| Title | : | Twelve minutes of love : a tango story |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 184627284X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781846272844 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 324 |
| Publication | : | First published July 15, 2011 |
Twelve minutes of love : a tango story Reviews
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Ех, както не съм танцувална хич, тази книга отприщи в мен нещо, което чак ме накара да проверя къде наоколо има танго-школи за absolute beginners.
Една история през очите на един необикновен танц. Не точно танц, т.е. не само танц, а много повече. Всичко повече. Търсене. Неоткриване. Любови. Раздели. Осъзнаване. Загубване. Намиране. И много повече.
Напоследък съм мн доволна, че попадам на смислени бг автори.
Не, шедьовър не е. Шедьовърът на авторката може би предстои. А може би вече се е случил (гледам, че има и други книги; не съм ги чела).
Но тази ме оставя с едно приятно и меланхолично усещане, че въпреки всичко преживяно и нараняващо, въпреки усилията да се намериш (или именно поради тях в крайна сметка), просто намирането в един момент (може би, евентуално) е постижимо. Или дори облекчаващо неизбежно.
Малко ми липсваше музиката докато четях. Но понеже нямам навика да поглеждам последната страница на книгите докато ги чета, ами - там е всичката музика, която някак ми трябваше в началото и която дори безмълвно звучи по време на историята... -
Tango! The passion, the intensity, the romance, the seduction, the pure escapism! From its dark beginnings with African slavery to the ghettos of Buenos Aires, to the salons of Europe one hundred years ago, tango, in its various forms, is now danced in dozens of different countries around the world and by people of many more nationalities. What is about this dance that captivates, seduces, and changes people's lives?
Kapka Kassabova has written a very personal and emotional account of her ten year love affair with tango. Kapka migrated from Bulgaria as a child with her family in the early 1990s to New Zealand. She grew up in New Zealand, loves her new country and the people she meets, but you get the feeling that there is always something missing, as if she has still not found her place, her niche. Already a published author when this book begins, Kapka one day finds herself wandering into a cafe in Auckland during tango night. Immediately hooked, completely smitten and overtaken by tango bug, it seems that everything else in her life for the next ten years takes a very distant more than second place.
Which gives us the most intimate and personal insight into the heart and soul of this beautifully talented writer. In the material consumer-oriented world we live in, our busy lives running us ragged - jobs, family, relationships, children, etc etc, there is something almost ethereal, something very basic and fundamental about such a passion for a dance form that seems to reach very deeply inside us all.
From Auckland to Buenos Aires, to Edinburgh, to Montevideo with return visits to BA and to Auckland in-between times, Kapka absorbs absolutely everything she possibly can about tango - the music, the moves, the history, the famous dancers and teachers, her partners, her lovers - until she finally reaches saturation point. And what a wonderful, rich, poignant, and incredibly personal account it is. Tango is like a drug - addictive, mind and soul altering, far reaching, almost unattainable and ever so scary. Read this, at your peril, and find yourself swept away into a whole new world. -
If you're interested in tango, if you've ever tried it, if you've ever been drawn to the inherent sadness and longing in tango, this book is for you.
Kassabova takes the reader on a very personal journey from desire, longing, grieving and freedom all told through her own obsession with tango. In between, you get a bit of tango's history and an introduction to not only the music but also the dance; the secadas, giros and ochos (I ended up looking up a lot of these steps on YouTube, I just had to see it properly).
This book isn't just about the history of the dance, it's not fiction either. I think you have to be interested in tango in order to enjoy it, and even then, as with so many personal stories, I sometimes found the author a little annoying.
Ultimately, I really liked the insight into tango in different parts of the world, and the vast array of people you meet (even though the tango world is apparently a small world). -
Probably 3.5 stars.
I wanted to really love this book, and to begin with I did. It transported me to a world of tango, which I obsess about learning, and I played album after album of tango music on my iPod as I began reading. And at the start I thought it was going to be a solid 5 star read for me. I loved the opening descriptions of the tango, the different steps, the milongas and in my mind I was there, dancing alongside her.
It is also a book about finding ones place in the world, which I can really relate to. And I do think that Kapka's writing is beautiful. I just found that I got a little bored as the book progressed. I think I wanted it to be more about the tango where it became more of a memoir about where she belonged and trying to find the right man. And I got impatient - I wanted more dance and more about the places she was in.
In some respects the love and despair undoubtedly plays a large part in tango, both as a dance and a lifestyle, so to be fair, my reaction is probably more about what I wanted the book to be. The writing is beautiful and she did completely reignite my desire to learn this wonderful dance, I think I just wanted the book to become more about the tango and less about the person. -
This book was ok.as a non-tango-er however I think it is aimed more at people who already love the dance.if you're not a dancer/tango lover you can pretty much skip from page 100 to the last chapter as ths middle bit of this book is quite repetitive.
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The title itself should have been warning enough, but what's done is done and mama didn't raise no quitter. It's a shortcut to loving tango, a crash course in its history and variations, full of shameless idealism and unreserved desire to dissolve without a trace in every new partner.
