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Le temps où nous chantions (Edition Spéciale)
Une édition collector de la saga polyphonique d'une famille de musiciens métis dans l'Amérique des années quarante à nos jours. Tout commence en 1939, lorsque Delia Daley et David Strom se rencontrent à un concert de Marian Anderson. Peut-on alors imaginer qu'une jeune femme noire épouse un juif allemand fuyant le nazisme ? Et pourtant... Leur passion pour la musique l'emporte sur les conventions et offre à leur amour un sanctuaire de paix ou, loin des hurlements du monde et de ses vicissitudes, ils élèvent leurs trois enfants. Chacun d'eux cherche sa voix dans la grande cacophonie américaine, inventant son destin en marge des lieux communs. Peuplé de personnages d'une humanité rare, Le temps ou nous chantions couvre un demi-siècle d'histoire américaine, nous offrant, au passage, des pages inoubliables sur la musique.
" On sort de ce fleuve ému, bouleversé et admiratif : sans jamais écrire un roman politique, ni polémique, Richard Powers a décrit, à voix feutrée, l'échec définitif d'un idéal. "
Christophe Mercier, Le Figaro littéraire
Traduit de l'anglais (Etats-Unis)
par Nicolas Richard
" On sort de ce fleuve ému, bouleversé et admiratif : sans jamais écrire un roman politique, ni polémique, Richard Powers a décrit, à voix feutrée, l'échec définitif d'un idéal. "
Christophe Mercier, Le Figaro littéraire
Traduit de l'anglais (Etats-Unis)
par Nicolas Richard
1045 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 2002
756 people are currently reading
9847 people want to read
About the author
Richard Powers
92 books6,671 followersRichard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book The Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 627 reviews
December 15, 2018
I didn't see eye to eye with this at all. In fact I'm having as much trouble reviewing it as I did reading it. First problem was the dense overwrought prose and its constant striving for profundity. Second problem, the leaden dialogue. Third problem, the relentless preponderance of telling over showing. Fourth problem, the scant half-baked female characters, fifth problem, the author relentlessly and self-indulgently showing off esoteric knowledge.
A marriage between a black American woman and a German Jew who has escaped the Nazis and their three mixed race children is a premise loaded with dramatic tension. Yet this is a novel almost entirely bereft of dramatic tension. The novel begins with Powers telling us over and over how talented his hero is and how wonderful is his family. The family scenes especially are sticky with cloying sweeteners. I soon got sick of Powers showing me how much he knows about music and singing. After a while it got as boring as anyone pedantically showing off knowledge of one subject. Often novels are praised for how breezily they wear their research; the opposite is true of this. Just when you think he's got the singing over and done with everyone bursts into song yet again like we're at some kind of feelgood West End musical and we get another four pages of hyperbole prose. Another problem was the German Jewish father who might have been funny as a caricature of the mad scientist if there was such a thing as comedy in this novel. If as a German Jew who has lost his entire family in the Holocaust he wasn't sufficiently charged with 20th century gravitas he's also working on the atomic bomb. However, his Jewishness plays no part in the novel; none of his children seem the faintest bit interested in this part of their heritage and his presence begins to have the same effect as the prose - the constant overreaching for profundity. His main contribution is to give the novel it's structure - the best feature of the book. At one point he squabbles with and falls out with his father-in-law over who has had it worse, the European Jews or black Americans. That was like someone with lung cancer arguing with someone with bowel cancer over which is the worse fate.
So while Luther King is inspiring a nation and black American culture is making enormous headway in establishing its identity our two brothers have taken up residence in the white man's ivory castle of classical music. Powers tries to offset this by making the sister a black panther but she, potentially the most interesting character, remains a shadowy figure throughout the novel, a device rather than a living character. Powers layers in countless obscure musical and physics ideas as motifs but for me it all came across as emperor's new clothes elaboration. Does anyone, I wonder, really understand what he's getting at half the time with all the stuff about harmonics and wavelengths? You could say it's a very intellectual novel which is rarely clever. It's also a very masculine novel. The female characters arouse little empathy. The last 100 pages were better when it gets more real, focusing on the sister's attempts to start an inner city school but ultimately a single Marvin Gaye song says more to me about race than this entire novel.
A marriage between a black American woman and a German Jew who has escaped the Nazis and their three mixed race children is a premise loaded with dramatic tension. Yet this is a novel almost entirely bereft of dramatic tension. The novel begins with Powers telling us over and over how talented his hero is and how wonderful is his family. The family scenes especially are sticky with cloying sweeteners. I soon got sick of Powers showing me how much he knows about music and singing. After a while it got as boring as anyone pedantically showing off knowledge of one subject. Often novels are praised for how breezily they wear their research; the opposite is true of this. Just when you think he's got the singing over and done with everyone bursts into song yet again like we're at some kind of feelgood West End musical and we get another four pages of hyperbole prose. Another problem was the German Jewish father who might have been funny as a caricature of the mad scientist if there was such a thing as comedy in this novel. If as a German Jew who has lost his entire family in the Holocaust he wasn't sufficiently charged with 20th century gravitas he's also working on the atomic bomb. However, his Jewishness plays no part in the novel; none of his children seem the faintest bit interested in this part of their heritage and his presence begins to have the same effect as the prose - the constant overreaching for profundity. His main contribution is to give the novel it's structure - the best feature of the book. At one point he squabbles with and falls out with his father-in-law over who has had it worse, the European Jews or black Americans. That was like someone with lung cancer arguing with someone with bowel cancer over which is the worse fate.
So while Luther King is inspiring a nation and black American culture is making enormous headway in establishing its identity our two brothers have taken up residence in the white man's ivory castle of classical music. Powers tries to offset this by making the sister a black panther but she, potentially the most interesting character, remains a shadowy figure throughout the novel, a device rather than a living character. Powers layers in countless obscure musical and physics ideas as motifs but for me it all came across as emperor's new clothes elaboration. Does anyone, I wonder, really understand what he's getting at half the time with all the stuff about harmonics and wavelengths? You could say it's a very intellectual novel which is rarely clever. It's also a very masculine novel. The female characters arouse little empathy. The last 100 pages were better when it gets more real, focusing on the sister's attempts to start an inner city school but ultimately a single Marvin Gaye song says more to me about race than this entire novel.
August 2, 2016
This is the second Powers book I have read, and it left me wanting to read more. Like Orfeo, this is a book which shines with a deep love and knowledge of music of all kinds.
This one centres on a mixed race American family of musical geniuses. The central figures are Delia Daley, a singer from an upwardly mobile black family, her husband, the Jewish physicist David Strom who has fled Nazi Germany, and their children - Jonah, a talented classical singer who struggles to avoid being typecast and diminished as a black singer, Joseph, his accompanist and the narrator who sees himself as a lesser musician, and Ruth, a talented singer as a child who is darker than her brothers and abandons music for a life working to help black people with a husband tainted by his association with the Black Panthers. The family story is complex and is interwoven with the tragic history of racial struggles and conflicts in America, spiced by a liberal sprinkling of scientific ideas.
Powers' control of these many strands is masterly, and the whole is very satisfying and surprisingly readable given the complexity of some of the ideas. I couldn't help thinking that the ending, for all its formal elegance, did not quite ring as true as much of what preceded it (I can't say more about that without spoiling). Maybe not quite the best book I have read this year, but it did come very close.
This one centres on a mixed race American family of musical geniuses. The central figures are Delia Daley, a singer from an upwardly mobile black family, her husband, the Jewish physicist David Strom who has fled Nazi Germany, and their children - Jonah, a talented classical singer who struggles to avoid being typecast and diminished as a black singer, Joseph, his accompanist and the narrator who sees himself as a lesser musician, and Ruth, a talented singer as a child who is darker than her brothers and abandons music for a life working to help black people with a husband tainted by his association with the Black Panthers. The family story is complex and is interwoven with the tragic history of racial struggles and conflicts in America, spiced by a liberal sprinkling of scientific ideas.
Powers' control of these many strands is masterly, and the whole is very satisfying and surprisingly readable given the complexity of some of the ideas. I couldn't help thinking that the ending, for all its formal elegance, did not quite ring as true as much of what preceded it (I can't say more about that without spoiling). Maybe not quite the best book I have read this year, but it did come very close.
