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The Variations
An eerie ability is passed from grandmother to grandson—who now must reckon with a new cacophony of voices and sounds, all from the past, overlaying his life in the present—in this stirring new novel from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers.
Selda Heddle, a famously reclusive composer, is found dead in a snowy field near her Cornish home. She was educated at Agnes’s Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children, which for centuries has offered its young wards a grounding in the gift—an inherited ability to tune into the voices and sounds of the past.
When she dies, Selda’s gift passes down to her grandson Wolf, who must make sense of her legacy, and learn to live with the newly unleashed voices in his head. Ambitious and exhilarating, The Variations is a novel of startling originality about music and the difficulty—or impossibility—of living with the past.
"If Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black were written by John Banville channelling M. John Harrison, the result would look something like this. And yet Langley has made something new and unexpected about how the present is, necessarily and always, an echo corridor of the past. Beautifully written, powered by a wonderfully intelligent conceptual dynamo, and deftly sprung with surprises, The Variations is an utterly original book about haunting. It is strange, resonant, and, yes, haunting."— Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others
Selda Heddle, a famously reclusive composer, is found dead in a snowy field near her Cornish home. She was educated at Agnes’s Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children, which for centuries has offered its young wards a grounding in the gift—an inherited ability to tune into the voices and sounds of the past.
When she dies, Selda’s gift passes down to her grandson Wolf, who must make sense of her legacy, and learn to live with the newly unleashed voices in his head. Ambitious and exhilarating, The Variations is a novel of startling originality about music and the difficulty—or impossibility—of living with the past.
"If Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black were written by John Banville channelling M. John Harrison, the result would look something like this. And yet Langley has made something new and unexpected about how the present is, necessarily and always, an echo corridor of the past. Beautifully written, powered by a wonderfully intelligent conceptual dynamo, and deftly sprung with surprises, The Variations is an utterly original book about haunting. It is strange, resonant, and, yes, haunting."— Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others
431 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 20, 2024
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760 people want to read
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August 28, 2023
Patrick Langley’s labyrinthine novel plays out in a world that both is and isn’t the one we know. Historical events are recognisable but the timelines are wrong or their features bleed into each other – the Coventry Blitz still happens but in 1937 not 1940; and the inexplicable Strasbourg dancing plague somehow merges with Milan’s later singing plague. In this version of reality, some people are born with a “gift.” Their heads are filled with the voices of the dead which sometimes take over, expressed through music or bouts of spontaneous singing. Many have been absorbed into a sect-like organisation of Agnesians, becoming wards of the St. Agnes Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children. Langley’s fragile plot revolves around the death of one of these former wards, hermit-like, avant-garde composer Selda Heddle, whose work closely resembles John Cage’s - both in its structure and shifting philosophies. Selda’s found dead in a field close to her home, an apparent victim of a vicious snow storm. The mystery of what led her to walk out to her death ties the narrative together.
Langley’s novel’s broken down into three sections passing from Ellen now Dean of the Hospice, once Selda’s closest companion; then to Selda’s grandson Wolf inheritor of her “gift” and finally to Selda herself. Music is central here both as practice and as metaphor, as Langley explores notions of connection and disconnection, harmony versus disharmony, ritual and belief versus science, memory and the legacies of history - both individual and collective. It’s a dense, atmospheric piece, often lyrical, frequently beautifully observed and shot through with an array of arresting images, real and imagined mythologies. Its richly-textured, descriptive passages and ornate settings, particularly in Ellen’s slightly gothic opening sections, sometimes reminded me of a more restrained or understated China Miéville or even Mervyn Peake. A preoccupation with soundscapes, landscapes, and the ancestral past had something of an Alan Garner-ish sensibility – on some level Langley seems engaged in constructing an oblique commentary on the trajectory of post-WW2 Britain from the chaos of war to climate change and the damage wrought by capitalism, including questions raised by the recent pandemic. It’s an ambitious, absorbing, intricate piece but I didn’t feel it always lived up to its initial promise, the later episodes felt particularly stretched out, and the speculative aspects don’t always blend well with the more realist ones. I also found it increasingly difficult to work out what it was Langley wanted me to take from Selda’s story, even the parts I found most intriguing. But it’s a novel I’m glad to have read and Langley’s an author I’ll definitely come back to in the future.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo for an ARC
Langley’s novel’s broken down into three sections passing from Ellen now Dean of the Hospice, once Selda’s closest companion; then to Selda’s grandson Wolf inheritor of her “gift” and finally to Selda herself. Music is central here both as practice and as metaphor, as Langley explores notions of connection and disconnection, harmony versus disharmony, ritual and belief versus science, memory and the legacies of history - both individual and collective. It’s a dense, atmospheric piece, often lyrical, frequently beautifully observed and shot through with an array of arresting images, real and imagined mythologies. Its richly-textured, descriptive passages and ornate settings, particularly in Ellen’s slightly gothic opening sections, sometimes reminded me of a more restrained or understated China Miéville or even Mervyn Peake. A preoccupation with soundscapes, landscapes, and the ancestral past had something of an Alan Garner-ish sensibility – on some level Langley seems engaged in constructing an oblique commentary on the trajectory of post-WW2 Britain from the chaos of war to climate change and the damage wrought by capitalism, including questions raised by the recent pandemic. It’s an ambitious, absorbing, intricate piece but I didn’t feel it always lived up to its initial promise, the later episodes felt particularly stretched out, and the speculative aspects don’t always blend well with the more realist ones. I also found it increasingly difficult to work out what it was Langley wanted me to take from Selda’s story, even the parts I found most intriguing. But it’s a novel I’m glad to have read and Langley’s an author I’ll definitely come back to in the future.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo for an ARC
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June 26, 2024First, the writing was superb. I never opened the book without being entertained by the storytelling.
