The Gazette (Montreal)
May 10, 2008 Saturday
Final Edition
Exploring Argentina’s ups and downs; A land of woes and indomitable spirit
by PAUL CARBRAY, The Gazette
LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT AT THE NINO BIEN
by Brian Winter, Public Affairs,
247 pages, $26.95
As visitors to Argentina and especially its capital, Buenos Aires,
have discovered for more than a century, the country is like a little
piece of Europe transplanted to South America.
In contrast to most of the rest of the continent, Argentina has few
indigenous people, and there was virtually no slave trade for most of
the country’s history. Most of the residents are descended from
European immigrants. Buenos Aires, as author Brian Winter discovered,
"appeared to be a glittering oasis of European civilization at the end
of the world."
In fact, when Winter travelled to Argentina, newly graduated from
university and with a typical self-centred college student’s almost
total lack of knowledge of the rest of the world, the country was
about to plunge into an economic abyss that saw inflation soar to
triple digits, banks totter and fail, and governments get tossed
aside. In fact, at one point during Winter’s visit, the country had
five changes of government in little more than a month.
Still, economic turbulence is nothing new for Argentina, which was one
of the five richest countries of the world in the 1930s before its
economy collapsed.
As Winter learns, "Argentina had been on a hopeless, seemingly
irreversible 70-year losing streak – it was like the Chicago Cubs of
countries. … Perhaps no other nation had fallen so far, so fast."
The Argentinians accept this fact, even embrace it, as Winter
discovers during one of his first walks around Buenos Aires, when he
hears a song on the radio. "The world was and always will be a piece
of s—, this much I know," the lyrics began. "In the year 506, and in
2000 also."
"That’s our national anthem, you know," a woman calls out to
him. Actually, it’s not. It’s called Cambalache, and it could be
termed Argentina’s unofficial national anthem. After all, what
national anthem could proudly proclaim that its country is not No. 1
or No. 2, but not even in the top 10.
Yet Winter falls in love with Argentina as it plunges into some of the
worst years in its turbulent history, a situation he likens to
"falling for an alcoholic at the very moment she hits rock bottom."
Winter never manages to solve the puzzle that is Argentina, although
he does learn that the world of the milongas, the nightclubs where
Argentines meet to dance the tango, offers insights into the country’s
culture.
Winter, bored and unable to find a job, decides he wants to learn how
to tango, which brings him to the Nino Bien, one of the legendary
milongas of Buenos Aires.
He avoids falling into the trap of believing the tango, that outmoded
symbol of Latin American machismo, is a lens through which to view
Argentina. But he does learn that a dance suited for romantics and
cynics seems especially adapted to Argentina and can teach the visitor
something about the people.
Winter meets the denizens of the Nino Bien, such as El Tigre, a
grizzled ex-sailor whose proudest boast is that he danced the tango
with Madonna when that pop icon was in Buenos Aires during the making
of the movie Evita. He takes tango lessons at the unlikely venue of an
Armenian cultural centre and falls in love, at least a little bit,
with a tattooed dance instructor.
But he also moves smoothly from the dance floor to the streets and to
the library. As he traces the roots of the tango (no one seems to know
exactly where and when it originated), he digresses smoothly into a
discussion of the country’s yo-yo history of economic wealth and
bitter poverty, the collapse of the rural economy, and the rise – and
subsequent fall – of the gaucho, the South American cowboy who
supplies one of the persistent myths of Argentina for residents and
visitors alike.
Winter, now an editor with USA Today, provides a glimpse into
Argentina’s soul and writes a love letter to a passionate and proud
country that has huge problems but is prepared to put up with them and
even to laugh about its woes, perhaps to keep from crying.