November 2, 2018
The bird and the fish can fall in love. But where they gonna build their nest?
The Time of Our Singing sings about the fortunes of a mixed American family from 1939 to the present day. A German-Jewish physicist marries a black singer and the uncommon couple gets three children. By making music and singing together, the family creates a world of its own in which race is an insignificant factor. Yet their family is inevitably marked by the prevailing racial inequality. Powers lashes his novel with historical and political material from recent American history (Martin Luther King, racial riots ...) and plays all registers of white and black music, albeit in a not always so subtle way. Via the reflections of the father on the concept of time, Powers gives time an sich an essential role in the story.
De vogel en de vis kunnen liefde voor elkaar opvatten. Maar waar gaan ze hun nest bouwen?
Het zingen van de tijd bezingt de lotgevallen van een gemengd Amerikaans gezin van 1939 tot heden. Een Duits-Joodse fysicus huwt een zwarte zangeres, waarop het stel drie kinderen krijgt. Door samen te musiceren en te zingen creëert het gezin een eigen wereld waarin ras een onbeduidende factor is. Toch wordt hun familie onvermijdelijk getekend door de heersende rassenongelijkheid. Powers lardeert zijn roman met historisch en politiek feitenmateriaal uit de recente Amerikaanse geschiedenis (Martin Luther King, rassenrellen…) en bespeelt alle registers van de witte en zwarte muziek, zij het soms op weinig subtiele wijze. Aan de hand van de natuurkundige bespiegelingen van de vaderfiguur over het begrip tijd, geeft hij tijd an sich een essentiële rol in het verhaal.
The Time of Our Singing sings about the fortunes of a mixed American family from 1939 to the present day. A German-Jewish physicist marries a black singer and the uncommon couple gets three children. By making music and singing together, the family creates a world of its own in which race is an insignificant factor. Yet their family is inevitably marked by the prevailing racial inequality. Powers lashes his novel with historical and political material from recent American history (Martin Luther King, racial riots ...) and plays all registers of white and black music, albeit in a not always so subtle way. Via the reflections of the father on the concept of time, Powers gives time an sich an essential role in the story.
De vogel en de vis kunnen liefde voor elkaar opvatten. Maar waar gaan ze hun nest bouwen?
Het zingen van de tijd bezingt de lotgevallen van een gemengd Amerikaans gezin van 1939 tot heden. Een Duits-Joodse fysicus huwt een zwarte zangeres, waarop het stel drie kinderen krijgt. Door samen te musiceren en te zingen creëert het gezin een eigen wereld waarin ras een onbeduidende factor is. Toch wordt hun familie onvermijdelijk getekend door de heersende rassenongelijkheid. Powers lardeert zijn roman met historisch en politiek feitenmateriaal uit de recente Amerikaanse geschiedenis (Martin Luther King, rassenrellen…) en bespeelt alle registers van de witte en zwarte muziek, zij het soms op weinig subtiele wijze. Aan de hand van de natuurkundige bespiegelingen van de vaderfiguur over het begrip tijd, geeft hij tijd an sich een essentiële rol in het verhaal.
September 26, 2007
I had a hard time finishing this book, because the ending was so good that I couldn't stop crying. Not because it was sad, but because it was so unbelievably good, and because I'd never before read a long book with an ending that lived up to its heft.
Seriously, it took me like half an hour to read the last few pages, because I kept flinging down the book and pacing around my apartment, sobbing hysterically.
Don't get me wrong, this book is not perfect, and it definitely falters in places. However, the ending is. Perfect, I mean.
Seriously, it took me like half an hour to read the last few pages, because I kept flinging down the book and pacing around my apartment, sobbing hysterically.
Don't get me wrong, this book is not perfect, and it definitely falters in places. However, the ending is. Perfect, I mean.
May 12, 2007
Every once in a while you'll get into one of those conversations with an acquaintance who thinks he or she is smarter than you in which you list a string of books you've read recently and authors you particularly enjoy. Invariably Michael Chabon's last name (shay-bawn) is mispronounced in these conversations.
If you want to win the next conversation like this you have, I highly recommend delving quickly and deeply into the urvruh of Richard Powers, who, despite never fully penetrating the upper echelon of modern novelists, has been a finalist for the National Book Award more often than Jane Smiley has ovulated, which is impressive because Jane Smiley ovulates at a rate three times the national average. You should read In The Time of Our Singing, and other Powers books, because they are excellent. You should also read them because when Paul Besterhooz, Sarah's ex-boyfriend and grade-A thunderdouche busts out Ian McEwan as one of his favorite writers, you can fire back with Richard Powers' more nuanced (and, let's face it, the only way Atonement could be more overrated is if it was written by a recently-liberated Afghani woman) take on guilt and consciousness in literally all of his books.
In The Time of Our Singing is about race in America and opera singing and also math.
If you want to win the next conversation like this you have, I highly recommend delving quickly and deeply into the urvruh of Richard Powers, who, despite never fully penetrating the upper echelon of modern novelists, has been a finalist for the National Book Award more often than Jane Smiley has ovulated, which is impressive because Jane Smiley ovulates at a rate three times the national average. You should read In The Time of Our Singing, and other Powers books, because they are excellent. You should also read them because when Paul Besterhooz, Sarah's ex-boyfriend and grade-A thunderdouche busts out Ian McEwan as one of his favorite writers, you can fire back with Richard Powers' more nuanced (and, let's face it, the only way Atonement could be more overrated is if it was written by a recently-liberated Afghani woman) take on guilt and consciousness in literally all of his books.
In The Time of Our Singing is about race in America and opera singing and also math.
August 29, 2017
è ufficiale. è veramente il superlativo che dicevano. e con questo potremmo prendere baracca e burattini e andare a casa. prima però, qualche considerazione consapevolmente inadeguata su un romanzo che mi faceva nicchiare per via del titolo, più adatto a un programma da reti mediaset che alla bellezza di questa complessa architettura. talmente complessa che, leggendo, più d'una volta vien da chiedersi come stia su quel che powers costruisce livello dopo livello, indossando il cappello di carta di giornale per preparare il calcestruzzo, e contemporaneamente lavorando di lima e raschietto per rifinire dettagli della trama e scanalature della prosa.
e tirando su alla fine un romanzo che tratta (anche) di tempo e relatività, di possibilità lasciate aperte e del fatto che la variabile t possa essere quantizzata, discontinua come le note di una melodia. un romanzo il cui sottotesto sta nelle intersezioni di vite sviluppate come i movimenti di una sinfonia, e portate avanti (e qui indietro) dal compositore in una impeccabile partitura narrativa.
se sapessi di musica e di fisica, potrei provare a dire di più e meglio perché, buttate lì nell'ordito di millanta vicende, hanno un senso ben preciso frasi come «la musica parlava eternamente a se stessa». o «il suo tempo non viaggiava, era un blocco di perenni adesso». spoilererei tutto solo per la soddisfazione di riuscirci, garantito. e invece a questo giro mi limito al fatto che per me è stato come aprirmi a una composizione che ha un'intro abbastanza laboriosa (non ho amato subitissimo lo stile di powers), e poi di colpo ti arriva addosso con una simultanea e maestosa scrittura di temi. per esempio che se le illusioni sono destinate a fallire quanto più puntano in alto, l'unica possibile falla nella storia della famiglia strom, miscellanea di razze, è un elemento di rottura nelle leggi fisiche così come le conosciamo. più che una battuta d'arresto, uno strom und drang (lo so, lo so ma non ho saputo resistere) che apre un varco, un paradosso su piani diversi.
in questo senso, mentre leggevo ho pensato più volte a prima della pioggia, bellissimo film macedone basato anch'esso sulla variabile t, sulle divisioni tra razze e sulla storia (maiuscola) che entra nelle vite. nel 1994 vinse il leone a venezia raccontando un intreccio di vicende in cui non ci sono un prima e un dopo, e in cui la circolarità del tempo può essere spezzata per provare a cambiare il corso degli eventi. basta un dettaglio, un'apparente stonatura nell'esecuzione. powers ci ha messo 835 pagine e mi ha portato al largo per raccontarmelo, in modo magistrale. forse un filo troppo, magistrale.