And, I was intrigued by the conceit: that several main characters in the book had a Gift, where they were able to channel voices - and music - from those long dead. Or the long dead merely intruded. It portended a David Mitchell escapade. So, I wondered early on what import the Gift might hold. I wonder still.
When gifted people age, one of three changes takes place: they die; they learn to live with the psychic intrusion; or they make peace with the gift, such that it no longer infiltrates conscious thought but rather runs beneath its surface like a subterranean river, shaping its energies, pierces its roots.
Now you know what I know.
Anyhow, sharing bits, to show the writing, could not conceivably plot-spoil. So here's Selda on her honeymoon, her husband inconvenienced with a bad case of the shits:
A man shuffles out and raises his arm in greeting. He is younger and better looking than Selda had anticipated. (Lambert had described him to Selda as a kind of potato-gnawing hunchback, a shuffle-footed farmer's son who could barely count to ten.) She notices how she straightens her posture, adjusts her smile. She wonders where this automatic behaviour originates from. It feels preconscious, animal. Seen from another angle, it is a trained behaviour, a kind of etiquette. Thinking this, she slouches again.
And this:
Her admiration for aleatory music, the music of chance, shifted her perspective on where composition ends and the world begins. Birdsong in the morning, the crackle of pylon wires, the jarring harshness of unoiled machinery--all of it is music. But the sound of her husband shitting in the midst of a rainstorm? If everything is music, what to select? How to shape and arrange it? This is an artistic question. But it is also a question of how to live.
So yes, I liked it. But twenty-three days is a long haul for reading a book for someone who fairly inhales them. I was explaining my ambivalence to a Goodreads friend who suggested maybe this book deserved its own shelf. Wise, that. So, yes, this was nice, but why?
And, I was intrigued by the conceit: that several main characters in the book had a Gift, where they were able to channel voices - and music - from those long dead. Or the long dead merely intruded. It portended a David Mitchell escapade. So, I wondered early on what import the Gift might hold. I wonder still.
When gifted people age, one of three changes takes place: they die; they learn to live with the psychic intrusion; or they make peace with the gift, such that it no longer infiltrates conscious thought but rather runs beneath its surface like a subterranean river, shaping its energies, pierces its roots.
Now you know what I know.
Anyhow, sharing bits, to show the writing, could not conceivably plot-spoil. So here's Selda on her honeymoon, her husband inconvenienced with a bad case of the shits:
A man shuffles out and raises his arm in greeting. He is younger and better looking than Selda had anticipated. (Lambert had described him to Selda as a kind of potato-gnawing hunchback, a shuffle-footed farmer's son who could barely count to ten.) She notices how she straightens her posture, adjusts her smile. She wonders where this automatic behaviour originates from. It feels preconscious, animal. Seen from another angle, it is a trained behaviour, a kind of etiquette. Thinking this, she slouches again.
And this:
Her admiration for aleatory music, the music of chance, shifted her perspective on where composition ends and the world begins. Birdsong in the morning, the crackle of pylon wires, the jarring harshness of unoiled machinery--all of it is music. But the sound of her husband shitting in the midst of a rainstorm? If everything is music, what to select? How to shape and arrange it? This is an artistic question. But it is also a question of how to live.
So yes, I liked it. But twenty-three days is a long haul for reading a book for someone who fairly inhales them. I was explaining my ambivalence to a Goodreads friend who suggested maybe this book deserved its own shelf. Wise, that. So, yes, this was nice, but why?
September 7, 2023
There is some beautiful writing here, and the underlying idea of the Agnes's Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children and of the gift is interesting (if a touch Harry Potterish) but the novel had far too much uninteresting plot and character development for my taste and I just could not connect.
At Agnes, in the Jensen Centre, Selda read through Cage, Morton Feldman and the American school. Her admiration for aleatory music, the music of chance, shifted her perspective on where composition ends and the world begins. Birdsong in the morning, the crackle of pylon wires, the jarring harshness of unoiled machinery–all of it is music. But the sound of her husband shitting in the midst of a rainstorm? If everything is music, what to select? If music is a form of attention, where to focus it? How to shape and arrange it? This is an artistic question. But it is also a question of how to live.
…
The house smells of old fabric, damp plaster, and the coolness of the stove. Deriving from a time when the nobility dug moats to protect them from the fury of peasants whose labour they stole. She spends the mornings reading, the afternoons with Garth, the evenings and nights drinking Himbeergeist and soda, smoking Dunhills, and listening to the gift, asking it questions.
Sifting through the hearsay, she has a better sense–still not a clear one–of pattern in the past, her place within it. Motifs emerge. Stories are told and retold, returned to and modified. Rhythms quicken, stall. The long, slow settlement of a riverside village near a sacred hill, for instance, modulates to the brisk adagio as, centuries later, a descendant returns on a steam-powered train to take up a post as an actuary, at which firm he meets his future wife: their grandson opens a pharmacy, the tiled façade of which survives to this day. The roar of rain reminds the voices of their time in the foothills of bleak grey mountains–they’ve forgotten which–where they farmed the slopes and herded goats until a blight drove them south, where they went into service, working as kitchen porters, maids, and butlers, telling anyone who’d listen that they didn’t feel right in dingy basements and stuffed cupboards because they were ‘mountain folk’, forgetting that before the mountains there were plains, before which there was forest.
Most shifts are gradual. History outpaces them, the changes so slow that they induce a kind of amnesia. Others are abrupt. Whatever the relative tempo, each shift is a question of status and wealth: of employment, of ownership, of the injuries of work, the welts and scars and aches and scabs, how much sweat is shed and how much gold is left once the body is buried.
She detects a kind of music in these sequences, an emergent form. It’s nothing fancy or ornamental or even necessarily pleasant to listen to–although it is preferable to Garth’s backside–and she has no doubt that it derives from her own way of making sense of the world as much as anything else.