The novel is a mix of a travelogue and a memoir, which is broken into chapters by the number of (fairly similar) 'minutes': over the years Kapka keeps coming to Buenos Aires and Auckland, dancing the nights away or lamenting her inability to do so. Twelve minutes of love is a milonga of sorts, a carousel of faces, where the characters resemble random dancing partners. No one sticks around long enough to be remembered, but every new man is either made fun of or considered to be a contender for the makeshift award 'Tragic Love of the Year'.
The book reads well. Kassabova's style flows and is certainly much better than something she uttered during a Writer's Conference:Home ceases to be home when the door is removed. And the Berlin wall was the opposite of a door.
Profound. Still, I couldn't get away from the feeling that the book wasn't more than a contractual obligation, a novel on tango and travels, injected with a dozen references to Freud and Lacan and a few thoughts on self-imposed exile. -
Книга - этакий экскурс в мир танго для непосвященных. Узнала много о танго , много - относительно того, что раньше не знала вообще ничего, кроме музыки Пьяццоллы и фильма "уроки танго". Но вот что-о такое есть в стиле изложения, что не позволило книге стать чем-то большим, нежели просто заметки о танго. Несмотря на все жизненые перепитии героини и переживания касающиеся танго - все они проходят как-то вскользь, поверхностно, будто автор не доверяет читателю, не дает заглянуть глубже. Возможно это связано с тем, что автор пишет в основном для журналов - как раз на длинную журнальную статью или серию рассказов более всего и подходит этот танго-роман. Возможно еще не созрел в ней крупный литератор. В любом случае - не жаль проведенного с книгой времени. И, кстати, большого желания танцевать танго после прочтения не возникло.
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My first impression of the book was not positive. Being a tango dancer myself, I disliked the way she approached the dance even though I could recognise her superb writing skills. Only after a couple of chapter, when her approach to tango changed, it all started to resonate with my experience of tango. The tango journey is a long one and presents us dancers with many struggles and a quest to find ourselves through dance. I often felt like the author was putting my own experiences into words and love the ending in which everything falls into place after years of struggling for answers.
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Not right to categorize it as a great tango book, it's a great book all round. The story telling is captivating despite it being a travelogue at the same time. The addictive fascination with tango is entirely realistic (and real). I think it should be translated in more languages, can't guess why it hasn't been yet. The only reason I'm not giving the fifth star is that it felt like it lost steam toward the end. Maybe I am being harsh, some of the greatest books often suffer this. Nevertheless, a good (likely true) ending to the story.
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There's not much more you could want to know about tango after reading this book. It explains the history, the psychology, the romance, and the hard work and practice that goes into it, and it takes you along on tour with the author's whirlwind of her various lives and loves. Breathless reading!
the writing is simply superb, and after being born along by such a torrent of scintillating prose, I defy anyone not to get to the floor next time they hear the strains of an Argentinian accordion. -
La ridda di sentimenti che ruota intorno al mondo del tango e le sensazioni che si possono provare nei dodici minuti di durata di una "tanda" sono ben descritti in questa storia autobiografica in cui l'autrice racconta della sua iniziazione al tango argentino e della sua ossessione che la porterà a viaggiare per tutto il mondo sulle note dei maestri del tango. Rigorosamente per tango addicted!
⭐⭐⭐ -
Beautifully written book by a tango passionate, embarking the reader in the complete adventure and complex dramas of the learning, discovery, intricate stories and adventures over the whole globe of an eternal seeker for completeness and belonging. Any world citizen or uprooted individual with multiple cultural affiliations can retrieve himself/herself in this quest.
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I loved learning Tango but I only liked dancing with my wife as she understood most of my leads. The pressure of being responsible for the enjoyment of other partners was just too great.
I’m afraid this book was too long and repetitive in places and too much Freudian handwringing about the meaning of life. -
Може би защото ми отне две години да я прочета. Може би защото на моменти се губех в разказа. Може би защото това е книгата, с която най-малко се усетих свързана и потопена от четирите, които съм чела. Но знам, че искам да пробвам танго.
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Inspired to go take tango lessons
i know listen to Carlos Gardell
and learnt im not the only one searching -
Beautifully observed and beautifully crafted.
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Pokud milujete tanec, tak tahle kniha je pro vás. V knize je popsána láska k tangu.
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Have you ever danced at a Milonga? Do you know what a Gancho is? Ever had a Tangasm? If so, then it’s very likely you’re a Tango addict like Kapka Kassabova. If the answer’s no, then prepare to be informed, moved, seduced and entertained.
Kapka Kassabova is a wonderful poet and the author of a previous memoir, ‘Street without a Name’, about growing up in Communist Bulgaria. That story ends as the Kassabova family leave Bulgaria for the UK and New Zealand. When Twelve Minutes of Love opens, Kapka is a 27 year old New Zealander, with no sense of belonging anywhere, and a permanent sense of what the Portuguese call ‘Saudade’ - a state of longing, homesickness and displacement; the condition of the exile.
