The Spanish Bow

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Book Overview

"I was almost born Happy." So begins The Spanish Bow and the remarkable history of Feliu Delargo, who just misses being "Feliz" by a misunderstanding at his birth, which he barely survives.

The accidental bequest of a cello bow from his dead father sets Feliu on the course of becoming a musician, unlikely given his beginnings in a dusty village in Catalonia. When he is compelled to flee to anarchist Barcelona, his education in music,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156034093
• ISBN13: 9780156034098
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

wonderful experience

The Spanish Bow was a gift from a friend, and what an excellent choice! The characters are rich and deep, with the main character uniquely drawn from the musical elite. His relationships are strong and real and captured me from the start. This author's style is rich with visual images and true-to-life dialogue. A great read!

A total pleasure.

I initially picked this book up from the library and enjoyed it so thoroughly that I bought one for me as well as one for our son. He loves classical music but usually not novels about classical musicians. He's been as entranced by the book as I was. I spent my sophomore year of college in Valencia Spain in 1973-1974, when Francisco Franco was still at least nominally in power. Ms. Romano-Lax captures the feel of Spain in a more limited scope than Michener did in Iberia, but just as true to the culture. I loved her use of the Spanish language for a few concepts that can't be captured in English. Other reviews here summarize the story line well. I hope Ms. Romano-Lax continues her fictional pursuits. She's found her calling.

A good book is many things

I picked this book up at the library before traveling to Spain. I read it while I was there. Those facts have nothing to do with the very positive nature of this review. I am a historian by passion. A good book is many things. It will have a time frame to reference and become familiar with, it will have characters who will be so real that you care about them too much and it will be more, so much more than the historical time frame that those characters inhabit. "War and Peace" fulfills these criteria and so does "The Spanish Bow". "The Spanish Bow" is all of these things and so much more. In certain ways I liken this book to "Kite Runner" in it's emotional impact as you move along and it is full of surprises. From the beginning where you laugh to the end where you weep the journey is well worth taking. The Barcelona scenes were just wonderfully written. It's evocation of the Spanish Civil War is masterful as it describes a country and society in free fall. So much detail and so little time to write about it all. The pursuit of the love triangle is simply delicious. Who will win? Who deserves to? If they succeed is their happiness assured? A first book I see... A tour de force for all of that.

Fiction so good it feels real

Sometimes, fiction is so well researched and so well written that you have to remind yourself it's fiction. That's the case with The Spanish Bow. I started reading the book, and then when I hit the end of the fifth chapter realized more time had gone by than I had planned on. I had to get back to work! Reluctantly, I put it down. But then a thought struck me. Why was someone named Andromeda writing an autobiography of a person named Feliu DeLargo? Puzzled, I turned to the inside jacket cover only to remind myself of what I had already known. It was, indeed, fiction. The story begins with the birth of Feliu, who entered the world backwards and was initially mistaken for stillborn. That troubled birth foreshadows other events that would unfold in his native Spain and beyond. One reason this story seemed so real is the characters are well developed. For example, each character has a unique way of speaking. When an author does dialogue well, you can tell who is talking just by reading what was said. It wasn't long before I was able to follow the dialogue that way. The characters also have their individual quirks, their personal demons, their own agendas, and their own world views. As befitting good fiction, these had areas of overlap and of conflict. If Romano-Lax didn't develop a detailed profile or back story on each of the characters, I would be surprised. Watching these characters interact in a messy, true to life way made the story real and engaging. That realness, and the complete departure from the formulaic writing that characterizes most of today's fiction releases, made it easy for me to ignore this book's size. The story takes up 541 pages, and every one of them just whizzes by. In fact, I started this book Monday at lunch and finished it on Thursday at lunch. With the typical book half that size, I normally take longer. Why so many pages? It's an epic tale, which means it takes place across a stretch of time. In this case, about 50 years. The story takes us from the Spanish-American War through the Great War and on through the political, economic, and social upheaval that eventually broke out into WWII. During the time leading up to WWII, Feliu and his longtime friend (and antagonist) Justo Al-Cerra form a trio with Aviva, who is a young woman searching for the baby she was forced to give up for adoption. Her search is the basis for a double-twist ending, which was surprising but entirely plausible. The relationship between Feliu and Justo is complex, and it matures as the story progresses. For much of the story, Feliu resists being manipulated by Justo. The chess game between them is intriguing. Feliu, who struggled with his self perception of being weak, decided to take a political stand as he was approaching middle age. The result was disastrous, and it created a lengthy rift between him and Justo. That rift would not heal until many years later. After it does, the chess game of manipulation and resistance picks up again, but

Startlingly good

I've gained a certain appreciation for novels from Spain recently, though they have to be translated into English for me to read them I'm afraid. I enjoyed the Shadow of the Wind, and I'm a big fan of Arturo Perez-Reverte. So when someone handed me this advance copy of this book, I approached it with high expectations. Those expectations were fulfilled: this is a wonderful, intelligent, unusual first novel, with a fascinating cast of characters, a strange plot, and interesting settings. The main character starts out being misnamed. His mother wanted to call him Feliz, but the notary wound up writing Feliu instead. He grows, and at an early age, when his father dies in Cuba (then a Spanish colony, soon to be liberated by the U.S.) the mother receives a box of gifts from the dead father, and distributes them among the children. Feliu winds up with a bow, the thing you draw across the strings of a violin or a cello to make music. When an adolescent, his Catalonian village is visited by a pianist who performs. Justo Al-Cerraz is a child prodigy who's grown up, and still performs around the country. When Justo visits the village, Feliu is playing the violin, trying to learn it, but one of Justo's trio-mates is a cellist, and that puts Feliu into sort of a trance where he feels he must play only that instrument. He winds up going to Barcelona to learn. From there the novel takes many turns, with Justo and Feliu eventually becoming partners, then meeting up with a third player, a violinist who's an Italian Jew. By now, the plot has worked its way forward to the thirties, and the inevitable confrontation between the Nazis and the main characters comes very much at the end of the book. While the plot's important to the book, and the ending is fascinating, it's the journey that's the most enthralling thing about this book. The author enfolds you in the world of music in the 20s and 30s, and does a wonderful job of recreating what it's like to be a musician, at least from the point of view of the traveling, performing, and working. I really enjoyed this book. The characters especially are very well-drawn and interesting, and the story is fascinating. I would recommend it to almost anyone interested in the period, in music, or interested in novels about life.