There it is: the gift is a kind of music. It sounds nothing like the stuff she has written thus far, with its tap-dancing rhythmic complexity. It is a kind of pulse or tone, bloodheat, a thump in the temple, layered and rich with timbre. It isn’t always exquisite. Often ugly, in fact. Harsh, or so chaotic as to leave her feeling queasy, not just because of the Himbergeist, which she found in the back of a cupboard.
At Agnes, in the Jensen Centre, Selda read through Cage, Morton Feldman and the American school. Her admiration for aleatory music, the music of chance, shifted her perspective on where composition ends and the world begins. Birdsong in the morning, the crackle of pylon wires, the jarring harshness of unoiled machinery–all of it is music. But the sound of her husband shitting in the midst of a rainstorm? If everything is music, what to select? If music is a form of attention, where to focus it? How to shape and arrange it? This is an artistic question. But it is also a question of how to live.
…
The house smells of old fabric, damp plaster, and the coolness of the stove. Deriving from a time when the nobility dug moats to protect them from the fury of peasants whose labour they stole. She spends the mornings reading, the afternoons with Garth, the evenings and nights drinking Himbeergeist and soda, smoking Dunhills, and listening to the gift, asking it questions.
Sifting through the hearsay, she has a better sense–still not a clear one–of pattern in the past, her place within it. Motifs emerge. Stories are told and retold, returned to and modified. Rhythms quicken, stall. The long, slow settlement of a riverside village near a sacred hill, for instance, modulates to the brisk adagio as, centuries later, a descendant returns on a steam-powered train to take up a post as an actuary, at which firm he meets his future wife: their grandson opens a pharmacy, the tiled façade of which survives to this day. The roar of rain reminds the voices of their time in the foothills of bleak grey mountains–they’ve forgotten which–where they farmed the slopes and herded goats until a blight drove them south, where they went into service, working as kitchen porters, maids, and butlers, telling anyone who’d listen that they didn’t feel right in dingy basements and stuffed cupboards because they were ‘mountain folk’, forgetting that before the mountains there were plains, before which there was forest.
Most shifts are gradual. History outpaces them, the changes so slow that they induce a kind of amnesia. Others are abrupt. Whatever the relative tempo, each shift is a question of status and wealth: of employment, of ownership, of the injuries of work, the welts and scars and aches and scabs, how much sweat is shed and how much gold is left once the body is buried.
She detects a kind of music in these sequences, an emergent form. It’s nothing fancy or ornamental or even necessarily pleasant to listen to–although it is preferable to Garth’s backside–and she has no doubt that it derives from her own way of making sense of the world as much as anything else.
There it is: the gift is a kind of music. It sounds nothing like the stuff she has written thus far, with its tap-dancing rhythmic complexity. It is a kind of pulse or tone, bloodheat, a thump in the temple, layered and rich with timbre. It isn’t always exquisite. Often ugly, in fact. Harsh, or so chaotic as to leave her feeling queasy, not just because of the Himbergeist, which she found in the back of a cupboard.
October 21, 2023
If I could summarise Patrick Langley’s The Variations, it would be interesting; The plot is one that is quite surprising, the structure, although not innovative, does work and it is a fun read full of themes and symbols. Yet something’s not quite right and I’ll go into that later.
Ellen runs a hospice for gifted children, the gift being the ability to hear dead voices, which Ellen can do as well. In order to feed/calm these voices, the hospice runs music sessions. Whilst asleep, Ellen is woken up by a call saying that and man is going insane on the hospice doorstep. When investigating she finds out that he is the grandson of a recently dead composer friend of hers called Selda Heddle. As a result she remembers her time with Selda, who had the gift.
The book then switches perspective with the grandson, nicknamed Wolf, reminiscing about Selda and his discovery of the gift. A further third part focuses on Selda, which ties up all loose ends.
I thought the first two parts were brilliant: bringing out themes of mother/daughter/grandson relations as well as structuring the book as a musical piece is quite clever. However by the third part, I began to feel exhausted and that the repetition (I’m sure intentional) got to me a bit. There was a lot I admired, but unfortunately I couldn’t embrace the novel as much as I wanted to.
Ellen runs a hospice for gifted children, the gift being the ability to hear dead voices, which Ellen can do as well. In order to feed/calm these voices, the hospice runs music sessions. Whilst asleep, Ellen is woken up by a call saying that and man is going insane on the hospice doorstep. When investigating she finds out that he is the grandson of a recently dead composer friend of hers called Selda Heddle. As a result she remembers her time with Selda, who had the gift.
The book then switches perspective with the grandson, nicknamed Wolf, reminiscing about Selda and his discovery of the gift. A further third part focuses on Selda, which ties up all loose ends.
I thought the first two parts were brilliant: bringing out themes of mother/daughter/grandson relations as well as structuring the book as a musical piece is quite clever. However by the third part, I began to feel exhausted and that the repetition (I’m sure intentional) got to me a bit. There was a lot I admired, but unfortunately I couldn’t embrace the novel as much as I wanted to.
February 22, 2024
Told in three parts, the novel revolves around three characters who have "the gift". What the gift is exactly is a mystery— a sensitivity to bells, a predisposition to music and acoustic phenomena, or an ability to hear and commune with the dead. Ellen is dean of Agnes's Hospice, a school or a therapy center, for those who have the gift. One day, a man, startlingly named Wolf, appears at the door asking for her by name and crying out for a lobotomy. He is the grandson of Ellen's childhood friend, Selda, a once prodigious composer and musicologist. After Wolf is admitted, he falls in and out of a comatose stupor, plunging into the world of the voices and only able to be summoned back by the ringing of a carefully chosen bell. In the second and third parts, the novel then explores the histories of Wolf and Selda, Wolf's struggle to understand his grandmother and her gift, and Selda's eccentric biography. The story of her life is the story of gradual discovery—that the voices and music that so relentlessly haunted her permeate all of reality, that there is no real divide between music and noise (music compositions fail when they attempt to "tame the noise", Selda thinks—birdsongs, the crackle of wires, the sound of unoiled machinery, all of the world is compositional). She devotes her life to a composition that can capture the sound of falling snow. It is a meditation on the nature of music—of harmony, of tension and release, of echoes and hallucinations, and of madness.