(a distanza di qualche settimana da quando questo romanzo ha finito con me lasciando solo ossicini spolpati, ho tolto una stella dal punteggio pieno iniziale. a posteriori ho percepito l'eccesso di mestiere e un po' di sfoggio del medesimo, ecco).
e tirando su alla fine un romanzo che tratta (anche) di tempo e relatività, di possibilità lasciate aperte e del fatto che la variabile t possa essere quantizzata, discontinua come le note di una melodia. un romanzo il cui sottotesto sta nelle intersezioni di vite sviluppate come i movimenti di una sinfonia, e portate avanti (e qui indietro) dal compositore in una impeccabile partitura narrativa.
se sapessi di musica e di fisica, potrei provare a dire di più e meglio perché, buttate lì nell'ordito di millanta vicende, hanno un senso ben preciso frasi come «la musica parlava eternamente a se stessa». o «il suo tempo non viaggiava, era un blocco di perenni adesso». spoilererei tutto solo per la soddisfazione di riuscirci, garantito. e invece a questo giro mi limito al fatto che per me è stato come aprirmi a una composizione che ha un'intro abbastanza laboriosa (non ho amato subitissimo lo stile di powers), e poi di colpo ti arriva addosso con una simultanea e maestosa scrittura di temi. per esempio che se le illusioni sono destinate a fallire quanto più puntano in alto, l'unica possibile falla nella storia della famiglia strom, miscellanea di razze, è un elemento di rottura nelle leggi fisiche così come le conosciamo. più che una battuta d'arresto, uno strom und drang (lo so, lo so ma non ho saputo resistere) che apre un varco, un paradosso su piani diversi.
in questo senso, mentre leggevo ho pensato più volte a prima della pioggia, bellissimo film macedone basato anch'esso sulla variabile t, sulle divisioni tra razze e sulla storia (maiuscola) che entra nelle vite. nel 1994 vinse il leone a venezia raccontando un intreccio di vicende in cui non ci sono un prima e un dopo, e in cui la circolarità del tempo può essere spezzata per provare a cambiare il corso degli eventi. basta un dettaglio, un'apparente stonatura nell'esecuzione. powers ci ha messo 835 pagine e mi ha portato al largo per raccontarmelo, in modo magistrale. forse un filo troppo, magistrale.
(a distanza di qualche settimana da quando questo romanzo ha finito con me lasciando solo ossicini spolpati, ho tolto una stella dal punteggio pieno iniziale. a posteriori ho percepito l'eccesso di mestiere e un po' di sfoggio del medesimo, ecco).
September 18, 2021
With a first opera version of this book coming up, in the 'Munt/Monnaie' Opera House in Brussels, September 2021, I'm re-editing my review of the great novel.
This is undoubtedly a great work of art, a book that deserves all the superlatives that have been scattered here abundantly on this site, because this is a novel with a lot of meat on the bone. First of all it is a beautiful, at times even quite touching family saga (after 600 pages the Strom family members have become rather good acquaintances). This saga is handsomely fit into a specific time frame (the US between 1939 and 1993) and so it is also a Great American Novel (a little reminiscent of ‘American Pastoral' by Philip Roth, also with a girl that goes radical). It deals particularly with racial issues, from an African-American and mixed colored position; it even seems to be the best African-American novel since ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison and written by a white man! And there even is a scientific-philosophical line in the story, with the theme of the relativity of time (yesterday is today, but also tomorrow, and tomorrow was allready there yesterday; which is also reflected in the constant back and forth jumping of the story).
And then there's the music: music is omnipresent, even in the least insignificant characters in this story, because music seems to be the very instrument to go beyond time, beyond race or any other dividing line, offering the ultimate freedom. For the laymen among us (such as I am) Powers is rather demanding because he goes very far into the technicality of the singing and the music, and you also need to have some notion of musical history to appreciate every detail. But as a connecting element it works and for true music lovers this book is an extravagant long and intense enjoyment.
Powers weaves all these elements into a fascinating and ingeniously composed story, that keeps the attention going almost until the end (despite the sometimes very condensed writing style), with regular surprising turns and without being pedantic. I really liked his approach to this story: it is not an indictment for or against people with a particular color, or for or against the radical choices people sometimes make. On the contrary, almost all the characters are drawn so subtly that you can not help but sympathize with their actions and opinions. Even the egocentric Jonah who draws so much attention to himself and apparently seems the most successful of the Strom family, you can not but feel sympathy with him, because in the end he turns out to be the most tragic figure of this novel.
There's so much more to praise, yet I can not quite go for the full five stars. Especially towards the end of the novel, the story lines are becoming a bit artificial, some new characters (eg, cousin Delia) don't look quite credible, and the level of wordiness becomes slightly too high. It seems like it took Powers some effort to lay down his story. Also, the constant reference to "the relativity of time" occasionally got on my nerves. For most of the novel this time-game gives a rich and nice flavor to the storyline, but the magic-realistic level of the pseudo-philosophizing got a bit too high in the end.
But no worries: this really is a great novel and I recommend it enthousiastically! I’m placing the next novels of Powers on my to read list.
This is undoubtedly a great work of art, a book that deserves all the superlatives that have been scattered here abundantly on this site, because this is a novel with a lot of meat on the bone. First of all it is a beautiful, at times even quite touching family saga (after 600 pages the Strom family members have become rather good acquaintances). This saga is handsomely fit into a specific time frame (the US between 1939 and 1993) and so it is also a Great American Novel (a little reminiscent of ‘American Pastoral' by Philip Roth, also with a girl that goes radical). It deals particularly with racial issues, from an African-American and mixed colored position; it even seems to be the best African-American novel since ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison and written by a white man! And there even is a scientific-philosophical line in the story, with the theme of the relativity of time (yesterday is today, but also tomorrow, and tomorrow was allready there yesterday; which is also reflected in the constant back and forth jumping of the story).
And then there's the music: music is omnipresent, even in the least insignificant characters in this story, because music seems to be the very instrument to go beyond time, beyond race or any other dividing line, offering the ultimate freedom. For the laymen among us (such as I am) Powers is rather demanding because he goes very far into the technicality of the singing and the music, and you also need to have some notion of musical history to appreciate every detail. But as a connecting element it works and for true music lovers this book is an extravagant long and intense enjoyment.
Powers weaves all these elements into a fascinating and ingeniously composed story, that keeps the attention going almost until the end (despite the sometimes very condensed writing style), with regular surprising turns and without being pedantic. I really liked his approach to this story: it is not an indictment for or against people with a particular color, or for or against the radical choices people sometimes make. On the contrary, almost all the characters are drawn so subtly that you can not help but sympathize with their actions and opinions. Even the egocentric Jonah who draws so much attention to himself and apparently seems the most successful of the Strom family, you can not but feel sympathy with him, because in the end he turns out to be the most tragic figure of this novel.
There's so much more to praise, yet I can not quite go for the full five stars. Especially towards the end of the novel, the story lines are becoming a bit artificial, some new characters (eg, cousin Delia) don't look quite credible, and the level of wordiness becomes slightly too high. It seems like it took Powers some effort to lay down his story. Also, the constant reference to "the relativity of time" occasionally got on my nerves. For most of the novel this time-game gives a rich and nice flavor to the storyline, but the magic-realistic level of the pseudo-philosophizing got a bit too high in the end.
But no worries: this really is a great novel and I recommend it enthousiastically! I’m placing the next novels of Powers on my to read list.
November 30, 2020
This is family saga about music, race, and time. Delia Daley, a black music student, and David Strom, a Jewish German physicist, meet at the Marian Anderson concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. David and Delia marry. Their children are musically gifted but cannot achieve the full measure of their talent due to the racism of 20th century America. They decide to rear their children outside the confines of race, and this decision forms the primary conflict in the story. Other characters believe this decision is naïve and will only hurt their children. A major rift develops between David and his father-in-law. The story is narrated by the middle child, Joseph, who acts as a bridge between elder brother, Jonah, who follows a path of classical music, and younger sister Ruth, who pursues a path of social activism.
At 650 pages and covering a period of over fifty years, this book has the feel of an epic saga. Powers takes his time in developing the primary characters, particularly Delia, David, Jonah, and Joseph. Ruth plays a lesser role initially, but her story takes center stage in later chapters. At least one character is present during significant racial confrontations and milestones of the period. The idea of being “beyond race” turns out to be impossible in a country where their children are automatically labelled at birth.
