jenniferdeguzman's reviews
318 reviews

I have read this book many times, and it always strikes me what a profoundly human connection Maynard Solomon has with his subject, Wolfgang Mozart. At times, Solomon's analysis may veer a bit heavily toward the Freudian, but there is no denying that Leopold Mozart was a profound influence on his son and maintained a hold on him throughout his life. Solomon delves into that conflict, showing that Mozart was not as the "eternal child" but a man struggling to be autonomous and independent.

He found his own voice in his music, and Solomon's examination of the "Fearful Symmetries" especially in Mozart's second movements provide insight into Mozart as an artist, as a thinking and feeling man. It helps to have recordings of the music Solomon references.

Solomon also is well-versed in Mozart's historical context, and knows that it is necessary to place Mozart in the context of the Enlightenment. His examination of the plots and characters of the great operas perhaps gives more credit to Mozart than to the librettists (Lorenzo da Ponte and Emmanuel Schikaneder) than is proper, but it does give insight into the type of libretto Mozart preferred -- stories that include the quiet subversion of established norms, the affirmation of humanity's dignity and goodness.

I was impressed with the narrative arc Solomon found in Mozart's life -- one which makes his early death truly tragic. It seems it so often happens that people who die young die when they are coming to a turn in their lives, struggling through troubles, trying to make good with their loved ones. Such was Mozart's death, and Solomon shows that his death was not just a loss to the musical world, but moreover, it was a great loss to his family and friends. Mozart was a beloved man, not because of his talent but because of his humanity, in whose service he placed his genius.
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Just a note in regards the Good Reads reviewer who doesn't know "how much of this is based on fact." Solomon is meticulous in documenting his sources (take a look at the extensive notes and bibliography!), many of which are Mozart's correspondence with his family and of historical record. He also examines the differences between Mozart's several biographies, giving different points of view and analyzing what might be conjecture rather than fact. Where there are no facts, such as a period of time when Mozart was traveling without his wife and there is no documentation of where he was or what he did, he states this. As with all nonfiction, critical reading skills are important when judging the scholarship and accuracy of this book, and, in my view, Solomon, a professor at Julliard, lives up to his reputation as an excellent and innovative academic.

The question that underlies the premise and the action of this book has always seemed to me a stupid and irrelevant one: If we were to clone human beings, would the clones have souls? My thinking isn't ecclesiastical, but Ishiguro bases his story on the assumption that most people's thinking is, and thus that if there were cloned human beings, that would be a matter of debate. Because the backbone of the story is made out of jelly, at least for me, it made reading this book much less enjoyable than I'd hoped.

The narrative style is simple and casual. The first-person narrator's entire education has been an artistic one with a heavy emphasis on "being creative," but she seems to have no pretenses of a literary "style," which I find interesting, and though not entirely unwelcome, at times the struggle of the author, his desire not to be weighty in his style, is perceptible and becomes wearying. (I found the narrator a bit too much like Offred of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale at first, too.)

The naïveté of the characters is at times painful; having grown up outside of society, they earnestly pursue something that the reader, more sophisticated and jaded, perceives as obviously untrue. Throughout the book, under the curiosity and hopes, there is a kind of resignation that I found off-putting. I suppose I have a brash, American point of view, wanting people to struggle harder against what others have deemed their destinies. I'm ashamed of that because it means that I prefer the treatment of this premise in Michael Bay's film "The Island" (though not the execution of that premise) to Kazuo Ishiguro's, but, there, I've said it. I find it interesting that in "The Island," which is set in the U.S., getting organs from a clone is a matter of privilege, while in Never Let Me Go it seems to be part of their national health care program. This difference in the way I think as an American and the very British treatment of the subject matter was apparent to me throughout.

That said, as a contemplative rather than active work, this book is mildly enjoyable.

Oh, wow, these stories are such a delight to read! Light without being frothy or mindless, they were just the thing for me when I wanted to shake out some stress after finishing my thesis. I like a bath as much as Bertie Wooster, and this was perfect bathtub reading. It's been a while since I've laughed aloud while reading a book in any way other than a wry chuckle, so what fun to read Bertie's description of playing with a rubber duckie and just laughing outright!

Bertie's voice is so clear, by the time you get a few stories in, you feel he's your chum. His slang is catching. Two days into reading, and I was saying "Dash this" and "Dash that." The stories have predictable trajectories, but they never feel predictable in their details, and knowing the whole time that Bertie's schemes will fail and he will have to be rescued by the inimitable Jeeves made me feel part of this world of rich young men with silly nicknames and brash young women in country manors.

I was so sad to have to leave that world when I finished the book. Fortunately, there are more Jeeves and Wooster stories to read.

Oh, I dearly wanted to love this. The writer, Andi Watson, is a friend (and let me just say, the person who says he "should be shot" in her review is lucky she's not saying that around me--god, I hate the kind of unthinking hyperbole the Internet has created) and I'm eic at a publisher that has published many of his comics. And I have to say, I really did enjoy the writing in the beginning of the book. I thought it was going to be the story of a goth girl from London getting into some trouble and then getting "sent down" (as they called it in Regency England) to gain some perspective in the country and, hey what do you know, solving a local mystery while she's there. In so doing, she would learn that not everyone has to conform to her code of cool to be worth knowing, and she would return to London a more broad-minded girl. No one but Andi could write a story like this and make it work well, I thought about halfway through the book.

And then it took this bizarre supernatural turn at the end (Lottie's friend being named Howard Philips should have been a clue to me), and a horrible truth is revealed with equally horrible and depressing consequences! Holy crap, I thought. If I found out [horrifying truth about much-loved member of family not to be specified here], I would be devastated!

And then Lottie kind of shrugs if off and says, "Oh hey, I'm going to Japan where things are really cool!" and I'm sitting in the bathtub with the book in my hands kind of stunned and "What the hell?" feeling.

Well. I love Andi and his work, but I guess we can't love everything about everyone. But, really, I can feel what kind of book this could have been, and my heart aches for it. That version of the book would have had to be drawn by Andi, too, because, as much as I wanted to give Josh Howard a chance, I really did not like his art. Lottie looks like a Bratz doll, over-sexualized and in ridiculous clothes, even for a "city goth"--tiny, tiny skirts and stripper boots. Howard made a name for himself by drawing cute girls for a young male audience, and he doesn't seem to understand that is not the audience for this book. Plus, his draftsmanship is questionable. He seems to have only one "cute chick" head--only the hair is different. And Lottie's head seems to keep changing size and her mouth moves around on her face a lot.

Plus, what's with that top photo on the cover? Who are these blond girls in jeans? They have nothing to do with anything as far as I can tell. If they had shown some goth girls in what appears to be in a goth club, that would have worked. But they must have had only one picture of a club in the stock photo site Minx uses, and who needs a cover photo that has anything to do with the book, right?

Gosh, this has gotten kind of silly on my part. It's just that--well, you know how it is when you really look forward to something and want to love it and you're let down.... Fortunately, Andi has a library of other books that I do love, so my heart's not broken.

Was it wrong of me to turn sour on this book because "Manila" is misspelled in it? But I guess it was more than that. The cover art and title hints at a beautiful kind of isolation, but the story is just another disaffected youth story -- ennui and amphetamines and academic pressure. The art is very nice, however.