On the whole, I didn't particularly like the novel—a roaming, plotless narrative full of noise and bells in its own way. It's a psychic Gothic mystery thriller but told, in the style of Thomas Bernhard, as a delirious, monomaniacal psychodrama.
On the whole, I didn't particularly like the novel—a roaming, plotless narrative full of noise and bells in its own way. It's a psychic Gothic mystery thriller but told, in the style of Thomas Bernhard, as a delirious, monomaniacal psychodrama.
May 8, 2023
The Variations was an intriguing and atmospheric work that was part homage to music, part family drama, part magical realism and part a thoughtful reflection on how we deal with the past. There was a lyrical feel to the writing, almost dreamlike at times, and the story held my interest throughout as we moved between the three characters' POVs. This is definitely a work that will stick in my mind long after reading, and I recommend it to readers looking for a music-inspired literary fiction read. I would certainly pick up more books by this author in the future, and I am giving The Variations 4.5 stars
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 14, 2024
The Variations is the story of Selda Heddle, a modern classical composer with "the gift," an unexplained ability to hear the voices of dead ancestors. The novel is divided into three parts following three characters (all the with gift): Selda's childhood best friend, Ellen; her grandson, Wolf; and Selda herself. The novel turns out to be less of a tightly-plotted fantasy, and more of a bildungsroman, following Selda from her birth during the bombing of Coventry through her attempts to succeed as a female composer in the Twentieth Century and exploring the affect of her life and work on those closest to her.
I was originally attracted to a description I saw of this book, which suggested a kind of David Mitchell-esque literary fantasy. While I found the novel intriguing and at points quite beautiful, it had a more meandering feel and was certainly not the kind of gripping adventure that someone like Mitchell is able to meld with his mysticism. Still, I enjoyed Langely's poetic language and ability to muse on the largest mysteries of human life:
I was originally attracted to a description I saw of this book, which suggested a kind of David Mitchell-esque literary fantasy. While I found the novel intriguing and at points quite beautiful, it had a more meandering feel and was certainly not the kind of gripping adventure that someone like Mitchell is able to meld with his mysticism. Still, I enjoyed Langely's poetic language and ability to muse on the largest mysteries of human life:
These were the primordial forces out of which music was born. Jackpot and liquidation, the green shoot and the canker, sex and death. Tensions could arise and be resolved in a blink or a thousand lifetimes, in a scratched itch or the fall of Rome. These were her materials. Push, pull. Not binaries, exactly, but inextricable energies: space-time and life-death. I knew from her library how much she loved Black: without contraries, no progression.
January 29, 2024
You can tell so much thought has gone into these characters and their stories. Some great ideas, and lots of words are exceedingly well put together on the page. But, sadly, overall I found it what is actually being depicted to be quite dry and ultimately an absolute slog to finish. I was too patient with this book. As the tedium thickened I should have dropped it.
Midway through I noted that the writing is so dense and repetitive that I could read only every other sentence and make just as much sense of it. And then even worse, I found the majority of chapters to add nothing to character or plot. The tedium is exemplified by a section depicting a coach journey where the passengers complain they are restless, bored and don't know where the bus is taking them - feelings also shared by me, the reader, who is spared no detail of this inconsequential and gruelling journey, and left equally unsure of the point of it all. What made the author think this was necessary to depict to the reader? What value does it add to the story? These questions I aim at lots of the book.
After 250 pages of well written, but largely uninteresting content, I kept pushing through, hoping it would all culminate in a grand ending. Nope. Instead we are treated to a 200 page telling of a main character's entire life story from birth to death. It is brutally dull.
This is the first Fitzcarraldo I'd actively recommend you do not read.
Midway through I noted that the writing is so dense and repetitive that I could read only every other sentence and make just as much sense of it. And then even worse, I found the majority of chapters to add nothing to character or plot. The tedium is exemplified by a section depicting a coach journey where the passengers complain they are restless, bored and don't know where the bus is taking them - feelings also shared by me, the reader, who is spared no detail of this inconsequential and gruelling journey, and left equally unsure of the point of it all. What made the author think this was necessary to depict to the reader? What value does it add to the story? These questions I aim at lots of the book.
After 250 pages of well written, but largely uninteresting content, I kept pushing through, hoping it would all culminate in a grand ending. Nope. Instead we are treated to a 200 page telling of a main character's entire life story from birth to death. It is brutally dull.
This is the first Fitzcarraldo I'd actively recommend you do not read.
January 4, 2024
Probably more like 3.5*
Variations on a theme - focused on composer Selda Heddle's "gift" of hearing ancestral voices the book is split into 3 sections one for each person similarly blessed (or more likely cursed) with the same gift.
Each character also tries to deal with this same problem. Although compared to M John Harrison's novels this one doesn't quite have the same level of strangeness and ambiguity as his do. Also there's no real resolution at the end.
Variations on a theme - focused on composer Selda Heddle's "gift" of hearing ancestral voices the book is split into 3 sections one for each person similarly blessed (or more likely cursed) with the same gift.
Each character also tries to deal with this same problem. Although compared to M John Harrison's novels this one doesn't quite have the same level of strangeness and ambiguity as his do. Also there's no real resolution at the end.