Detailed discussions of music are present throughout, and classical music aficionados will appreciate the power of these descriptions. The referenced operas lend additional flavor to the story for those familiar with these works. It is one of the best books I have read involving musical discourse. Physics and the properties of time are also a core element in the story. David, a proponent of Einstein’s theory of the space-time continuum, plays a peripheral role in the Manhattan project, and eventually becomes obsessed with proving his theories about the circularity of time (and challenging the notion of time as a linear flow). If so inclined, the reader will enjoy piecing together the individual elements to shed additional light on the story in its entirety.
As you can tell by the length of this review, this book is not easily described in a few sentences. It offers perspectives on a number of complex issues concerning, time, memory, and change, while challenging the of the idea of race. It may be even more relevant in the current sociopolitical environment than in 2003, when it was initially published.
At 650 pages and covering a period of over fifty years, this book has the feel of an epic saga. Powers takes his time in developing the primary characters, particularly Delia, David, Jonah, and Joseph. Ruth plays a lesser role initially, but her story takes center stage in later chapters. At least one character is present during significant racial confrontations and milestones of the period. The idea of being “beyond race” turns out to be impossible in a country where their children are automatically labelled at birth.
Detailed discussions of music are present throughout, and classical music aficionados will appreciate the power of these descriptions. The referenced operas lend additional flavor to the story for those familiar with these works. It is one of the best books I have read involving musical discourse. Physics and the properties of time are also a core element in the story. David, a proponent of Einstein’s theory of the space-time continuum, plays a peripheral role in the Manhattan project, and eventually becomes obsessed with proving his theories about the circularity of time (and challenging the notion of time as a linear flow). If so inclined, the reader will enjoy piecing together the individual elements to shed additional light on the story in its entirety.
As you can tell by the length of this review, this book is not easily described in a few sentences. It offers perspectives on a number of complex issues concerning, time, memory, and change, while challenging the of the idea of race. It may be even more relevant in the current sociopolitical environment than in 2003, when it was initially published.
July 31, 2018
Musical Immersion
I have participated in classical music as an amateur my entire life, and worked professionally in the field for four decades; they are different experiences. Up to now, the novel that most completely captured both the love-affair of the amateur and the exacting discipline of the performer has been An Equal Music by Vikram Seth, set in the world of chamber music. But this 2003 novel by Richard Powers eclipses even that beacon. Beginning with the astounding competition win by a young American singer, Jonah Strom, in 1961, and then using the next 200 pages to trace the path that led him there, this is a book so totally immersed in music that the words themselves become a musical instrument, and the descriptions of formal concerts or jamming around the piano at home more exciting than the sex or action scenes of most other writers. So totally does Powers understand the life of an aspiring vocalist and the special world of a music conservatory (my own habitat for forty years), that it comes as a shock when he finally makes an error almost 400 pages in (having his hero, a tenor, come under consideration for a role in a real production that was eventually taken by Simon Estes, a bass-baritone). But any flaws are tiny; this is a masterpiece.
Jonah is accompanied in his recitals by his brother Joey, who narrates the book. The strength of this is that Jonah's talent is described, not from the point of view of his audience or fans, but through the fear and excitement of somebody trying to ski down the musical mountain beside him, responding to his impulsive turns, sharing the adrenaline of his impossible descent. The downside, though not apparent until much later, is that when Jonah no longer has the spotlight and Joey emerges as the protagonist of his own book, some of the light is lost—but we have seen this often enough before: think The Great Gatsby or All the King's Men. Though only Jonah has the star temperament, he and Joey are both musical prodigies, formed from parlor games in which parents and children alike would combine tunes from Lassus to Loesser in a quodlibet of improvised counterpoint. When the book ends with similar jam session on a much larger scale in an inner-city school in Oakland, California—another magnificent set piece—the musical homecoming is poignant.
For this is also a book about race. Jonah and Joey's parents met through one of those iconic moments where music and race intersect, at the celebrated concert by black mezzo-soprano Marian Anderson on the Mall in Washington in 1939. David is a recent Jewish refugee, a theoretical physicist taken onto the faculty at Columbia, where he would become peripherally involved in the Manhattan Project. Delia is the daughter of a black Philadelphia physician, a graduate of Howard University, and an aspiring singer in her own right. I thought I knew about the sorry racial history of this country, but Powers brings it home with the force of revelation how intense the bigotry was in the middle decades of the century, and how foolhardy such a marriage would have been. The Stroms' idealized wish to raise their children beyond color only presented each of them with an ambiguity that they would take the rest of their lives to work out: Jonah, who could almost pass for white; Joey, who struggles to pass for black; and their younger sister Ruth, who takes the most radical steps of all. One of the things I most admire about Powers is his ability to bring major events close into the wings without them ever taking over the stage, and to forge a chain of events that serve as defining moments for the other America: the Anderson concert, Hiroshima, Watts, and the two great marches on Washington. It is an astounding book for a white writer even to attempt, let alone bring off with such authenticity.
Perhaps Powers is over-ambitious and tries to include too much. His writing, though brilliant throughout, is often too dense for easy reading, too dependent on the special jargon of music or mathematics. Not all his attempts to work through his racial theme in musical terms pay off. But when he manages to pull it all together, as he does remarkably often, he is simply superb. So let me end with his description of the congregation at the funeral of the boys' mother:
How many gradations did anyone see? This polytonal, polychordal piece played for a stone-deaf audience who heard not tonic and dominant, and were pretty shaky even picking out those two. But all the pitches in the chromatic scale had turned out for my mother, and many of the microtones between.
March 21, 2013
Dit boek is een absoluut meesterwerk! Het is één van de beste boeken die ik ooit heb gelezen. Het is eigenlijk onmogelijk om een reactie te geven die recht doet aan dit boek. Ik wil wel proberen een indicatie te geven waar dit boek o.a. over gaat: gezin, familiebanden, trouw, liefde, moederliefde, broederliefde, hoop, segregatie, discriminatie, interpretatie Amerikaanse geschiedenis twintigste eeuw vanuit gezichtspunt van zowel zwarte en blanke mensen, idealen nastreven, onvermogen en onwil tot toenadering, misverstanden, het zoeken, vermijden en accepteren van eigen plek, opstandigheid, woede, genialiteit, kernenergie, atoombom, Einstein en relativiteit, de theorie over het stromen van de tijd, maar vooral over muziek, waar virtuoos over geschreven wordt. Volgens Powers is muziek het enige universele communicatiemiddel en dat geldt zowel voor het verleden als voor de toekomst.
Dit boek heeft mij de ogen geopend voor veel zaken, waar ik nooit over had nagedacht. Voordat ik mensen afschrik: het is totaal niet belerend.
Dit boek heeft mij de ogen geopend voor veel zaken, waar ik nooit over had nagedacht. Voordat ik mensen afschrik: het is totaal niet belerend.
September 15, 2018
"What you gonna do when the world’s on fire?" (che fare quando il mondo è in fiamme?)
Come quando finisce un gran pezzo di musica, o la lezione di un insegnante che è riuscito a a catturare tutti i tuoi sensi, come dopo una prova intensa e magnifica, come ogni volta che hai sfiorato la bellezza e rimani lì, in silenzio, perchè neppure l'applauso rovini quell'attimo di emozione che vorresti far durare ancora e ancora un po'... ho avuto bisogno di silenzio dopo questo libro, senza buttare lì inutili parole.
E dopo alcune settimane in compagnia di Powers poi, che le parole le sa usare eccome, che altro potrei mai aggiungere io?
Come quando finisce un gran pezzo di musica, o la lezione di un insegnante che è riuscito a a catturare tutti i tuoi sensi, come dopo una prova intensa e magnifica, come ogni volta che hai sfiorato la bellezza e rimani lì, in silenzio, perchè neppure l'applauso rovini quell'attimo di emozione che vorresti far durare ancora e ancora un po'... ho avuto bisogno di silenzio dopo questo libro, senza buttare lì inutili parole.
E dopo alcune settimane in compagnia di Powers poi, che le parole le sa usare eccome, che altro potrei mai aggiungere io?
August 1, 2017
"Volevano un luogo dove tutti potessero avere la propria
sfumatura personale"
Delia e David. Nera e cantante lirica lei. Fisico bianco ebreo lui.
