2019 #3: Shadow of Night (Harkness)

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness


Harkness bit off a lot here with this second venture in the trilogy--and only some of it was adequately chewed. I'm a (music) historian, and even I began to tire of Elizabethan London. I missed the characters from the first book, to whom I had just established a connection in the last quarter of that novel. That said, there are places in this book where Harkness's talents as an author shine.

While there are moments that are a bit obvious in terms of historical placement, Harkness is subtle (at least initially) in illuminating the treatment of women in the sixteenth century. Any woman will recognize the feeling of being talked about as if we aren't standing there in the room, and Harkness works this into the narrative quite beautifully. At some point it becomes necessary to be a bit more overt as Diana has to assert her twenty-first century self into the Renaissance, but I appreciated that Harkness did not hit us over the head with it at the outset.

There is an uneven characterization for some of the leading players throughout the book and this applies to both wholly fictitious characters and those based on historical figures. Like Diana, the reader is feeling surrounded by threads that she must constantly monitor lest they tie themselves in knots. In A Discovery of Witches, the characters didn't really move me until the last third of the book. This second installment has too many characters so that there is very little time to care or form an attachment to any of them--I was left feeling a lack of emotional investment when it came to the many "goodbyes" in the book.

The time in England and Prague could have been reduced in length, and the end of the book most definitely sets you up to read the third part of the trilogy. There's no fault in that, of course, and I'm happy to report that my overall impression of the book was positive and I will eagerly read The Book of Life.

2019 #2: Jennifer Walshe: Spiel mit Identitäten

Jennifer Walshe: Spiel mit Identitäten by Franziska Kloos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you read the interview with Walshe at the end of the book, you understand that Kloos' work is basically a philosophical expansion of that interview. She engages with primary sources, but the "name-dropping" of philosophers without citation was aggravating on occasion. The opening chapter is valuable in terms of framing the discussion--Kloos provides Erik Erikson, Stuart Hall, and Judith Butler as lenses through which we might understand identity. Chapter 2 wanders a bit more, investigating Walshe's place in the avant-garde and new music. She summarizes the biographies of the alter egos of Walshe's Grúpat and briefly muses upon the reconciling of these individual identities with group identity. There is some redundancy across chapters, but this is unsurprising as one of Kloos' main points is that Walshe's music doesn't fit traditional categories or modes of analysis.

Kloos gives Chapter 4 over to analysis--and this is where the book is weakest for me. Kloos has insightful observations, but her methodologies vary so greatly that some readings of pieces come up short. We don't know what to expect since there is no systematic approach to analysis. It may very well be that this is due to the content of the works themselves (as well as varied access to materials), but then I would have preferred that the analysis be integrated into the prose of the other chapters. Kloos' "listening journal" approach to Walshe's "As mo cheann" addresses the difference between listening with and without a score, but for readers who are looking to engage with the piece academically, this might prove frustrating. Still, in that Kloos includes gesture, breath sounds, and performativity in her discussions, she provides a good example of what solid analyses of contemporary music might look like.

I've always bemoaned the lack of discourse with the work of living composers--but I get it. It is much easier to use a critical eye (and ear) toward music when the composer is dead. Kloos posits, however, that Walshe's music authorizes listeners to be co-creators, in effect--a glimpse at a democratic idea that "those who listen, have a say" (107). In her final statements, Kloos remarks that Jennifer Walshe invalidates the biographical relationship between work and author, but it is her work with the alter egos of Grúpat that allow her to do so without metaphorically "killing" the author ( a la Barthes).

This is an important book and I would love to see it come out in an English translation. It is a good primer on the New Discipline and provides bibliographic value as well (Kloos curates a helpful list of Internet sources).

(Cross-posted at Musically Miscellaneous Mayhem)

2019 #1: Cookbook--Near and Far (Swanson)

Swanson's narrative is one of privilege, it is true. A lot of the reviews at Goodreads have mentioned this, with varying degrees of annoyance. The book, however, does not pretend. The minute you touch the embossed hard cover and look at the photos, you know that this is a chichi cookbook, not Betty Crocker's Cookbook or The Joy of Cooking. The subtitle does not lie: "Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel." And traveled she has: India, Japan, Morocco, France, and Italy. The photos of the destinations are sometimes so artsy as to feel contrived, but they anchor each section in its own ethos. I haven't yet made any of the recipes, but I am inspired. As a committed omnivore, vegetarian recipes rarely inspire me, but I find her approach to flavors intriguing.

If you are someone who likes hunting down interesting ingredients, you will likely enjoy this book. She isn't writing for someone who does not know anything about ethnic foods, so you will not find explanations and definitions for a lot of the ingredients. I think she could have done more in that regard, and it was a missed opportunity. Overall, however, this is a beautifully produced cookbook, with accessible-but-not-accommodating prose. I'm looking forward to digging in to the recipes.

Cross-posted to The Lady of Shallots