February 22, 2024
There are many puzzles here, not least whether this is magic realism or just plain realism. Certainly the writing is direct in its approach. The question rather is what one is to make of “the gift” and the ideas that surround it. It would, in fact, be quite easy and entirely consistent to adopt a straightforward interpretation that this is the result of autistic/schizophrenic tendencies. In which case we have an entirely realistic novel. If we treat it as supernatural, we have a kind of magic realism that is not so much the thorough-going approach taken by Salman Rushdie or Marquez Gabriel Garcia, in which the magic is spice-like in the soup of the novel (gets everywhere and changes the flavour of everything), but one in which the magic is more like an additional vegetable.
Counsel for the realist defence might note this (rather wonderful) quote:
“The many moving parts of which a self is composed, the interlinked co-dependent processes encompassed by consciousness can fall out of synchronisation. A cog jams, a fuse blows …. But mechanical metaphors won't do. Better to imagine celestial geometries, arcs, parabolas, orbits, and the harmonies produced by the planets grave rotation, falling out of place and creating dissonance in the mind, a jagged, frenetic noise, as of stars colliding and imploding. Disorder reigns. The gift dominates” (pp. 45-6).
This could have been included in Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.
Then there is a structure of the book; which is bafflingly chaotic. And it’s not entirely clear whether this is a weakness or an important device. There is certainly a sense that characters are left high and dry - serving perhaps too strongly a supporting role to Selda, the focal point of the story. While the shifting perspectives and times are perhaps evidence for success, the very odd passages that cover a motorway pileup and a character sketch of a midwife - both of which are later very incidentally related to the main narrative - are a real puzzle: the former seems to have no role to play at all, while the latter seems only to set up a future event concerning the skin-colour of the midwife. Both of these feel like writing exercises and might usefully have been dropped.
Music, plays a major role here. But, if you know anything about music, it often feels very clunky - like a scene in a movie where the actor mimes (badly) playing the violin or piano. The chords that appear early on are just foolish: they involve a double flat and an E sharp that, notationally, make no sense at all in the context. Later we have time signatures, several of which are meaningless. More generally, the descriptions feel quite forced, with none of the style that convinces us in, say, An Equal Music by Vikram Seth.
Then the ending: this might have been quite differently handled. Given the earlier scene in Greenland, we already inferred the ending. Did it need spelling out?
Despite all these quibbles, it is a worthwhile read and is recommended.
Counsel for the realist defence might note this (rather wonderful) quote:
“The many moving parts of which a self is composed, the interlinked co-dependent processes encompassed by consciousness can fall out of synchronisation. A cog jams, a fuse blows …. But mechanical metaphors won't do. Better to imagine celestial geometries, arcs, parabolas, orbits, and the harmonies produced by the planets grave rotation, falling out of place and creating dissonance in the mind, a jagged, frenetic noise, as of stars colliding and imploding. Disorder reigns. The gift dominates” (pp. 45-6).
This could have been included in Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.
Then there is a structure of the book; which is bafflingly chaotic. And it’s not entirely clear whether this is a weakness or an important device. There is certainly a sense that characters are left high and dry - serving perhaps too strongly a supporting role to Selda, the focal point of the story. While the shifting perspectives and times are perhaps evidence for success, the very odd passages that cover a motorway pileup and a character sketch of a midwife - both of which are later very incidentally related to the main narrative - are a real puzzle: the former seems to have no role to play at all, while the latter seems only to set up a future event concerning the skin-colour of the midwife. Both of these feel like writing exercises and might usefully have been dropped.
Music, plays a major role here. But, if you know anything about music, it often feels very clunky - like a scene in a movie where the actor mimes (badly) playing the violin or piano. The chords that appear early on are just foolish: they involve a double flat and an E sharp that, notationally, make no sense at all in the context. Later we have time signatures, several of which are meaningless. More generally, the descriptions feel quite forced, with none of the style that convinces us in, say, An Equal Music by Vikram Seth.
Then the ending: this might have been quite differently handled. Given the earlier scene in Greenland, we already inferred the ending. Did it need spelling out?
Despite all these quibbles, it is a worthwhile read and is recommended.
July 14, 2024
i really took my time with this one. i didn’t intend to read it so slowly because it appeared to be the type of novel that i would completely and utterly devour, but it hit me in the chest over and over again. i had to keep stopping between every chapter, sometimes not having the energy to pick it up for days at a time.
this is not because the book was terrible; in actual fact, it’s the best book i have read. it focuses on the connection between living and deceased souls, and the connection that music has with them in terms of keeping up relationships with past ancestors and friends - either from other lives or simply from your own past.
‘the variations’ took on its own meaning as the storyline unfolded - the meaning of the title isn’t explicitly mentioned, but it becomes clear that it conveys different souls intertwining in order to make up a person, or variations of family members and friends throughout past centuries that remain in our subconscious.
this novel takes the idea of immortality and existentialism and runs with it. being a hypochondriac myself, i have up until this moment failed to come to terms with death and what it may mean for memory and emotions. i have found comforts and ideologies in this book which will stay with me forever.
i cannot recommend this enough - labyrinthine at times, once you have pushed through the first third, it’s well worth the patience it takes. five stars is not enough to describe how perfect this novel is. i just want to give selda the biggest hug.
this is not because the book was terrible; in actual fact, it’s the best book i have read. it focuses on the connection between living and deceased souls, and the connection that music has with them in terms of keeping up relationships with past ancestors and friends - either from other lives or simply from your own past.
‘the variations’ took on its own meaning as the storyline unfolded - the meaning of the title isn’t explicitly mentioned, but it becomes clear that it conveys different souls intertwining in order to make up a person, or variations of family members and friends throughout past centuries that remain in our subconscious.
this novel takes the idea of immortality and existentialism and runs with it. being a hypochondriac myself, i have up until this moment failed to come to terms with death and what it may mean for memory and emotions. i have found comforts and ideologies in this book which will stay with me forever.
i cannot recommend this enough - labyrinthine at times, once you have pushed through the first third, it’s well worth the patience it takes. five stars is not enough to describe how perfect this novel is. i just want to give selda the biggest hug.
