It's a Richard Powers book concerning two brothers, both classical musicians, of different temperment and talent, born in the forties, their parents are a black Philadelphia aristocratic soprano woman and a Jewish physicist man who emigrated from Germany on the eve of World War II.
The couple homeschools their children and raises them on classical music and above race. As you can imagine, once the boys leave school, armed with music alone, the two navigate their life with a deep sense of alienation and social irresponsibility that comes with being mediocre black classical musicians in the nineteen fifties when there is a bloody revolution happening outside of your practice room and on the streets of America.
The book has an enormous and tumultuous span, from the 20s until the 80s, and should be considered an epic. Has anyone one else read it? I recommend it. It's a qualified recommend, Powers is a bit relentless in his narrative, if you don't know anything about music, physics, or American history, he doesn't take time to catch you up. It didn't bother me, but that's because I happen to know music, physics, and American History. Had the story been about painting, chemistry, and Canadian History, I would have been looking up a lot of wikipedia. Again, has anyone else read it?
Some of the relationships are truly touching, and at its best, the book is like the Adventures of Kavalier and Clay meets the Grapes of Wrath, which is a recipe for the Great American Novel, at its worst, Powers overwrites like Rushdie. It's a thoughtful, fantastic story of small people who never wanted to do anything big, but historical circumstance and love don't take human wants into account.
[ May 07, 2007, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I've not read this book but I've read Plowing the Dark by Richard Powers; it's one of my favourite modern novels.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Sounds good. I really appreciate your book review posts, even though I don't always post on them. I read them with interest.