Basta 'il tempo di una canzone' a farli incontrare in un tempo in un luogo che ancora non esiste.
Un tempo e un luogo in cui il pesce e l'uccello non solo si possono innamorare, ma possono creare un nido in cui 'uccesce' o 'pescello' possono vivere e decidere di essere qualunque cosa desiderino essere.
Un tempo e un luogo "con tante categorie quanti sono i casi esistenti" , in cui qualunque essere umano ha dignità in quanto unico e irripetibile.
Ma ahimè Delia e David son troppo avanti, anche per loro direi 'nati postumi', e educano (e illudono) i figli nell'aspettativa di una libertà che nella vita concreta si rivela una menzogna.
Ciò che li aspetta è un mondo in cui sono nati illegali.
In cui la madre si deve fingere la domestica del padre, in cui in macchina la moglie nera non si può sedere a fianco del marito bianco, una donna nera non può permettersi di passeggiare con con un uomo bianco mano nella mano.
E attraverso gli occhi di Joey, uno dei tre figli di David e Delia, conosciamo il destino della discendenza di pesce e uccello.
Un romanzo magistrale in cui il tempo, la fisica e la musica si intrecciano in maniera originale e corposa.
Un romanzo che incontra il gusto dei lettori che cercano la sostanza e di quelli che cercano una storia.
Un finale circolare che mi ha sorpreso e intenerito.
Fisico e Romanticissimo.
"Un errore pensare che ogni storia abbia mai una fine."
sfumatura personale"
Delia e David. Nera e cantante lirica lei. Fisico bianco ebreo lui.
Basta 'il tempo di una canzone' a farli incontrare in un tempo in un luogo che ancora non esiste.
Un tempo e un luogo in cui il pesce e l'uccello non solo si possono innamorare, ma possono creare un nido in cui 'uccesce' o 'pescello' possono vivere e decidere di essere qualunque cosa desiderino essere.
Un tempo e un luogo "con tante categorie quanti sono i casi esistenti" , in cui qualunque essere umano ha dignità in quanto unico e irripetibile.
Ma ahimè Delia e David son troppo avanti, anche per loro direi 'nati postumi', e educano (e illudono) i figli nell'aspettativa di una libertà che nella vita concreta si rivela una menzogna.
Ciò che li aspetta è un mondo in cui sono nati illegali.
In cui la madre si deve fingere la domestica del padre, in cui in macchina la moglie nera non si può sedere a fianco del marito bianco, una donna nera non può permettersi di passeggiare con con un uomo bianco mano nella mano.
E attraverso gli occhi di Joey, uno dei tre figli di David e Delia, conosciamo il destino della discendenza di pesce e uccello.
Un romanzo magistrale in cui il tempo, la fisica e la musica si intrecciano in maniera originale e corposa.
Un romanzo che incontra il gusto dei lettori che cercano la sostanza e di quelli che cercano una storia.
Un finale circolare che mi ha sorpreso e intenerito.
Fisico e Romanticissimo.
"Un errore pensare che ogni storia abbia mai una fine."
September 25, 2022
Mottetto in bianco e nero
Ascolto il requiem di Fauré.
Forse dovrei spingermi nelle sonorità aliene di Orlando di Lasso, o Carlo Gesualdo, o cercare nella misura divina di Palestrina. Forse nelle pieghe dell'armonia c'è una chiave segreta, "un sasso, una foglia, una porta nascosta", che apre nuovi sentieri al pensiero, alle parole necessarie per dire di un libro straordinario (ora youtube mi propone, inaspettatamente, il nitore di Satie come un gancio cui sospendersi, in attesa. E, allora, attendo).
Una maestosa partitura polifonica questo testo, un mottetto in bianco e nero, partitura della discriminazione razziale lungo quarant'anni di storia americana.
La musica e le prime teorie sulla natura del tempo sono multiversi affiancati ai personaggi, compagni di ventura, fratelli in armi nel cammino biografico dei protagonisti.
Le Note, così come i Numeri, si muovono nella tessitura della trama con una sorta di bioluminescenza notturna in lucente contrappunto ai chiaroscuri di razza, affondano nel testo con le radici estese, raggiate, del basso continuo, scivolano, in perfetto sincrono con l'emozione battuta dalla parola da vertiginose altezze speculative fino al cuore dello stupore cognitivo.
La forma elusiva, sfuggente della musica diventa, paradossalmente, cornice e fondamenta del canto razziale americano, eco del canto d'oltreoceano di Schönberg, che segna l'eclissi della parola, la necessità dell'azione, del movimento, della volontà, del desiderio.
Forse quello che maggiormente mi seduce in Powers, anche al di là dell'incredibile profondità di colore della sua scrittura, del suo limpido, scintillante sapere, è intravedere sempre, sullo sfondo delle sue perfette geometrie, il profilo del desiderio, dispotico, inestinguibile, implacabile. Un desiderio che trasporta nell'altrove, che non conosce l'usura tirannica del presente.
Esattamente come la musica, "misteriosa forma del tempo".
Ascolto il requiem di Fauré.
Forse dovrei spingermi nelle sonorità aliene di Orlando di Lasso, o Carlo Gesualdo, o cercare nella misura divina di Palestrina. Forse nelle pieghe dell'armonia c'è una chiave segreta, "un sasso, una foglia, una porta nascosta", che apre nuovi sentieri al pensiero, alle parole necessarie per dire di un libro straordinario (ora youtube mi propone, inaspettatamente, il nitore di Satie come un gancio cui sospendersi, in attesa. E, allora, attendo).
Una maestosa partitura polifonica questo testo, un mottetto in bianco e nero, partitura della discriminazione razziale lungo quarant'anni di storia americana.
La musica e le prime teorie sulla natura del tempo sono multiversi affiancati ai personaggi, compagni di ventura, fratelli in armi nel cammino biografico dei protagonisti.
Le Note, così come i Numeri, si muovono nella tessitura della trama con una sorta di bioluminescenza notturna in lucente contrappunto ai chiaroscuri di razza, affondano nel testo con le radici estese, raggiate, del basso continuo, scivolano, in perfetto sincrono con l'emozione battuta dalla parola da vertiginose altezze speculative fino al cuore dello stupore cognitivo.
La forma elusiva, sfuggente della musica diventa, paradossalmente, cornice e fondamenta del canto razziale americano, eco del canto d'oltreoceano di Schönberg, che segna l'eclissi della parola, la necessità dell'azione, del movimento, della volontà, del desiderio.
Forse quello che maggiormente mi seduce in Powers, anche al di là dell'incredibile profondità di colore della sua scrittura, del suo limpido, scintillante sapere, è intravedere sempre, sullo sfondo delle sue perfette geometrie, il profilo del desiderio, dispotico, inestinguibile, implacabile. Un desiderio che trasporta nell'altrove, che non conosce l'usura tirannica del presente.
Esattamente come la musica, "misteriosa forma del tempo".
November 23, 2016
Ensemble
E quando leggendo l'ultima parola e chiudendo il libro, ti accorgerai che le lacrime scendono da sole e che starai piangendo, quasi a dirotto, non solo per la storia, o per la conclusione della storia (perché leggendola capirai anche che questa storia non ha una fine perché il tempo in cui si svolge è quello di una canzone e per sempre), ma per la bellezza dell'opera, ti verrà voglia di restare ancora fra le pagine di questo libro, incastrato dal fluire della prosa di Powers e della musica che ti ha accompagnato per tutte le ottocentoquaranta pagine di questo romanzo monumentale, per scivolare fra le note e lasciarti cullare ancora dalle voci vellutate di Delia Daley e David Strom, la giovane infermiera aspirante cantante di colore di Philadelphia e il fisico ebreo tedesco fuggito negli Stati Uniti dalla Germania nazista, il pesce e l'uccello, che il giorno di Pasqua del 1939 davanti ai gradini del Lincoln Memorial di Washigton dove si sono conosciuti e hanno appena ascoltato lo storico concerto di Marion Anderson, decidono di costruire il loro nido sull'acqua, o forse nell'aria, di incrociare le loro razze e i loro colori, la loro religione e le loro storie, e da quelle dei loro tre figli; i due JoJo, Jonah e Joseph (l'io narrante), e Ruth, e le loro diverse tonalità e sfumature, che Delia e David scelgono di crescere e istruire al di là della razza, liberi di poter scegliere, in un futuro migliore, cosa vorranno essere, ma che pagheranno, ciascuno in maniera completamente diversa, la scelta dei genitori di ignorare ogni differenza, perché, credono, Non abbiamo paura della differenza. Ci fa più paura perderci nella somiglianza. La cosa che nessuna razza può tollerare.
