The Last Movement by Robert Seethaler

 

The Last Movement

by Robert Seethaler

translated by Charlotte Collins

The Northern Silence: Journeys in Nordic Music & Culture by Andrew Mellor

 

The Northern Silence 

Journeys in Nordic Music and Culture

by Andrew Mellor 

The Great Passion by James Runcie

 

The Great Passion

by James Runcie

The Piano: A History in 100 Pieces by Susan Tomes

The Piano : A History in 100 Pieces
by Susan Tomes

"The Life of Music: New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition" by Nicholas Kenyon

The Life of Music: 
New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition

by Nicholas Kenyon

"Judas: The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle" by Peter Stanford

 

Judas 

The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle

by Peter Stanford

A book review

The Little Devil and Other Stories by Alexei Remizov

 

The Little Devil and Other Stories

by Alexei Remizov

Translated by Antonina W. Bouis 

The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting

 

The Bell in the Lake

Lars Mytting (Translated by Deborah Dawkin) 

________________________

"Fantastic Tales" by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti

Fantastic Tales

by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti 

(translated by Lawrence Venuti)

A review

"La Quinta Sinfonia di Beethoven Recensita da E.T.A. Hoffmann" by Benedetta Saglietti

La Quinta Sinfonia di Beethoven Recensita da E.T.A. Hoffmann: 

Nel Regno dell'Infinito

by Benedetta Saglietti

A review

"Three Apples Fell from the Sky" by Narine Abgaryan

Three Apples Fell from the Sky

by Narine Abgaryan 

(translated by Lisa C. Hayden)

A review

"Wagner's Parsifal: The Music of Redemption" by Roger Scruton

Wagner's Parsifal: 

The Music of Redemption

by Roger Scruton

An illustrated review

Andrés Barba's "A Luminous Republic"

 

A Luminous Republic

by Andrés Barba (translated by Lisa Dillman)

A review

Adventures in Grinlandia. A review of "Fandango and Other Stories" by Alexander Grin

Adventures in Grinlandia

"Fandango and Other Stories" 

by Alexander Grin 

(translated by Bryan Karetnyk)

A review

Go West : Sophie Hardach's Confession with Blue Horses

Go West  

Confession with Blue Horses by Sophie Hardach 

A book review

My Heart Burns: E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Sandman

 My Heart Burns...

E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman (translated by Christopher Moncrieff): Tale of an Obsession

Whale of a Tale: "The North Water" by Ian McGuire

Whale of a Tale...

"The North Water" by Ian McGuire

A book review

Holy Week, Unholy Murders: Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo

Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo

A book review 

How best to express the horrors of a bloody civil war whose memory is still painful?  How can one probe into wounds which are still open and smarting? An answer might be provided by literature in general, and genre literature in particular.  One could cite as an example Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” series, haunted by the memories of the Spanish Civil War.  Zafon’s bestselling novels have shown that how the Gothic, so often dismissed as ‘mere’ entertainment, can successfully engage with and comment on troublesome recent history.

Peruvian writer and journalist Santiago Roncagliolo did something similar with his crime thriller Red April (Abril Rojo), originally published in Spanish in 2006 and subsequently in an English rendition by veteran translator Edith Grossman (it won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2011).    

The civil war which acts as a backdrop to the events in this book is the armed conflict in Roncagliolo’s native country between the Government, the Communist Party (also known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.  The conflict started in 1980 and has been largely dormant since 2000, albeit with occasional resurgences of violence.

The plot unfolds around the period of the presidential elections before Holy Week in the year 2000.  In the context of this campaign, the Government is keen to make a statement that communist insurgents have been defeated. However, during Carnival in the town of Ayacucho, a gruesome murder raises suspicions that Sendero Luminoso might once again be rearing its head. Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar investigates the matter and prepares a convoluted report which conveniently makes no mention of terrorism.  And, possibly for this very reason, when this murder is followed by others, all bearing the stamp of a deranged serial killer or ritual murderer, the authorities assign the case to none other than Chacaltana.  He is hardly the ideal detective but, in the eyes of his seniors, appears to be an official who can be easily manipulated.

As evidenced by the style of the legal reports spread throughout the text, Chacaltana is well-versed in the letter of the law which he tries to follow with pedantic conscientiousness, but this hardly equips him for the complexities of life and for the intricacies of the tense political climate of his country.  Abandoned by his wife and obsessed with the memory of his long-dead mother, the Prosecutor is often naïve and ingenuous, reminding me of Umberto Eco’s claim that “real literature is about losers”.  Perhaps for this very reason, the novel’s protagonist brought to my mind failed journalist Colonna in Eco’s own Numero Zero or, to cite another Italian novel, Paolo Laurana in Sciascia’s A Ciascuno il Suo, hapless figures who end up embroiled in matters beyond their ken. Over the course of the novel, Chacaltana starts to wise up, and this change is not all to the good.  Indeed, some unsavoury aspects of his character come to the fore and contributed to some of my dissatisfaction with what is an otherwise engrossing book.

