An alluring allegorical second novel, from the late-blooming Italian author of The Luneburg Variation (1997), employs three skillfully interconnected stories to tell a vivid cautionary tale about the nature of genius—and the varied powers of music—to console, ennoble, and destroy. An unnamed narrator fortuitously purchases a priceless violin he has long coveted—then is visited by a distraught writer who confesses his yearning to possess the instrument, then tells the narrator its “story.” He has learned it from Jeno Varga, an itinerant Hungarian musician whose own history encompasses a motherless youth and enduring emotional detente with his businessman stepfather, precocious virtuosity and an enlightening apprenticeship at “the most important music school in Europe” (the monastic, prison—like Collegium Musicum), and a transformative extended visit to the lavish castle owned by his friend and fellow violinist Kuno Blau’s Addams—like family. As Jeno’s disturbing intimacy with the Blaus simultaneously excites his imagination and challenges his dearest preconceptions, his (always unstable) intimacy with the mercurial Kuno begins its destructive canone inverso (in musical terms, a reversal, or descent). In McPhee’s admirable translation, this agreeably convoluted novel’s clever misdirections and urbane romanticism recall Isak Dinesen at her most appealing. Jeno’s artistic and personal crises climax in the years just before Hitler assumes power, and a dazzling climax and denouement unravel the manifold mysteries of the Blaus, reveal the (inevitable) identity of the narrator (long since absent from the storytelling), and ironically demonstrate the truth of Jeno’s rueful contention that “The true musician is a descendant of Cain.” An elegant Chinese-box entertainment (and incidentally a great improvement on Maurensig’s intriguing but flawed first novel), which will remind many readers of the intellectual thrillers of Spain’s Arturo PÇrez-Reverte, and leave them wondering why even more fiction of this kind isn—t being written these days.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5538-X
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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