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First Republic Trilogy #1
On the Overgrown Path
En route from Bratislava to Prague in the deceptive spring of the 1920s, Leos Janacek, famed opera composer, ethnographer, and amateur psychologist, is stranded in an obscure and enigmatic mountain village, lured from his train by a song of blood. Here, Janacek must become a detective far from home. Attempting to solve a bizarre murder in which he himself is suspect — and whose perpetrator might be a wild animal, a jealous lover, or Nature unhinged — he brings to bear his singular skills of observation and poetic insight, and most importantly, his belief in the truthfulness of the "little melodies" heard in everyday life: the cry of a bird, the plash of snow from the eaves, the horrendous lie voiced with a smile. What he uncovers is a many-stranded aria of ravenous Nature and mischievous Time, threatening to consume his world.
David Herter, author of the acclaimed, stylish novels Ceres Storm and Evening's Empire, has written a rich and dark fantasy growing from the very roots of Janacek's idiosyncratic soul.
David Herter, author of the acclaimed, stylish novels Ceres Storm and Evening's Empire, has written a rich and dark fantasy growing from the very roots of Janacek's idiosyncratic soul.
- GenresFiction
120 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
3 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
David Herter
16 books14 followersDavid Herter is a graduate of Clarion West 1990, where his instructors included Gene Wolfe. In 2004 he spent a month in the Czech Republic celebrating the 150th anniversary of Leoš Janáček’s birth, an experience that led to his First Republic trilogy On the Overgrown Path, The Luminous Depths, and One Who Disappeared. His other novels include the far-future Ceres Storm, the Vernian cheese fantasy Evening’s Empire, and the Halloween horror October Dark. Forthcoming is epic planetary romance The Cold Heavens, inspired by C. L. Moore, Gustav Meyrink, and Weimar Berlin. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Visit his blog at www.davidherter.blogspot.com.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 17, 2014
”Lofty pines, whose snow-dusted boughs are dusting the forest floor--as if those tapers had fallen from the sky.
He squints against it. He hears the crash of larger chunks of ice, spangling like the cymbalom.
The bells are now a distant memory, even as that shadow tone is replaced with this other. Not cymbaloms but flecks of ice raining down, as the lofty, mossy pines lean toward him.
An interpenetration.
A twine, that shivers his soul.
He stumbles, pulling his hands from his pockets as he falls forward.
His palms strike the earth, and the earth is trembling.
Snow and ice strike from above. He shuts his eyes, listening to the bright rilling tones that soar the length of the forest--vibrating too in the ground beneath him, in the fabric of his gloves.
He realizes then what he has always known--that everything is not particle but quivering strings, the element of music binding down to the tiniest of things, trembling in sympathy with the universe--the scasovani.
Leos Janáček, a famed opera composer, traveling by train on his way to Prague from Bratislava hears a song that he can not ignore. Like a siren from the forest the song lures him from his seat on the train. Every sound is a song to him. The wind, vibrations, blood moving through veins, and the various tones and timbers of the human voice all call out to him as notes in a new song.
He finds the source of the song.
”Her face is pale, and smiling, and eyeless. Between her breasts, the outflung cavity is planted with roses.
The drear red of their petals is all that she sings now.”
He grieves not for the woman, because he doesn’t know her, but for the song that was lost that he was just beginning to understand.
Needless to say he missing his train and finds himself in the unexpected position of investigating a murder, a murder of which he is the primary suspect. After all, he found the body. His gift is music and he must solve the murder through the notes and cadences of his craft.
”His ears hear large.”
His notebook is filled with scratchings, bits of songs, captured human voices in the dashes of a few notes. The world is encapsulated in those scribblings. A composer of the future, even if the blue sphere has disappeared, could recreate the essence of who we are from the symphony of those notes.
It takes my breath away at even the thought of it.