As a crime novel, Red April is thrilling and intriguing.  Much of its dark feel is given by the elements it borrows from the horror – and particularly the folk horror – genre.  Indeed, we start to realise that the serial killer is borrowing imagery both from Christian traditions linked to Holy Week and from pagan Andean myths and rituals.  An underlying theme of the novel, is the friction between Andean/pre-Colombian culture (as represented by the Quechua-speaking “natives”) and the subsequent Christian traditions imported by the Spanish-speaking settlers.   It is suggested that underneath the veneer of Christian ritual, the old rites have never died out.  The language/culture barrier becomes a symbol of this perennial conflict, which seems to fuel present-day violence.  As one of the characters puts it:

Ayacucho is a strange place.  The seat of the Wari culture was here, and then the Chanka people, who never allowed themselves to be subjugated by the Incas.  And later were the indigenous uprisings because Ayacucho was the half-way point between Cuzco, the Inca capital, and Lima, the Spaniards’ capital.  And independence in Quinia. And Sendero.  This place is condemned to be bathed in blood and fire forever.   

Some readers have been put off by the very graphic murders. To be honest, however, an act of senseless sexual violence towards the end disturbed me much more than the admittedly gruesome crime scene descriptions.   Plot-wise, the solution to the “whodunit” is rather too convenient – I believe that this is a novel which is best enjoyed by soaking up its dark atmosphere tempered by a streak of black humour.

Paperback, Atlantic Cult Classics, 273 pages

Published 2018 by Atlantic Books (first published 2002)

Being a fan of Jan Garbarek, the references to the Quechua culture could not but remind me of the great saxophonist’s collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble and their recording of Quechua Song.  It seems ironic however to represent this native culture through a piece European jazz, particularly in the light of the themes of Roncagliolo’s novel.  So here’s what is hopefully a more “authentic” rendition of the Quechua song “Munasqetay”.

One of the traditional instruments of Peru is the charango, a guitar-like instrument which is a descendant of the vihuela a mano imported by the Spanish conquistadores.  Its use in Peruvian folk music epitomises the sometimes uncomfortable but always intriguing mix between native and “European” elements.  Here’s Jamie Guardia, one of the Peru's foremost singers and players of the charango in a song named, appropriately, Adios Pueblo de Ayacucho.

Gabriela Lena Frank is an American classical pianist and composer whose mother is a Peruvian of Chinese descent.  Some of her works celebrate her Peruvian family heritage.  Apu – Tone Poem for Orchestra, commissioned by the Carnegie Hall, is inspired by Andean mythology.  The apu is one of the spirits which keep a watchful eye on travellers passing through highland roads.

As it happened, I read this book in March/April, the months in which the novel is set, and this helped me to get into the atmosphere of the book.  Indeed, although I live on the opposite side of the world, I could feel an affinity to the descriptions of the Holy Week pageantry and, particularly, the crowded processions with the statues showing Passion scenes.  And so I’d like to end with a funeral march such as are typically heard in Mediterranean countries – and more specifically, Malta – during this time of year.  The march is accompanied by shots of local processions, not far removed from what is portrayed in Roncagliolo’s novel.

Tall Tales: "A review of Once Upon a River" by Diane Setterfield

"Once Upon a River" by Diane Setterfield

A book review

Once upon a time, there was an author who wrote stories, really good stories. She loved stories so much that she wrote a novel about them – about the way in which stories mould our world, fashion our thoughts, shape our past and help us fathom our present; about the way in which, like a living being, tales change and grow at each retelling; about how each and every one carry stories in our hearts, whether we choose tell them or not...

Diane Setterfield’s third novel Once Upon a River is an ambitious and complex work, but one which wears its erudition lightly and hides its artifice well.  At one level, in fact, it can be enjoyed as a well-crafted historical mystery.  We are in the 19th Century, on the evening of a winter’s solstice.  The door of The Swan, an inn at Radcot on the River Thames, opens to reveal a badly injured man carrying a little girl.  She’s seemingly dead – Rita, the local nurse and midwife, can detect no breath or heartbeat.  Yet, against all odds, the girl revives and wakes up, whether by magic, as a result of a miracle or through some natural wonder.  This does not solve the enigma of the girl’s identity, which cannot be easily ascertained especially since she turns out to be mute.  The girl could well be the daughter of the Vaughans, kidnapped two years previously finally returned by her captors.  Or the illegitimate granddaughter of a local farmer, abandoned by her mother before she committed suicide on being forced into prostitution.  Or, if one is to believe Lily, the parson’s housekeeper, she might be a revenant, the ghost of Lily’s long-dead sister. 