Ma il futuro è già presente, e il presente è già passato, Lei ricorda tutto, tutto quello che deve accadere loro., e la storia degli Stati Uniti scorre avanti e indietro da quel giorno a Washington fino ai nostri giorni, dalle Black Panthers fino alle rivolte razziali per il pestaggio di Rodney King, dalla Seconda Guerra Mondiale all'assassinio di Marthin Luther King, dagli Stati Uniti all'Europa, da Atlanta a Bruxelles, da New York a Parigi, dalla musica rinascimentale alla lirica al jazz al rythm 'n blues al rock 'n roll al rap, incrociando e alternando due piani temporali e due storie che sono parallele e lontane, tangenti e vicine, che si avvitano e si sfidano librandosi ogni volta più in alto, e si compenetrano noncuranti del tempo e dello spazio fino a ridisegnare le leggi della fisica (ah, quanta incomprensibile e meravigliosa fisica c'è che trasporta la vita oltre ogni logica comprensione!), in quella che, solo alla fine, ci si accorgerà essere stata l'esecuzione perfetta di un incredibile ensemble di solisti.
E ora, almeno per un po', solo silenzio, per qualche attimo, un attimo che non saprai definire, perché ormai anche tu avrai capito che il tempo non scorre, ma è, e il silenzio sarà l'unico accompagnamento musicale possibile per sublimare il tempo di una canzone, un tempo che durerà finché ci sarà un metronomo a scandire il ritmo della vita, perché, ormai ne sei certo, c’è un’altra lunghezza d’onda in qualsiasi direzione punti il telescopio, un'onda in cui passato presente e futuro sono e saranno un'unica cosa.
Spiraliforme, circolare, avvolgente, eppure lineare, nitido, cristallino.
«L'uccello e il pesce possono innamorarsi. Ma dove costruiranno il loro nido?»
[Ho faticato, sì, moltissimo, perché la musica l'ascolto, ma non la leggo e non conosco tutti ma proprio tutti i termini con cui Powers intesse la sua prosa, così come non conosco affatto la Fisica, quella che fra tutte le discipline mi è sempre stata ostile, la più ostile in assoluto, a tratti mi sono persino annoiata e innervosita, come a un concerto di musica sinfonica al quale assisti del tutto impreparato. Ma, eppure…]
http://youtu.be/8Xted0J5upw
E quando leggendo l'ultima parola e chiudendo il libro, ti accorgerai che le lacrime scendono da sole e che starai piangendo, quasi a dirotto, non solo per la storia, o per la conclusione della storia (perché leggendola capirai anche che questa storia non ha una fine perché il tempo in cui si svolge è quello di una canzone e per sempre), ma per la bellezza dell'opera, ti verrà voglia di restare ancora fra le pagine di questo libro, incastrato dal fluire della prosa di Powers e della musica che ti ha accompagnato per tutte le ottocentoquaranta pagine di questo romanzo monumentale, per scivolare fra le note e lasciarti cullare ancora dalle voci vellutate di Delia Daley e David Strom, la giovane infermiera aspirante cantante di colore di Philadelphia e il fisico ebreo tedesco fuggito negli Stati Uniti dalla Germania nazista, il pesce e l'uccello, che il giorno di Pasqua del 1939 davanti ai gradini del Lincoln Memorial di Washigton dove si sono conosciuti e hanno appena ascoltato lo storico concerto di Marion Anderson, decidono di costruire il loro nido sull'acqua, o forse nell'aria, di incrociare le loro razze e i loro colori, la loro religione e le loro storie, e da quelle dei loro tre figli; i due JoJo, Jonah e Joseph (l'io narrante), e Ruth, e le loro diverse tonalità e sfumature, che Delia e David scelgono di crescere e istruire al di là della razza, liberi di poter scegliere, in un futuro migliore, cosa vorranno essere, ma che pagheranno, ciascuno in maniera completamente diversa, la scelta dei genitori di ignorare ogni differenza, perché, credono, Non abbiamo paura della differenza. Ci fa più paura perderci nella somiglianza. La cosa che nessuna razza può tollerare.
Ma il futuro è già presente, e il presente è già passato, Lei ricorda tutto, tutto quello che deve accadere loro., e la storia degli Stati Uniti scorre avanti e indietro da quel giorno a Washington fino ai nostri giorni, dalle Black Panthers fino alle rivolte razziali per il pestaggio di Rodney King, dalla Seconda Guerra Mondiale all'assassinio di Marthin Luther King, dagli Stati Uniti all'Europa, da Atlanta a Bruxelles, da New York a Parigi, dalla musica rinascimentale alla lirica al jazz al rythm 'n blues al rock 'n roll al rap, incrociando e alternando due piani temporali e due storie che sono parallele e lontane, tangenti e vicine, che si avvitano e si sfidano librandosi ogni volta più in alto, e si compenetrano noncuranti del tempo e dello spazio fino a ridisegnare le leggi della fisica (ah, quanta incomprensibile e meravigliosa fisica c'è che trasporta la vita oltre ogni logica comprensione!), in quella che, solo alla fine, ci si accorgerà essere stata l'esecuzione perfetta di un incredibile ensemble di solisti.
E ora, almeno per un po', solo silenzio, per qualche attimo, un attimo che non saprai definire, perché ormai anche tu avrai capito che il tempo non scorre, ma è, e il silenzio sarà l'unico accompagnamento musicale possibile per sublimare il tempo di una canzone, un tempo che durerà finché ci sarà un metronomo a scandire il ritmo della vita, perché, ormai ne sei certo, c’è un’altra lunghezza d’onda in qualsiasi direzione punti il telescopio, un'onda in cui passato presente e futuro sono e saranno un'unica cosa.
Spiraliforme, circolare, avvolgente, eppure lineare, nitido, cristallino.
«L'uccello e il pesce possono innamorarsi. Ma dove costruiranno il loro nido?»
[Ho faticato, sì, moltissimo, perché la musica l'ascolto, ma non la leggo e non conosco tutti ma proprio tutti i termini con cui Powers intesse la sua prosa, così come non conosco affatto la Fisica, quella che fra tutte le discipline mi è sempre stata ostile, la più ostile in assoluto, a tratti mi sono persino annoiata e innervosita, come a un concerto di musica sinfonica al quale assisti del tutto impreparato. Ma, eppure…]
http://youtu.be/8Xted0J5upw
December 23, 2017
The best contemporary fiction that I’ve read this year.
August 1, 2017
Il tempo resta, noi scorriamo
Powers è geniale.
La molteplicità dei temi trattati, la raffinatezza della scrittura, la cultura e la ricchezza intellettuale di Powers, le invenzioni narrative rendono questo libro una scoperta ad ogni pagina. E direi anche un capolavoro, uno dei migliori libri che ho letto in assoluto.
Le discriminazioni razziali tra bianchi e neri si mescolano alla musica, alla fisica quantistica, alla teoria della relatività, alle persecuzioni contro gli ebrei per arrivare alla constatazione che le razze difficilmente possono mescolarsi. E noi lì a stupirci, a seguire i tanti rivoli dei discorsi, a imparare, a cercare di capire le ragioni di certi accostamenti, a gioire e a soffrire con i protagonisti.
Razza, musica e tempo.
Il libro ragiona sul legame esistente tra queste tre cose.
Facile capire che musica e tempo siano legati tra loro; per il ritmo della musica stessa, ma anche la musica come inviluppo di tutta l'opera dei compositori che ci hanno preceduto nel tempo.
Le razze invece secoli fa erano molte e ben differenziate; ma col procedere del tempo (allo stesso modo in cui avviene nella musica, dove gli accordi armonici hanno pian piano fatto spazio alla politonalità/atonalità e ai mezzi toni) si sono progressivamente mescolate tendendo lentamente verso un futuro in cui saremo tutti scuri di pelle e con gli occhi scuri.
