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A review by devind9bde
In Search of Duende by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, Federico García Lorca
5.0
Lorca - that spine chilling Spanish genius - on duende...
“The difference between a good and a bad cantaor is that the first has duende, and the second never, ever achieves it.”
“Every man and every artist... climbs each step in the tower of his perfection by fighting his duende, not his angel... nor his muse.”
“All that has black sounds has duende.”
“The duende does not repeat himself, any more than do the forms of the sea during a squall.”
Duende... “A mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains.”
“There are neither maps nor exercises to help us find the duende. We only know that he burns the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry we have learned, that he smashes styles, that he leans on human pain with no consolation...”
“The duende’s arrival always means a radical change in forms.”
“The duende does not come at all unless he sees that death is possible.”
“Each art has a duende different in form and style, but their roots meet in the place where the black sounds come from - the essential, uncontrollable, quivering, common base of wood, sound, canvas, and word. Behind those black sounds, tenderly and intimately, live zephyrs, ants, volcanoes, and the huge night, straining its waist against the Milky Way.”
It speaks for itself.
“The difference between a good and a bad cantaor is that the first has duende, and the second never, ever achieves it.”
“Every man and every artist... climbs each step in the tower of his perfection by fighting his duende, not his angel... nor his muse.”
“All that has black sounds has duende.”
“The duende does not repeat himself, any more than do the forms of the sea during a squall.”
Duende... “A mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains.”
“There are neither maps nor exercises to help us find the duende. We only know that he burns the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry we have learned, that he smashes styles, that he leans on human pain with no consolation...”
“The duende’s arrival always means a radical change in forms.”
“The duende does not come at all unless he sees that death is possible.”
“Each art has a duende different in form and style, but their roots meet in the place where the black sounds come from - the essential, uncontrollable, quivering, common base of wood, sound, canvas, and word. Behind those black sounds, tenderly and intimately, live zephyrs, ants, volcanoes, and the huge night, straining its waist against the Milky Way.”
It speaks for itself.