Native Americans feared that when they allowed these White Invaders to take their picture that their soul was being stolen. The people of this small mountain town have never seen anyone quite like Janáček. He is hearing things beyond their hearing. He makes connections that seem supernatural to them. When he jots down notes that capture their voices, like the Native Americans, they fear he is taking their soul with him between the leaves of that notebook.
”He draws out the melodies of their subterfuge.”
I have never read David Herter, but a few years ago PS Publishing sent me a sales offer that was too good to refuse. I bought four of his books, rather impulsively, based more than anything on the fact that three of the books are part of a Prague trilogy. Ever since I visited Prague I’ve been interested in books set in that beautiful city. I’m book crazy, but not completely loony tunes. I did do some research on Herter, read some excerpts, and felt comfortable investing my money.
I am so glad I did.
The atmosphere of this book is mystical with a character so lost in his own gifts he truly needs to be reminded to sleep, to eat. Even walking is a song:
”He is halfway across the square, his shoes in brisk 2/4 time, when a wailing voice sends 2/4 stuttering into ⅝”
Since I finished this book I’ve spent more time being still, listening, trying to hear some of the songs that Janáček feels in the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. I’m certainly an amateur listener when compared to the brilliant skills of Janáček, but I do find that the world is whispering to me all the time, if only, I can hush myself long enough to let their music bring me to my knees.
He squints against it. He hears the crash of larger chunks of ice, spangling like the cymbalom.
The bells are now a distant memory, even as that shadow tone is replaced with this other. Not cymbaloms but flecks of ice raining down, as the lofty, mossy pines lean toward him.
An interpenetration.
A twine, that shivers his soul.
He stumbles, pulling his hands from his pockets as he falls forward.
His palms strike the earth, and the earth is trembling.
Snow and ice strike from above. He shuts his eyes, listening to the bright rilling tones that soar the length of the forest--vibrating too in the ground beneath him, in the fabric of his gloves.
He realizes then what he has always known--that everything is not particle but quivering strings, the element of music binding down to the tiniest of things, trembling in sympathy with the universe--the scasovani.
Leos Janáček, a famed opera composer, traveling by train on his way to Prague from Bratislava hears a song that he can not ignore. Like a siren from the forest the song lures him from his seat on the train. Every sound is a song to him. The wind, vibrations, blood moving through veins, and the various tones and timbers of the human voice all call out to him as notes in a new song.
He finds the source of the song.
”Her face is pale, and smiling, and eyeless. Between her breasts, the outflung cavity is planted with roses.
The drear red of their petals is all that she sings now.”
He grieves not for the woman, because he doesn’t know her, but for the song that was lost that he was just beginning to understand.
Needless to say he missing his train and finds himself in the unexpected position of investigating a murder, a murder of which he is the primary suspect. After all, he found the body. His gift is music and he must solve the murder through the notes and cadences of his craft.
”His ears hear large.”
His notebook is filled with scratchings, bits of songs, captured human voices in the dashes of a few notes. The world is encapsulated in those scribblings. A composer of the future, even if the blue sphere has disappeared, could recreate the essence of who we are from the symphony of those notes.
It takes my breath away at even the thought of it.
Native Americans feared that when they allowed these White Invaders to take their picture that their soul was being stolen. The people of this small mountain town have never seen anyone quite like Janáček. He is hearing things beyond their hearing. He makes connections that seem supernatural to them. When he jots down notes that capture their voices, like the Native Americans, they fear he is taking their soul with him between the leaves of that notebook.
”He draws out the melodies of their subterfuge.”
I have never read David Herter, but a few years ago PS Publishing sent me a sales offer that was too good to refuse. I bought four of his books, rather impulsively, based more than anything on the fact that three of the books are part of a Prague trilogy. Ever since I visited Prague I’ve been interested in books set in that beautiful city. I’m book crazy, but not completely loony tunes. I did do some research on Herter, read some excerpts, and felt comfortable investing my money.
I am so glad I did.