Straying into a club one evening to meet friends, Kapka hears Tango for the first time, watches a couple dance it, and becomes hooked. Tango was created in South America by exiles, displaced people living outside the fringes of society. It’s a hybrid, a sinuous, seductive mongrel - a music that was in perfect synchronicity with Kapka’s mood at the time.
Soon, she was discovering that there are tango relationships and other relationships and the two don’t always mix. The perfect partner in one life may have two left feet in the other. Kapka began travelling the world in search of tango - Auckland, Argentina, Berlin, Edinburgh, Marseilles - and the book describes her relationships and the extraordinary cast of characters she meets in what Kapka believes to be a search for new tango experiences, but which is in fact a search for who she is and where she belongs. And, yes, it does have a happy ending.
This is a beautifully crafted memoir that uses the structure of the music as a structure for the book. It’s a brilliant read and Kapka Kassabova obviously dances as well as she writes. I'm jealous! -
This seductive and intimate book describes the life of a tanguero. Fascinating descriptions of tango dancers and the tango community come to life with detailed explanations of what tango actually consists of.
''To the uninitiated, tango is just a dance, albeit a dance with an exotic and sensuous allure. To the true tanguero, it is something akin to a religion, attracting the lost, the lonely, and the fanatical with its formal rituals, its sense of belonging, and its intense emotions. Kapka Kassabova first set foot in a tango studio ten years ago and, from that moment, she was hooked. With the pulse of tango thrumming through her body and the music filling her head, she’s danced through the night, from Auckland to Edinburgh, from Berlin to Buenos Aires, suffering blisters and heart-break, as well as forging lasting friendships and experiencing all-too-brief moments of dance-floor ecstasy. Here Kapka takes us inside the esoteric night-time world of tango, to tell the story of the dance from its afro roots to its sequined apotheosis in 'show tango', exploring its cultural and emotional pull and enticing us to join her at the milonga.'' -
Kapka Kassabova takes us on a journey over time and across continents. But above all, a journey of her heart.
This mix of travel writing, personal experience and history is something that Kapka Kassabova has done before, and she's frankly brilliant at it. Bulgarian by birth, she was raised in New Zealand, and she winded up in Edinburgh.
A mix of conflicting emotions exists in Twelve Minutes of Love, in which the author details her decade-long obsession with tango, and travels the world in search of the perfect dancefloor embrace.
After her peripatetic upbringing, and never feeling at home anywhere, she is drawn to Buenos Aires, a capital city built by immigrants, with no deep inherent culture of its own, and with a rootlessness and melancholy mirrored in the tango.
At the latest, it is a story of obsession, a search for happiness, and a look at the ambivalence of the human psyche all in one. -
This is a most unusual book which is really what to expect from Kapka Kassabova. She is able to write about delicate and intensely emotional situations with a humour that is sometimes melancholy but adds to the effectiveness of the atmosphere. This describes a physical journey across the planet, since she is an excellent and very experienced travel writer, but it is much more a journey through the emotional discoveries of a perceptive and intelligent young woman . A lot of courage is needed for this journey but it is rewarded not only by ,one assumes, considerable proficiency at dancing tango, but also encounters with a variety of souls united only by their addiction to the dance and its unique atmosphere. Miss Kassabova is able to observe her own most private emotions and present them with unusual clarity. A most interesting read
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This is a travel guide of Tango. Kapka embarks on a ten year quest to 'find herself' on a journey around the Tango World Circuit. She travels from New Zealand, to Buenos Aires, to Berlin to Edinburgh. This is a story of obsession, a story of love - lost and found a story of lost souls in a transient world of Tango fanatics.
the writing is eloquent. The structure allows Kapka to describe the details of the dance without this being an instruction manual. At times I found the story became a little self indulgent but I think that was intentional. Overall the book inspired me to visit Buenos Aires, and to download the playlist given at the back of the book and to never get into the Tango scene. -
Отнасям се малко подозрително към автори, които пишат на различен от родния си език и после някой ги превежда. Разбира се, маркетингово погледнато това е чудесен ход в случая.
Книгата е ок,има някои прозрения, но като цяло не намирам да блести с кой знае какъв стил или оригиналност.
Това, което успя да направи е да запали интереса ми към тангото. Може би ако танцувах щеше да ми хареса повече. Има доста интересна информация за танца, неговата култура, специфика, история и география. Добра отправна точка. Лесна и приятна за четене. -
Обичам да слушам танго, но не и да го танцувам. Ако някой обаче може да обясни с истинска любов какво се крие и какво може да ни даде този полумистичен танц, това е Капка.
Светът на тангото - географски и емоционален - просто се носи из страниците, мно��о леко и красиво описан. И малцина са избраните и посветените в мистериите му. Малко нещо като култ, антидот срещу отровата на ежедневието и срещу всякакви мрачни сенки. Музика за душата и тялото. -
3 stars if you aren't into tango, it gets a bit melodramatic at times. 5 stars if you like tango. A good travel story that tells the history of tango as part of the authors journey through life. It goes into the music and culture as well as the dance. Gets a bit philosophical as well. If I knew Spanish I would have got more out of it.
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One of the most fascinating reads of the year. All about the dance, the passion and the search for the perfect tango. A must read.