Ma come il pubblico fatica ad ascoltare musica che non abbia i tipici (e vetusti e rilassanti) accordi di tonica e dominante, allo stesso modo il mescolamento della razza non è affatto accettato dalla gente.
"Il pesce e l'uccello possono innamorarsi, ma l'unico loro nido sarà la tomba"
Tre aspetti, la musica, la razza e il tempo che sono analizzati e sviscerati a fondo nel libro (ma quanto è colto questo Powers? E' strabiliante!). Ed è meraviglioso arrivare in fondo e assistere alla chiusura del cerchio, ossia che queste tre direttive, così stranamente accostate, convergono in un finale romantico e meraviglioso.
La lettura sarà sempre entusiasmante, fin quando ci saranno libri come questo. Potente, denso, impegnativo ma illuminante, complesso ma scorrevole, affascinante.
Bellissimo.
February 1, 2011
"The Time of our Singing" is a magnificent book and I am grateful for one of my most rewarding reading experiences ever. The story starts with a flourish and one marvels at the author's supreme skill, throughout the book's 630 pages, in keeping up the pace, widening the emotional resonances and deepening the narrative's cogency, eventually to let it flower into a profoundly moving and intellectually satisfying finale. It is heartwarming to see that our age - so worn down at times by the pressure of commercialism - is still able to provide a fold for this kind of artistry of the highest order.
The book is constructed around three main themes woven into another as spiraling helices: time, race and music. It is tempting to say that the time dimension is foundational in this book as it seems to tells us something very basic about the universe we happen to inhabit. But that would set us on the wrong foot when trying to navigate a complex narrative fabric in which our ways of socially encoding the colour of a skin or shaping a musical phrase are equally potent reflections of our world's unfolding order.
Time is injected into the story by means of David Strom, an eccentric quantum physicist who escaped Europe in the face of unstoppable Nazi madness and marries a black woman shortly after his arrival in the US. Throughout the book, Strom wrestles with the intractable problem of the very nature of time and what this means for us, transients in an expanding universe. According to Strom, there is no unidirectional arrow of time: " ... The tenses are a stubborn illusion. The whole unholy trio of them have no mathematical distinct existence. Past and future both lay folded up in the misleading lead of the present. All three are just different cuts through the same deep map. `Was' and `will be'. All are fixed discernable coordinates on the plane that holds all moving nows." Later on in the book we learn that this conception of time has fundamental implications for the nature of causality: "... events can move continuously into their own local future while turning back on their own past." Ergo " ... there is no such thing as race. Race is only real when you freeze time, if you invent a zero point for your tribe. If you make the past an origin, then you fix the future. Race is a dependent variable. A path, a moving process. We all move along a curve that will break down and rebuild us all." This is just a crude approximation of a wonderfully rich theme, given voice by Powers by means of an endearing fictional character, and masterfully woven into the finest meshes of the narrative fabric. (Incidentally, the character of David Strom may well be loosely inspired by the real-life quantum physicist David Bohm, who developed a holistic interpretation of quantum theory by asserting that any particular element of space may have a field which unfolds into the whole whilst the whole unfolds in it. Bohm referred to this concept as the `implicate order'. There are other similarities between Strom and Bohm (as there are significant differences)).
In the racially-torn environment of post-war America, Strom and his coloured wife Delia Daley decide to raise their three `mixed' children `beyond race', unimpeded by a perverse system of classification and free to carve out their own destiny. Indeed for them `race' is a dependent, not an originative variable. The Stroms act on the believe that it is wrong to constrain people's opportunity space upfront by collaring them with a socially constructed, basically immoral designation. Music, and particularly the canon of Western art music, provides the aesthetic and supposedly racially neutral matrix in which the Stroms' family life is embedded.
Their three children embody different reactions to this `experiment'. Jonah, the eldest, develops into a breathtakingly accomplished singer who takes this idea of racially-neutral, aesthetic purity to its artistic extreme. Ruth, the youngest, throws herself on the other horn of the racial dilemma. Rather than to negate race, she turns it into the foundation of her militant life. Joey, whose voice tells the story, is the mediator between these two extremes. He devotes the first part of his life to his brother's career as a piano accompanist. Later on he joins his sister as a music teacher in a black community school. From Joey's hands blossoms an incredible musical finale when he rehearses with a class of children in the presence of his elder brother: the immutable, artificial perfection of Western art music and the lived, participatory spirit of gospel blend in an affirmative, improvisatory `contrapunctus' of countless voices, a musical `glass bead game' drawing on "... all the chords (...) needed to get anywhere pitches could go."
In "The Time of our Singing" Powers refracts the implicate order of an enfolded, hyperdimensional universe through a fractally layered prism of a nuclear family of five people, of their extended family and of the broader society in which they are embedded, all grappling with the dilemmas of time, race and music. It is an affirmative story, but it is not redemptive. Until the very end, the assertion that "bird and fish can fall in love" - expressing a belief in the power of hybridisation, in transgressing fixed categories in favour of the whole - is followed by the irreducible, eternally unsettling question "But where will they build their nest?" The end is open, floating on David Strom's `time curves on configuration space', leaving us to our own precarious judgment and memory: "If our father was right, time doesn't flow, but is. In such a world, all the things we ever will be or were, we are. But then, in such a world, who we are must be all things. (...) Until we come from everyplace we've been, we won't get everywhere we're going."
All this might have been stuff for a solid academic dissertation. But the wonder of this book is that Richard Powers has the ability to develop such a profound meditation over hundreds of pages, virtuosic in his meshing of themes, uncannily precise in his prose, remarkably clearheaded in his command of the underlying ideas. A magisterial work, no doubt about it.
The book is constructed around three main themes woven into another as spiraling helices: time, race and music. It is tempting to say that the time dimension is foundational in this book as it seems to tells us something very basic about the universe we happen to inhabit. But that would set us on the wrong foot when trying to navigate a complex narrative fabric in which our ways of socially encoding the colour of a skin or shaping a musical phrase are equally potent reflections of our world's unfolding order.
Time is injected into the story by means of David Strom, an eccentric quantum physicist who escaped Europe in the face of unstoppable Nazi madness and marries a black woman shortly after his arrival in the US. Throughout the book, Strom wrestles with the intractable problem of the very nature of time and what this means for us, transients in an expanding universe. According to Strom, there is no unidirectional arrow of time: " ... The tenses are a stubborn illusion. The whole unholy trio of them have no mathematical distinct existence. Past and future both lay folded up in the misleading lead of the present. All three are just different cuts through the same deep map. `Was' and `will be'. All are fixed discernable coordinates on the plane that holds all moving nows." Later on in the book we learn that this conception of time has fundamental implications for the nature of causality: "... events can move continuously into their own local future while turning back on their own past." Ergo " ... there is no such thing as race. Race is only real when you freeze time, if you invent a zero point for your tribe. If you make the past an origin, then you fix the future. Race is a dependent variable. A path, a moving process. We all move along a curve that will break down and rebuild us all." This is just a crude approximation of a wonderfully rich theme, given voice by Powers by means of an endearing fictional character, and masterfully woven into the finest meshes of the narrative fabric. (Incidentally, the character of David Strom may well be loosely inspired by the real-life quantum physicist David Bohm, who developed a holistic interpretation of quantum theory by asserting that any particular element of space may have a field which unfolds into the whole whilst the whole unfolds in it. Bohm referred to this concept as the `implicate order'. There are other similarities between Strom and Bohm (as there are significant differences)).
In the racially-torn environment of post-war America, Strom and his coloured wife Delia Daley decide to raise their three `mixed' children `beyond race', unimpeded by a perverse system of classification and free to carve out their own destiny. Indeed for them `race' is a dependent, not an originative variable. The Stroms act on the believe that it is wrong to constrain people's opportunity space upfront by collaring them with a socially constructed, basically immoral designation. Music, and particularly the canon of Western art music, provides the aesthetic and supposedly racially neutral matrix in which the Stroms' family life is embedded.
