - revealing it to be deeper, subtler and more intricately faceted than he had previously imagined.

And it is this, not the convenient 'hanger' of Flamenco, that this book seems to be about - it is an ingenious, sustained metaphor for a kind of spiritual search. This is reinforced in the last part of the book, where Webster meets 'Grace' - an older, somewhat eccentric Englishwoman who enables him to put his previous experiences into perspective. Indeed, the whole story is bracketed between his experiences with two remarkable people, his friend Pedro at the beginning and Grace at the end, who both - although Webster doesn't mention this - have clearly been influenced by the contemporary expression of Sufi ideas. There are abundant clues to this, from Pedro - the professor of Classical Arabic - who whisks him into a church after a nasty experience, giving him an Arabic verse to recite to 'cleanse' him, through to Grace's ability to "say exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment, connecting with something in me". And Webster, the student of mediaeval Arabic literature, is keen to emphasize the connection between Flamenco and the Sufic culture of Moorish Spain through numerous references scattered through the text, like his attribution of the Flameco's exclamation 'Olé' to the Arab 'Wallah!'.

Duende may not be a satisfying read from an afficionado's point of view - I'm sure that testy Flamenco enthusiasts will find much to quibble with here. However, as a green outsider, I certainly came away with a much better grasp of what this music is all about: what a Bulería is, or who Camarón was, or how a Flamenco guitar is made. But it is as a powerful, poetic allegory that this book made its deepest impression on me. And I think that it is those who are searching for something more in life - without knowing what quite it is - who will appreciate it most.

Actually, it's a great book
It's rare to come across a book that captures the excitement and loneliness of travel and living in a foreign culture as well as this. Not only is it well written, with pace and pathos, but it also depicts a contradictory Spain in social transition, and those who remain firmly on its margins. The book depicts the passionate desperation to fit in with the essence of those who, on the face of it, one only has a passing similarity to. Yes it's partly about adolescence and being young - but that's part of the point. However, despite being about real themes this book is light, readable and often funny.