August 16, 2025
THE VARIATIONS
Patrick Langley @nyrbooks
Ok, look, this book is weird and niche and wild and I’m not gonna try to sell it to you or anything, but you’ve got to get a sample of the prose here before I tell you anything. It’s 🔥.
“That which we would banish is native to our being. We absorb the dead, drink their minerals; we must offer them sanctuary.
I do not believe—I am stridently opposed to the idea-that the gifted must be "purged" of something grotesque, as was widely believed in the nineteenth century, when the hospice acquired its most recent name. Instead, I have fostered openness: welcoming the gift, letting it roam, not attempting to "tame" it —for in the taming is the most severe violence.
Still, it is a question of balance. The many moving parts of which a self is composed, the interlinked and co-dependent processes encompassed by consciousness, can fall out of synchronization. A cog jams, a fuse blows... but mechanical metaphors won't do. Better to imagine celestial geometries, arcs, parabolas, orbits, and the harmonies produced by the planets' grave rotation, falling out of place and creating dissonance in the mind, a jagged, frenetic noise, as of stars colliding and imploding. Disorder reigns. The gift dominates.”
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OKAY.
SEE? This book is just 🤯. The Variations explores, through three characters, the long history of “the gift,” a sort of indescribable ability to musically communicate with the dead. This book is experimental, brainy, and honesty a fearless attempt at finding a way to portray, via novel, an enormous idea that’s literally best told through music or film. So, you get one of those books that starts off utterly fascinating and gripping and turns into a spiraling, repetitive, cyclical sort of bore by the end.
Just to be painfully honest, I skimmed most of the last little bit of this book it got so repetitive and lost in the weeds—but I still think this novel is a success even if I think it fizzles out hard.
It’s just so interesting and fresh, when it could have come across as plain corny at any time. The prose and sentences Langley conjures here keep it alive and make it worth visiting. Grab it in your next NYRB 40% off sale haul and give it a go.
Oh, and that’s another that goes in the #nyrbsummer stack!!! Watch me worrrrrk
Patrick Langley @nyrbooks
Ok, look, this book is weird and niche and wild and I’m not gonna try to sell it to you or anything, but you’ve got to get a sample of the prose here before I tell you anything. It’s 🔥.
“That which we would banish is native to our being. We absorb the dead, drink their minerals; we must offer them sanctuary.
I do not believe—I am stridently opposed to the idea-that the gifted must be "purged" of something grotesque, as was widely believed in the nineteenth century, when the hospice acquired its most recent name. Instead, I have fostered openness: welcoming the gift, letting it roam, not attempting to "tame" it —for in the taming is the most severe violence.
Still, it is a question of balance. The many moving parts of which a self is composed, the interlinked and co-dependent processes encompassed by consciousness, can fall out of synchronization. A cog jams, a fuse blows... but mechanical metaphors won't do. Better to imagine celestial geometries, arcs, parabolas, orbits, and the harmonies produced by the planets' grave rotation, falling out of place and creating dissonance in the mind, a jagged, frenetic noise, as of stars colliding and imploding. Disorder reigns. The gift dominates.”
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OKAY.
SEE? This book is just 🤯. The Variations explores, through three characters, the long history of “the gift,” a sort of indescribable ability to musically communicate with the dead. This book is experimental, brainy, and honesty a fearless attempt at finding a way to portray, via novel, an enormous idea that’s literally best told through music or film. So, you get one of those books that starts off utterly fascinating and gripping and turns into a spiraling, repetitive, cyclical sort of bore by the end.
Just to be painfully honest, I skimmed most of the last little bit of this book it got so repetitive and lost in the weeds—but I still think this novel is a success even if I think it fizzles out hard.
It’s just so interesting and fresh, when it could have come across as plain corny at any time. The prose and sentences Langley conjures here keep it alive and make it worth visiting. Grab it in your next NYRB 40% off sale haul and give it a go.
Oh, and that’s another that goes in the #nyrbsummer stack!!! Watch me worrrrrk
August 28, 2025
The idea of the story and the premise are really good but the execution is a complete failure imo. It had potential for something much greater but instead of an actual development of the story all you get are flashbacks that do little to give a better understanding of the characters.
The voices of the ancestors are such an interesting concept that gets exploited a lot at the beginning, which I loved, but towards the end you barely see them at all.
It took me so long to finish this book, I just wasn't interested in the story at all after a while.
Not that it really matters but there were a lot more typos than what I usually see in other books.
The voices of the ancestors are such an interesting concept that gets exploited a lot at the beginning, which I loved, but towards the end you barely see them at all.
It took me so long to finish this book, I just wasn't interested in the story at all after a while.
Not that it really matters but there were a lot more typos than what I usually see in other books.
July 17, 2023
This is a review of an ARC I received thanks to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo. This is one of those books that defies definition. A little bit magical realism, it tells the story of Selma Heddle, a reclusive composer who was educated at Agnes’s Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children. The ‘gift’ is the ability (curse?) to commune with ancestors through music and sound, and this gift has been passed on to Selma’s grandson Wolf, who turns up at the Hospice desperate for help in dealing with his legacy. The plus points of this book: the concept is intriguing, the thought that acoustics and sound can provide a link with the past and consciousnesses that precede the current time. The writing, at times is excellent and the author manages to present three different POVs very well. The minuses? It is overwritten, at over 450 pages way too long for the content provided; I would also say that you need a much better understanding of music than your average person does (me included here!) to appreciate the nuances of the story. Finally, I’m not sure if the arc I received is the same as the copy that is going to be published but it definitely needs another proofreader/editor to go through it! The number of typos was irritating and actually started to get in the way of the reading experience.