The atmosphere of this book is mystical with a character so lost in his own gifts he truly needs to be reminded to sleep, to eat. Even walking is a song:
”He is halfway across the square, his shoes in brisk 2/4 time, when a wailing voice sends 2/4 stuttering into ⅝”
Since I finished this book I’ve spent more time being still, listening, trying to hear some of the songs that Janáček feels in the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. I’m certainly an amateur listener when compared to the brilliant skills of Janáček, but I do find that the world is whispering to me all the time, if only, I can hush myself long enough to let their music bring me to my knees.
July 19, 2014
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: En route from Bratislava to Prague in the deceptive spring of the 1920s, Leos Janáček, famed opera composer, ethnographer, and amateur psychologist, is stranded in an obscure and enigmatic mountain village, lured from his train by a song of blood. Here, Janáček must become a detective far from home. Attempting to solve a bizarre murder in which he himself is suspect — and whose perpetrator might be a wild animal, a jealous lover, or Nature unhinged — he brings to bear his singular skills of observation and poetic insight, and most importantly, his belief in the truthfulness of the "little melodies" heard in everyday life: the cry of a bird, the plash of snow from the eaves, the horrendous lie voiced with a smile. What he uncovers is a many-stranded aria of ravenous Nature and mischievous Time, threatening to consume his world.
My Review: What a beautiful little package this book is! I love the Millais cover image, Ophelia, and particularly like the way it resonates with the dark, supernatural story Herter is telling here.
This little beauty was very pleasant to read. It's a supernatural fantasy set in 1923 Czechoslovakia, featuring the composer Janacek as its main character. The evocative language, and the use of Janacek's known habit of recording every sound in musical notation wherever he was, were very nice features of the book. The dialogue was, in a word, wooden; some of it was intentional, and I could completely see that the author was attempting a 19th-century cadence with sterling success; but then, but then, but then...almost every time Janáček speaks, the statement is an exclamation! As thought this 70-year-old man of a certain dignified station in life was a Valley Girl! That made the unnaturalness I felt was a hallmark of Janacek's dialogue all the more evident!
The supernatural-death-dealer elements were fine, and well-handled; the story path of the isolated village with dark secrets and darker customs is well-worn, but nonetheless enjoyable to tread; yet the whole, which I began wit every expectation of adoring, ended up in the "glad I read it, but won't re-read" category. I would cheerfully recommend the book to anyone who likes dark fantasy tales, and would equally recommend it to anyone interested in moody, atmospheric fiction. Just don't pin your socks to your pants, they are in no danger of getting blown off by On the Overgrown Path.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The Publisher Says: En route from Bratislava to Prague in the deceptive spring of the 1920s, Leos Janáček, famed opera composer, ethnographer, and amateur psychologist, is stranded in an obscure and enigmatic mountain village, lured from his train by a song of blood. Here, Janáček must become a detective far from home. Attempting to solve a bizarre murder in which he himself is suspect — and whose perpetrator might be a wild animal, a jealous lover, or Nature unhinged — he brings to bear his singular skills of observation and poetic insight, and most importantly, his belief in the truthfulness of the "little melodies" heard in everyday life: the cry of a bird, the plash of snow from the eaves, the horrendous lie voiced with a smile. What he uncovers is a many-stranded aria of ravenous Nature and mischievous Time, threatening to consume his world.
My Review: What a beautiful little package this book is! I love the Millais cover image, Ophelia, and particularly like the way it resonates with the dark, supernatural story Herter is telling here.
This little beauty was very pleasant to read. It's a supernatural fantasy set in 1923 Czechoslovakia, featuring the composer Janacek as its main character. The evocative language, and the use of Janacek's known habit of recording every sound in musical notation wherever he was, were very nice features of the book. The dialogue was, in a word, wooden; some of it was intentional, and I could completely see that the author was attempting a 19th-century cadence with sterling success; but then, but then, but then...almost every time Janáček speaks, the statement is an exclamation! As thought this 70-year-old man of a certain dignified station in life was a Valley Girl! That made the unnaturalness I felt was a hallmark of Janacek's dialogue all the more evident!
