By Heidi Simmons
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“The Gods of Tango”
by Carolina De Robertis
Fiction
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Life is mostly unpredictable and often the decisions we make change the course of direction in the way we live. In Carolina De Robertis’ third novel The Gods of Tango (Alfred Knopf, 384 pages), a teen girl’s journey turns her into a man.
The story begins in a small Italian village near Naples around the early 1900s where Leda is set to marry her first cousin Dante in absentia. A year earlier, Dante immigrated to Argentina. Before she leaves to join her new husband, Leda’s father gives her his violin as a gift for Dante. The instrument has been in the family for generations. Leda has coveted the violin for years sneaking out and playing it in the olive orchards because women are not allowed to play musical instruments.
When Leda arrives in Buenos Aires after 21 days on a ship, she discovers her husband has been killed by authorities during a political protest. His friends give Leda some money and she stays in his room. Leda quickly discovers that life in the Buenos Aries immigrant slums if difficult not only as a widow but as a woman. She can’t find work and it is unsafe for her to travel beyond the apartment complex where she lives. Decent women are not to be seen out alone or in nightclubs.
Some women take pity on Leda and give her sewing jobs. But it doesn’t pay enough for rent or food. When she has an opportunity, Leda sneaks out and explores the community discovering a world of music she has never heard. The Tango. It is new music with a new sensual dance. She longs to play her violin, but can only practice in silence. Thinking about Dante and missing home, Leda tries on Dante’s clothes — and likes it.
She formulates a plan to run away as a man. Donning Dante’s shirt, slacks, jacket and shoes, she throws away her clothing and enters the world as a man. Much to her surprise she is accepted and quickly learns to be more man-like. She gets a job in a cigarette factory and at night she becomes a habitué of the Tango clubs.
An unexpected opportunity arrives when a violinist is murdered in front of her and she asks to take his place. Leda keeps up with the musicians and finds the music soothes her soul. Taking on the name of her dead husband, Leda becomes Dante.
Dante hopes that all her desires will be satisfied by the music she plays, yet finds herself drawn to women. Still a virgin, and only 17, sexuality and sex is confusing. She hires a prostitute to show her how to sexually please women.
Soon she is recruited to join a bigger band. Dante is paid well and finally is a professional musician albeit as a man.
Dante is able to have relationships with women keeping her true sexual identity a secret. She is so clever as a lover, one woman claims she is pregnant and only Dante can be the father.
Dante falls in love with Rosa, a young woman who is hired to sing in the band as a man, but goes home every night as a woman. But when one of the women with whom Dante has been having regular relations with discovers her true sexual identity, Dante’s life and secret are put at risk. Will Dante be able to stay a man and be with Rosa? I’ll leave it for you to find out assuming the subject matter fascinates you.
The Gods of Tango is a great title and the idea of a woman who must change her gender just so she can get a job, walk the earth un-harassed and play a violin in public is intriguing. The first half of this book lags and I cannot say who the gods of the Tango really are?
There is a historical element in the context of the story about the rise of the Tango, however I never saw how Dante contributed to the popularity of the musical genre. I think De Robertis is making the point that immigrants played a big role in shaping the Tango.
Author De Robertis captures the complex sensory-riddled world of the story in rich detail. But too often she gets sidetracked with characters that don’t move the story forward. I wanted to know what was in Dante/Leda’s head as she struggled to understand her new world as a man. After all, she is only 17 when she joins the band.
I needed more moments when Dante/Leda gets a fresh perspective and insight both as a woman under her clothing and as a man outwardly. This is most interesting as Dante/Leda discovers something new about herself as a person and how different men and women act toward the same and opposite sex.
There is plenty of sex in this book and it baffles me why authors choose to use “sex” as a synonym for penis or vagina. Why not just say the body part? Seems odd to write so descriptively about everything else and then cop-out when it comes to specific genitalia contact.
This story is far more about Dante/Leda’s sexual desire than her desire for playing kick-ass Tango like the book’s title suggests.