October 10, 2023
A book that made me wonder, kept me thinking and fell in love with the excellent storytelling.
A new to me author that I loved.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine
A new to me author that I loved.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine
January 9, 2024
Absolutely stunning.
April 12, 2025
Disappointed is an understatement
June 9, 2024
Lmao this book was terrible—so much overwrought description for no reason, plot was barely there, the characters were all completely unrealized except for Ellen. The books gets worse and worse as it progresses and definitely needed a stronger editor—many sloppy sentences and missed opportunities for excision.
January 12, 2025
“They claimed they could remember only the sensation, overwhelming but not unpleasant, of being surrounded by other people; not just the dozens in the guildhall, but thousands […] of singers, making earth and heaven shake with their collective song, which, despite its volume and its magnitude, had a whisper-quiet quality to it, like the faintest rustle from a million distant wings.” Patrick Langley’s dazzling new novel The Variations, out 7 September from Fitzcarraldo Editions, is a tremendous feat of storytelling, an ode to song itself and a thrilling saga about the legacies of family, both creative and traumatic, the pursuit of a life devoted to craft and gifts, and that creative spirit as both a force and a burden. It opens with ‘Frau Trauffea’, my much-loved Strasbourg dancing plague, but recast as a primarily singing plague, and from there moves through three focal characters — Ellen, Wolf, and Selda — each of whom is connected in life, and each of whom has ‘the gift’, an ability to hear their dead ancestors through song. The novel, elegiac and haunting, almost describes itself in its pages: “A sonata only in the loosest sense. A cycle in three main moments. In length it approaches an epic but its real concern is the stuff of songs, of ballads even: what takes place when people meet, how it changes who they are.” It is so lyrically and so compellingly written, and profoundly moving. I really loved reading it. “We don't know the song but we know how it starts and ends. Out of and back to silence.” I got a proof through NetGalley but can’t wait to buy a physical copy when it’s out in September!
July 16, 2025
this book did not do it for me. after reading the first bit, i was reluctant, all the musical terminology was a lot, and the book didn’t seem to have much to it. however, as it progressed i got a bit more into it, the narrative was easy to get through and i had higher hopes for the end of the novel. however, whilst these didn’t come crashing down, they did undergo a somewhat depressingly slow disintegration. it seemed as if the author couldn’t commit to who the story was about. whilst it does revolve around selda, i think too much time was spent on setting up the backgrounds to the characters, and then by the time you get back to the present it’s rushed and so many questions are left unanswered. we never really find out anything about the voices, maybe that’s the authors intention but i think that’s silly. also we don’t see what happens to wolf. the ending seemed to be setting the book up for a sequel, and i hope i have the self-control to not find myself reading it. this is my first negative review and i feel so horrible about it!!! i’m sorry patrick langley i’m sure i am actually misunderstanding everything and that these words are completely unjustified. i thought his character development was his strongest attribute, i enjoyed selda’s character for much of the novel, there is always something endearing about an ‘unbothered queen’, and i found the presentation of young wolf super super funny. thankyou goodbye.
July 6, 2023
Selda Heddle, a famously reclusive composer, is found dead in a snowy field near her Cornish home. She was educated at Agnes's Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children, which for centuries has offered its young wards a grounding in the gift - an inherited ability to tune into the voices and sounds of the past. When she dies, Selda's gift passes down to her grandson Wolf, who must make sense of her legacy, and learn to live with the newly unleashed voices in his head. Ambitious and exhilarating, The Variations is a novel of startling originality about music and the difficulty - or impossibility - of living with the past.
I'm afraid this book absolutely wasn't for me and it was a real struggle to read. The language is beautiful but it's as if the sentences (or perhaps phrases is a better description) are constructed for the ways the words fit together rather than to tell the story. It was very disjointed, difficult to follow and completely failed to hold my interest despite my being a real fan of magical realism. I know other reviewers have been enthralled so let's just say that this author and I have a real disconnect.
My thanks to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for an advance copy in return for an honest review.
I'm afraid this book absolutely wasn't for me and it was a real struggle to read. The language is beautiful but it's as if the sentences (or perhaps phrases is a better description) are constructed for the ways the words fit together rather than to tell the story. It was very disjointed, difficult to follow and completely failed to hold my interest despite my being a real fan of magical realism. I know other reviewers have been enthralled so let's just say that this author and I have a real disconnect.
My thanks to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for an advance copy in return for an honest review.
September 23, 2023
Synopsis- Selda Heddle, a famously reclusive composer, is found dead in a snowy field near her Cornish home. She was educated at Agnes's Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children, which for centuries has offered its young wards a grounding in the gift - an inherited ability to tune into the voices and sounds of the past. When she dies, Selda's gift passes down to her grandson Wolf, who must make sense of her legacy, and learn to live with the newly unleashed voices in his head. Ambitious and exhilarating, The Variations is a novel of startling originality about music and the difficulty - or impossibility - of living with the past.
Review- The book is told through 3 different points of view... Selda, Wolf (Selda's grandson) and Ellen (the dene of the hospice). It heavily surrounds music and a "gift" that connects those with this gift to the dead through music, though I'm still not 100% sure how this gift actually worked.
On a whole, it is a beautifully written story and very detailed. I loved Wolf's POV more than the other and the unusual way the story is told by going further back in time rather than forwards. The only complaint i have is that, at times the book was almost too wordy and over-descriptive, that some chapters became really hard to get through.
Review- The book is told through 3 different points of view... Selda, Wolf (Selda's grandson) and Ellen (the dene of the hospice). It heavily surrounds music and a "gift" that connects those with this gift to the dead through music, though I'm still not 100% sure how this gift actually worked.
On a whole, it is a beautifully written story and very detailed. I loved Wolf's POV more than the other and the unusual way the story is told by going further back in time rather than forwards. The only complaint i have is that, at times the book was almost too wordy and over-descriptive, that some chapters became really hard to get through.
