Wesley Stace

It's rare that a book surprises me these days, but this one did. It's not just the story of a musician--it's told through the eyes of a critic who champions him, who sees his flaws as much as his potential and is not afraid to gloss over the sordid details.

The first delightful surprise was the inclusion of the folk music revival, an anthropological movement when people went out to record old, dying folk songs for posterity. Leslie Shepherd, the critic, first meets Jessold on a trip dedicated to this attempt and their friendship and mutual interest in creating a good English opera--the first since Gilbert and Sullivan--blooms.

It's a clever move on the part of the author to show us a musician's life through a critic's eye--the critic is used to writing for an audience without an advanced education in music, so I was never completely lost in the vocabulary of music.

After the interesting and wholly engaging first half, in which Shepherd recounts the bare facts of his acquaintance with Jessold, tracing the evolution of the composer and eventual murderer, a beautiful second half unfolds. We know from the beginning that we don't get the whole story in the first half, but the second half is, well, unexpectedly romantic (this from someone who considers herself "a cold-hearted crocodile"). Shepherd's devoted, if out-of-the-ordinary relationship with his wife unfolds almost as an afterthought, but their mutual relationship with Jessold adds gorgeous depth to an already nuanced story. As with all love, though, the Shepherds' becomes complicated.

This is, of course, the story of a murderer who has been shown at his most human and vulnerable--it can only be a tragedy. Whose tragedy it is receives direct discussion in the book, but whether the reader will agree with the narrator's conclusion is, I suspect, as much a reflection of the individual reader as the plot.

The only reason I won't put this on my "recommended" shelf is that I think it could take a very particular reader to appreciate it all. An interest in music is a given, no less than in historical nonfiction, but there is also a danger, I think, of misreading...or at least, reading in a very different light from the one I read it in. Usually I would find this delightful, but I suspect that some people would consider the Shepherds' relationship the opposite of romantic, and I'd rather not have that reading act as a bait-and-switch.

Readers with an interest in classical music in general and opera in particular, in England on the eve of World War I, and in the lives of those one would not normally suspect capable of murder will enjoy this book...but it's also a great one to get people who usually like only one of those to come out of their literary shells.

Quote Roundup

Jessold was an atheist, but here he spoke through the unlettered voice of the rural travelling people. He had no faith of his own, but in theirs he was a true believer. (75)

Mustard gas and shells shattered the calm of imperial verse. No one had read war poetry like it. Heroism, valour, the sweet wine of youth': gone. (119)

I hadn't liked the work in 1912. I liked it even less now, so perfectly did it suit the forced smile, the self-conscious frivolity of the post-war hour. (133)

I felt myself Dickensian: not one of his characters but the author himself, creator of plots, puppet-master. (136)

"As a critic, it is your job simply to tell people whether they will be entertained. The public must not be short-changed with mediocrity because a company is counting its pennies." (202)

If [Walmsley] knew anything, he knew how to sell a newspaper. He could hold a mirror to the world better than anybody alive, reinforce public prejudice, the nmake the man on the street pay for the privilege of reading an opinion he already held. He could also make that many pay for having his opinions formed on his behalf. (205)

It is one of the singular joys of our century that our great contemporary composers, having reached Schoenberg's precipice [of atonalism], did not leap. Merely because he had thrown himself into the abyss did not mean that it was good or right or necessary, or that others had to follow suit. Nor did they. The greatest of their works harnessed the power of that unbounded force released by Arnold Shoenberg: Berg's Wozzeck and Jessold's Little Musgrave spring to mind. Both prove that atonalism, used with restraint, can give us the most passionate and expressive of music. At the time, I was too intimidated, to occupied, too circumspect to allow such a possibility. It became clear as time passed, and I came to understand each of those operas as pure emotion, an exposed nerve. Great art requires perspective. (251)

I had resigned myself, in marriage, to love and honour, but Miriam's reticence with regard to the certain aspects of the first half of my vow merely made the other half more attractive. I had always hoped that a good marriage should rather require warmth and friendship than romantic passion to sustain it, and I had been long been suspicious of the intensity of the latter. (301)

Surely there are very few husbands who do not experience a frisson of pleasure when their wife is admired by another man. I had many times delighted in the position, reading the minute clues that emanated from her, the privileged information unknowable to anyone else. (304)

I had not, during our marriage, been anxiously awaiting such an alignment, but I had assumed it inevitable. Miriam and I did not share the same lack of vitality. She required an unconditional love from me that I was happy, so happy, to give. I had taken it for granted that, with another individual, with my acquiescence and approval, she might feel free to explore shared interests quite distinct from my own. I had not dreamed that, in this eventuality, our intentions should be so perfectly in harmony. (306)

I had thought it so tedious for Jessold to be at the mercy of a muse; but how much worse to be a muse at the mercy of an erratic imagination; and how much worse still to have been a muse wrung entirely dry of inspiration. (352)

It is not by the kindness of the creator that we judge the greatness of art. (383)
… (mere)

My second book by Wesley Stace. His inventive, original plots and good old fashioned storytelling skills are a great combo. His main character (the human George) ages from 11 to 17 years, and I was amazed at how Stace was able to convey his gradual maturing, year by year, just through the character's thoughts and actions. The only weak point for me was that the boarding school section dragged a bit. (A little bit of being miserable at boarding school goes a long way.) This is one of those books that gets better the more I think about it.… (mere)