Duende

A young British academic regales us of when he left his life behind and went to Spain in search of Duende - the intense emotional state that enraptures a crowd in a performance, and is most commonly associated with flamenco.

Another ‘read it on holiday’ book which added a lot of colour to my trip to Andalusia. After Gerald Brenan¹ this was more like reading an adventure novel at times but it was interesting to see the echoes of what Brenan experienced still there 80 years later, albeit in different parts of the country.

I found Webster’s flowery prose and way of telling stories often captivating and easy to read, but also at times difficult to actually believe. His obsession with learning flamenco guitar takes him to a life of dangerous love affairs, crime and drugs - it’s just completely nuts. At one point he ends up stealing a car and getting into a chase with the police. I think it’s just the way it’s written but it reads like fiction.

One of the strengths of the book is its focus on people, but again the more he talks about them the more they read like characters in a novel.

You have to sift through the nonsense here to get to the gold, and there are little nuggets in Duende, but unfortunately I found it a little too over-written and superficial for me to recommend it.