Not sure what I can say about this novel that won't end up making me look a bit dim. Truth is, I never really got into the flow of it, but I finished it because it was well written and I thought I might learn something - which I did.
Paul Griffiths is a scholarly man who has clearly done a great deal of research before writing this novel, but the whole book is full of reminders that he is filling the gaps in historical record with narrative that 'might' have happened, and it would at least have been possible.
I don't mind authors making a story out of just a few bare facts, and I imagine quite a few books that I have read in the last year or so fall into that category. All I need to be told is: 'This is my take on what might have happened...' and then I am quite happy to roll with it for the rest of the book. Please don't add the could haves. This is an example from the beginning of Chapter 4 when Beethoven's ship is arriving in Boston:
'How could this have worked? On Corey's Hill there could have been a signal station, enabling the news to be flagged to the harbor master, as he had requested, that the brig Florida had been sighted. The harbor master, waiting for this information, but not knowing when to expect it, could have sent a boy to alert Mr. Lowell Mason, who would now be hard at work at his bank desk.'
'How could this have worked? On Corey's Hill there could have been a signal station, enabling the news to be flagged to the harbor master, as he had requested, that the brig Florida had been sighted. The harbor master, waiting for this information, but not knowing when to expect it, could have sent a boy to alert Mr. Lowell Mason, who would now be hard at work at his bank desk.'
Paul Griffiths is a music critic and librettist so he was able to go into a great deal of detail about the biblical oratorio about Job that Beethoven had been commissioned to work on in the United States. By the time the book reaches the part where the work is performed in public for the first time, the author decides to write two separate accounts to be read in parallel. The first is the running order of the Oratorio and the second is the atmosphere and reaction of the people in the concert hall. This is where I start to look a bit dim, because I found myself skimming through a great deal of this part, and I am sure if I had more musical knowledge then I would have been much more impressed by the skill of the writer.
Overall the premise of the book is convincing, and although Mr. Beethoven never actually went to Boston, the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston did seek to commission him to write an oratorio, so if you would like to see how this could have worked, this is the book for you.
Comments
Post a Comment