October 4, 2023
This is an unusual book. At its simplest, it is the story of Selda, a gifted musician and composer, her daughter Anya and her grandson Wolf.. But Selda's gift is more than musical talent and Wolf has inherited it.
The book opens with Wolf's arrival at Agnes's Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children where he is seeking help. It's a gripping opening and cleverly introduces the idea of the gift which is clearly difficult to describe. It seems to involve hearing sounds that may or may not be music - is it a form of tinnitus? - but also some connection with ghosts of the past. It comes and goes and can be a great psychological burden.
I think it is a great challenge for authors to write credibly about aural impressions but this book's looping structure and changing perspectives seems to manage this very effectively. But it is a long book and not an easy read. I finished it feeling somewhat inadequate and thinking that I must have missed many allusions and deeper thoughts (I often find this after reading books published by Fitzcarraldo, yet I continue to seek out their distinctive blue covers in bookshops...)
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
The book opens with Wolf's arrival at Agnes's Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children where he is seeking help. It's a gripping opening and cleverly introduces the idea of the gift which is clearly difficult to describe. It seems to involve hearing sounds that may or may not be music - is it a form of tinnitus? - but also some connection with ghosts of the past. It comes and goes and can be a great psychological burden.
I think it is a great challenge for authors to write credibly about aural impressions but this book's looping structure and changing perspectives seems to manage this very effectively. But it is a long book and not an easy read. I finished it feeling somewhat inadequate and thinking that I must have missed many allusions and deeper thoughts (I often find this after reading books published by Fitzcarraldo, yet I continue to seek out their distinctive blue covers in bookshops...)
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
June 28, 2023
Thank you very much to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo editions for the ARC of this beautiful book . I need start this review taking about the magical realism in this book, I adore the balance between the legacy of a family, your own passions in this case music and art and find the own peace with your own past. There writing style is pretty unique in a way and pretty lyrical in other ways but I sense this may be a reason for many people dislike this book since it make really hard read it. I did like it because it make the whole book very unique. In overall I really enjoyed this book, I really enjoyed the characters and it is a book I would recommend.
August 15, 2023
A reclusiveve composer Selda Heddle is found dead in a field near her home in Cornwall, she has the gift that is passed onto her grandson Wolf who is trying to make sense of thr voices in his head and the images of dead people he sees. The story goes on to tell us about Selda's unusual life and her experience in a home for gifted children. It is beautifully written, but is difficult to follow. This may be because this is a proof copy, the editors should be able to clean it up. It is also overly long, could do with shortening to make it tighter.
Give it a generous 3 stars as the written word is beautiful
Thanks you Fitzcarraldo for thr ARC.
Give it a generous 3 stars as the written word is beautiful
Thanks you Fitzcarraldo for thr ARC.
February 1, 2024
Three stars doesn't really cover what I thought of this book. This was a strange one... To be honest, I'm not really sure what it was about. I never understood the link between music and being connected to the dead. In fact, I never felt the presence of the dead, despite that being the central theme. But what was strange was that, despite all this, I was still completely engaged. The writing was so exact and yet lyrical that I couldn't stop reading. I loved the descriptions, was never bored and never once considered putting the book down and starting something else. A very talented writer - I just wish I understood what it was all about!
September 15, 2023
The Variations by Patrick Langley
Set in England, this story brings together 3 characters making their way in the world of magical realism, bringing together an unusual ‘gift’ and legacy. When composer Selda is found dead, her ‘gift’ is passed down to her grandson, Wolf, who has to come to terms with the voices in his head. As the story continues we learn more about Selda’s unique life and her time in a home for gifted children.
I read this book as part of a Tandem readalong, although some parts where difficult to follow, I was engaged right until the very end and kept wanting more.
Set in England, this story brings together 3 characters making their way in the world of magical realism, bringing together an unusual ‘gift’ and legacy. When composer Selda is found dead, her ‘gift’ is passed down to her grandson, Wolf, who has to come to terms with the voices in his head. As the story continues we learn more about Selda’s unique life and her time in a home for gifted children.
I read this book as part of a Tandem readalong, although some parts where difficult to follow, I was engaged right until the very end and kept wanting more.
October 21, 2023
We chose this as the most stylishly written literary fiction recent release. Read a passage here: https://auraist.substack.com/p/litera...
Auraist is a free new recommendation service that selects the best-written books from prize shortlists, end-of-year lists, and major reviews. If you're picky about your prose, come and browse our other selections (subscription is free)! Criteria for our choices are here: https://auraist.substack.com/about
Auraist is a free new recommendation service that selects the best-written books from prize shortlists, end-of-year lists, and major reviews. If you're picky about your prose, come and browse our other selections (subscription is free)! Criteria for our choices are here: https://auraist.substack.com/about
June 25, 2024
I fear I just don’t get this book :/
We are thrown into a unique world with many interesting concepts, but little context! I struggled to truly grasp what was going on. Personally I thought that if the whole novel stuck to one perspective it would be more effective in getting the storyline across. That said, it was very unique and had some lovely writing. Perhaps someone who values creativity over story telling may find this book more appealing.
We are thrown into a unique world with many interesting concepts, but little context! I struggled to truly grasp what was going on. Personally I thought that if the whole novel stuck to one perspective it would be more effective in getting the storyline across. That said, it was very unique and had some lovely writing. Perhaps someone who values creativity over story telling may find this book more appealing.
March 8, 2025
There is a book I really love, somewhere in here. Or maybe adjacent to this one. A story told in three parts that would have been better serviced by cutting out the middle bit. It feels like there is great depth below the surface of this story but the constant pivots prevent the story and characters from ever really developing. To be honest my least favorite kind of reading experience. It was just good enough for me to chug along, but it was a bit of a slog to get through.
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