This mystery lies at the heart of the novel and makes a page-turner out of it, particularly in the rather breathless final chapters.  Setterfield houses her story in a well-researched historical context which is conjured through loving descriptions of the Thames and its communities, and through references to the new scientific worldview which was then challenging more conservative religious and supernatural views.  The story is peopled by interesting characters, including farmer Robert Armstrong, the dark-skinned illegitimate son of an earl and a housemaid; strong-willed Rita, a self-taught scientist; and Henry Daunt, who is actually based on the real-life Henry Taunt, photographer and chronicler of the Thames.   Setterfield also subtly evokes the period through references to the literature of the time – echoes of Dickens and, to my mind at least, Wilkie Collins, abound. 

All this would have been enough to make of the novel a considerable achievement.  But Once upon a River is also a post-modern piece of meta-fiction.  This insightful review on the Opinionated Reader blog makes the valid point that the novel purposely includes familiar tropes of British Gothic literature, particularly the river and the inn.  This is very true – the  Thames, in particular, could be considered not just a setting but a central character in the book, whereas the Swan is the place where the novel starts and ends.  But the novel is also rich with other references to legends and folklore.  Key scenes occur on the winter and summer solstice and the Autumn equinox; there are mentions of dastardly highwaymen, water sprites, goblins, ghosts, changelings, clairvoyants.  And even though most of the supernatural aspects of the tale can be (but are not necessarily) rationally explained (Ann Radcliffe-style), the otherworldly is never too far too seek.  Setterfield also throws her net wider than the reaches of British folklore – the figure of Quietly, the ghostly ferryman, owes as much to Classical mythology as to the classic English ghost story, and the motlew crew at the Swan act as a more modest version of a Greek chorus. 

What is impressive, at the end of the day, is that all these knowing references are presented in an intriguing and involving story worthy of the classic 19th century novelists.  True, it’s a tall tale, and some of the loose ends are perhaps too conveniently tied up at the end.  But, we don't really mind... Like the patrons of the Swan, we all love a great story, don’t we?

Hardcover, 464 pages

Published December 2018 by Transworld Publishers/Random Books

Henry Taunt at Marsh Mills, Henley

***

As listening suggestions to accompany this novel, I would like to propose some works of classical music by English composers inspired by the river.   George Frideric Handel’s Water Music, composed in 1717 for a concert on the Thames, immediately came to mind, but their stately grandeur did not seem to fit the mood of the novel.  So I will start with a contemporary piece – Thames Reflections by Clive Jenkins (b. 1938) premiered by the Chamber Ensemble of London at a concert celebrating music and composers associated with the Thames

Summer Night on the River was composed by Frederick Delius in 1911.  It is a rather ironic choice, given that it was not inspired by an English river but by the French river Loing.  It is, however, a lovely piece, evoking mysterious mists shimmering above the water.

In his three Parables for Church Performance, Benjamin Britten combined elements of the Japanese noh plays with English medieval “mysteries” to create a new yet timeless music theatre form.  Curlew River, the first of the set, is based on  Umidagawa (Sumida River) by Juro Motomasa (1395–1431), which Britten saw during a visit to Japan and the Far East in early 1956.  His librettist, William Plomer, moved the setting of the original to the fictional Curlew River in East Anglia.   This ‘church opera’, rather surprisingly, reflects some elements found in Setterfield’s novel, including a mysterious Ferryman, a woman looking for her lost child, and the ghost of a dead boy.   Here’s the ritualistic opening of the work, taken from a recording conducted by the composer himself.

Despite its very English setting Once upon a River also harnesses images from Greek mythology.  And so a Greek river is next : Lethe one of the five rivers which flowed through Hades where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness.   It is evoked in the last movement of Arcadiana, a work for string quartet by Thomas Ades, written when the precocious composer was still in his early twenties.

  

And if you’d like to explore the other movements of this wonderful composition, do start with the meltingly beautiful O Albion.  To save you looking for it, here it is in a live version performed by Ensemble Perpetuo.  It was recorded during a concert appropriately themed Rivers and Oceans, bringing us back to where it all started...

Watching, Waiting: Sarah Perry's Melmoth

Melmoth 

by Sarah Perry

A book review