The supernatural-death-dealer elements were fine, and well-handled; the story path of the isolated village with dark secrets and darker customs is well-worn, but nonetheless enjoyable to tread; yet the whole, which I began wit every expectation of adoring, ended up in the "glad I read it, but won't re-read" category. I would cheerfully recommend the book to anyone who likes dark fantasy tales, and would equally recommend it to anyone interested in moody, atmospheric fiction. Just don't pin your socks to your pants, they are in no danger of getting blown off by On the Overgrown Path.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
October 22, 2018
I only discovered the existence of this novel starring Leoš Janaček after seeing his opera Jenufa and reading a wikipedia page about him that mentioned it.
The novel contains a lot of great details about the composer, his work and composition technique, weaved into a tale that becomes an odd mystic experience, nothing to do with his biography anymore.
Worthwhile for Janaček fans ready for a twist.
The novel contains a lot of great details about the composer, his work and composition technique, weaved into a tale that becomes an odd mystic experience, nothing to do with his biography anymore.
Worthwhile for Janaček fans ready for a twist.
May 15, 2012
A very mysterious, beautifully written novella. An elderly Czech composer finds himself unexpectedly left, during a train journey, in an anonymous village where he spends several days indulging his ethnographic obsessions (transcribing random sounds and melodies into a notebook) and, eventually, trying to solve a crime with mystical overtones. John Clute, in the introduction, references British horror writer Algernon Blackwood, and it’s an apt comparison though readers will find Herter’s book better paced and more accessible. I know that I didn’t catch everything on my first reading, and I’m still puzzling over the deliciously enigmatic ending.
January 6, 2021
The Best Speculative Literature You Never Read
Intelligent, well researched, lyrical and so, very compelling,, this novella is a small work of art. It is a version of Where the Wild Things Are, set after the horrific violence and death of WWI, when shellshocked and mourning, everyone was hoping for a better world. Some wandered off the beaten path looking for more radical alternatives. The imagery is so very distinctive, as Herter paints word pictures with finesse. The growing threat that hangs over the composer, grows steadily until it is at a fever pitch. The ending is a complete surprise. An incredible tale in the best possible way.
The tie to Evening's Empire - the first Herter which I read, is through music and mathematics as a way of communication with other species. That was a 5 star novel imho.
This spec lit, so it might be a difficult read it you don't have the vocabulary or the inductive or deductive reasoning to put concepts together. Nothing is spoon fed. That being said it never hurts to try something new. This is a fabulous place to start
Highly Recommended!
Intelligent, well researched, lyrical and so, very compelling,, this novella is a small work of art. It is a version of Where the Wild Things Are, set after the horrific violence and death of WWI, when shellshocked and mourning, everyone was hoping for a better world. Some wandered off the beaten path looking for more radical alternatives. The imagery is so very distinctive, as Herter paints word pictures with finesse. The growing threat that hangs over the composer, grows steadily until it is at a fever pitch. The ending is a complete surprise. An incredible tale in the best possible way.
The tie to Evening's Empire - the first Herter which I read, is through music and mathematics as a way of communication with other species. That was a 5 star novel imho.
This spec lit, so it might be a difficult read it you don't have the vocabulary or the inductive or deductive reasoning to put concepts together. Nothing is spoon fed. That being said it never hurts to try something new. This is a fabulous place to start
Highly Recommended!
May 14, 2020
Set in the early C20th and with something of that old-fashioned style to it - reminiscent of "The House on the Borderlands" with it's dream-like quality. I enjoyed it immensely except that the ending was a bit of a disappointment.
September 18, 2021
GR's 'book description' is misleading and does it a great disservice.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews