As a portrait of the great composer and a foray into sci-fi, the book is ambitious, informative and meandering.
A part biographical, part sci-fi novel from author Gaertner (Preacher Sean, Antiterrorist, 2009).
The first portion of the book follows Ludwig van Beethoven from his childhood in the 1770s through his turbulent adulthood. Though Beethoven would leave behind an immense body of work, the reader learns that it wasn’t without great difficulty. With hearing issues arising as early as his 30s (“My ‘touch and go’ hearing continued as usual with its alternating ‘good spells’ and ‘bad spells’ ”) and getting only worse as he aged, irritability, public outrages and family disputes were all part of the Beethoven legacy. Of course, through all the physical and mental anguish, there remained a man dedicated to his art: “[Y]ou must wonder what a deaf old musician can possibly hear in your playing….I have learned to hear with my eyes!” Following Beethoven’s death in 1827, the novel takes a sharp turn. The idea of the “Second-Order Life,” a complex system of reincarnation that allows one to continue with the journey of the soul, is introduced. A young man named Paul Rezler ends up carrying on the soul (or “spiritual subelectron”) of Beethoven, and so the process of creativity continues well into fantastic worlds: “One solid year is spent visiting a hundred musical capitals on eighty-three different cultural planets” and Earth alike. Muddled by periods of heavy explanation, the book often takes on more of a dreamlike quality than a vigorous narrative: “Of the 600 planets comprising the system proper, there are 351 located within the Aaronian galaxy. These include one Administrative Planet (Aaron AP) that houses the seat of government, the College of Counselors, Population Records and Control, the Cultural Archives, etc., plus 350 planets supporting Aaronian life.” Readers unperturbed by lingering over Beethoven’s creations (both real and imagined) will find the pace suitable, particularly as elbows are rubbed with other masters ranging from Mozart to Handel. Readers without much patience for highly expository discussions of detailed concepts—such as “Any day now, a pair of Earthlings will die out of their First-Order existence….All that is ‘eternal’ about them is faithfully recorded in their spiritual subelectrons, which are death-freed from their First-Order brains, and which have sufficient spiritual momentum to place them in orbit within the third subelectronic ring, setting the spherical boundary of our own Second-Order-MAJOR universe”—may find themselves lost in the vast, albeit highly structured, world of changing souls and bodies.
As a portrait of the great composer and a foray into sci-fi, the book is ambitious, informative and meandering.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499068191
Page Count: 658
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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