Their three children embody different reactions to this `experiment'. Jonah, the eldest, develops into a breathtakingly accomplished singer who takes this idea of racially-neutral, aesthetic purity to its artistic extreme. Ruth, the youngest, throws herself on the other horn of the racial dilemma. Rather than to negate race, she turns it into the foundation of her militant life. Joey, whose voice tells the story, is the mediator between these two extremes. He devotes the first part of his life to his brother's career as a piano accompanist. Later on he joins his sister as a music teacher in a black community school. From Joey's hands blossoms an incredible musical finale when he rehearses with a class of children in the presence of his elder brother: the immutable, artificial perfection of Western art music and the lived, participatory spirit of gospel blend in an affirmative, improvisatory `contrapunctus' of countless voices, a musical `glass bead game' drawing on "... all the chords (...) needed to get anywhere pitches could go."
In "The Time of our Singing" Powers refracts the implicate order of an enfolded, hyperdimensional universe through a fractally layered prism of a nuclear family of five people, of their extended family and of the broader society in which they are embedded, all grappling with the dilemmas of time, race and music. It is an affirmative story, but it is not redemptive. Until the very end, the assertion that "bird and fish can fall in love" - expressing a belief in the power of hybridisation, in transgressing fixed categories in favour of the whole - is followed by the irreducible, eternally unsettling question "But where will they build their nest?" The end is open, floating on David Strom's `time curves on configuration space', leaving us to our own precarious judgment and memory: "If our father was right, time doesn't flow, but is. In such a world, all the things we ever will be or were, we are. But then, in such a world, who we are must be all things. (...) Until we come from everyplace we've been, we won't get everywhere we're going."
All this might have been stuff for a solid academic dissertation. But the wonder of this book is that Richard Powers has the ability to develop such a profound meditation over hundreds of pages, virtuosic in his meshing of themes, uncannily precise in his prose, remarkably clearheaded in his command of the underlying ideas. A magisterial work, no doubt about it.
December 19, 2017
Written music is like nothing in the world—an index of time. The idea is so bizarre, it’s almost miraculous: fixed instructions on how to recreate the simultaneous. How to be a flow, both motion and instant, both stream and cross section.
I find it interesting that this tome remains so topical but then I recognize my naivety ----race will always already be at hand. Sorry for the metaphysical sleight of hand, but I suppose it is the human lot to go tribal, biology is likely to blame or bemused deity which doubts not only its own existence but ANY possible benefit as our creation as an homage.
Each year around this time I begin to think of the novels I'd love to reread. I usually don't.
I find it interesting that this tome remains so topical but then I recognize my naivety ----race will always already be at hand. Sorry for the metaphysical sleight of hand, but I suppose it is the human lot to go tribal, biology is likely to blame or bemused deity which doubts not only its own existence but ANY possible benefit as our creation as an homage.
Each year around this time I begin to think of the novels I'd love to reread. I usually don't.
July 1, 2012
I feel a bit guilty giving this book only three stars.
Yes, it's a highly acclaimed novel, it's relevant and praiseworthy and it tackles huge universal and specifically American themes through the individual stories of the Strom family members, music lovers all. It's almost perfectly constructed, the main narrator Joseph is full of solemn sensitivity and insight, and the author's reflection on (and use of) time and space is mind-grabbing.
The problem is the novel's relentlessnes; not just the overbearing musical metaphors and references, dosed to the saturation point, that I can deal with (or skim over, sure) No, there's a relentless, overwritten aspect that permeates the whole novel; the points are driven in with hammers, passages repeated and pounded out mercilessly. Aside from little bro narrator Joey, many of the other characters are also relentlessy single-minded in their brooding obstination, which might just have been the author's point, but please, pity on the reader, who has to deal with them for 600+ pages. But for me, the real pity is that the most intriguing and provocative 'time loop' elements are used so lightly and sparingly, while other, less interesting aspects are poured out like lead.
Subtract about 200 pages for a great novel.
Yes, it's a highly acclaimed novel, it's relevant and praiseworthy and it tackles huge universal and specifically American themes through the individual stories of the Strom family members, music lovers all. It's almost perfectly constructed, the main narrator Joseph is full of solemn sensitivity and insight, and the author's reflection on (and use of) time and space is mind-grabbing.
The problem is the novel's relentlessnes; not just the overbearing musical metaphors and references, dosed to the saturation point, that I can deal with (or skim over, sure) No, there's a relentless, overwritten aspect that permeates the whole novel; the points are driven in with hammers, passages repeated and pounded out mercilessly. Aside from little bro narrator Joey, many of the other characters are also relentlessy single-minded in their brooding obstination, which might just have been the author's point, but please, pity on the reader, who has to deal with them for 600+ pages. But for me, the real pity is that the most intriguing and provocative 'time loop' elements are used so lightly and sparingly, while other, less interesting aspects are poured out like lead.
Subtract about 200 pages for a great novel.
August 16, 2019
Romanzo grande e grande romanzo. Una esperienza di lettura emozionante e tormentante. Powers anche in questo si immerge in modo totale nell’argomento di cui scrive. Come sempre, fa e impone una full immersion nel soggetto, dentro il tema. Ma è il suo modo di lavorare. Usa una sorta di Metodo Stanislavsky applicato alla scrittura. Sta a Roth o a Bellow, come Volontè sta a Mastroianni. Studio preparatorio accurato, identificazione, profondità, dettaglio, metodo contro talento naturale, vocazione, mal di vivere vissuto, naturalezza e semplicità. Ha scritto di recente un libro sugli alberi e pare sia una cosa a metà strada tra un trattato di fisiologia vegetale ed una bibbia ecologista. Powers è così.
Una certa dose di pedanteria, prolissità, autocompiacimento è forse inevitabile in questo suo modo di lavorare. E c’è anche in questo romanzo. La tonalità epica della prosa a volte è ridondante e a volte stona. È esagerato il modo in cui allunga e ramifica e moltiplica descrizioni e situazioni, spinto dal bisogno di non tralasciare niente. Per chi mastica la fisica e la musica in modo non professionale diventa esasperante. Ma è gran bravura tecnica il modo in cui riesce a tener una quantità così grossa di temi così grossi e di suggestioni così sconfinate dentro un’architettura vertiginosa; che fa funzionare come un orologio, facendola ruotare attorno al tema cardine razziale.
Complessa in modo armonico è anche la struttura del romanzo, con una articolazione temporale discontinua scandita col metronomo. Gli stacchi ossigenano il lettore. Sono perfetti. Il nucleo di identificazione dei personaggi viene trasmesso ciascuno per un suo canale emozionale preciso. E quando ritrovi quel personaggio senti scattare dentro l’emozione precisa che deve darti. Si percepisce poi insieme all’accuratezza degli studi preliminari, l’esattezza immaginifica o l’altezza della scommessa narrativa che innesta sopra gli specialismi che sfoggia senza pietà (sul tempo, sulla struttura dell’atomo e dell’universo, sulla storia e sulla tecnica della musica e del canto, sulla storia degli USA). Nonostante le difficoltà di seguirlo per chi non ne sa abbastanza, ci sono passaggi narrativi che anche l’ignaro può riconoscere come assolutamente straordinari.
Come tutti i grandi romanzi non ha risposte e nasconde chiavi di lettura più profonde di quella macroscopica del razzismo americano. Chi ha letto “Il dilemma del prigioniero” ci ritrova per esempio lo stesso impianto del vicolo senza uscita, stavolta applicato al tema dell’educazione nel tempo delle libertà. Al problema cioè che si è creato quando i genitori hanno sentito di non avere più nessuna certezza da trasmettere dentro un mondo diventato così fluido, complicato e spesso orrendo. Hanno (abbiamo) cominciato allora a coltivare l’idea di poter sostituire le certezze con la possibilità e il dovere di cambiare il mondo. La libertà di scelta come passepartout esistenziale, per aprire tutte le prigioni dei vincoli di sangue, di razza e di ceto sociale, delle fedi e delle ideologie, delle identità e delle appartenenze. Insegnare ai propri figli a costruirsi da soli la propria musica, la propria armonia usando tutto quel che di buono c’è e si può inventare. Un meticciamento globale. È stata la grande conquista del nostro tempo, ma anche forse la madre di tutti i problemi del novecento questo tentativo, a pensarci bene. Con tutti gli errori che si possono commettere e le reazioni rabbiose che si possono provocare. Nel romanzo questa cosa viene fuori splendidamente.
Sta probabilmente nel colloquio finale, l’ultimo, tra le madri di cui una, la figlia, prossima a partorire, la chiave nascosta del romanzo. Lí viene svelata e mostrata plasticamente, la madre di tutti gli errori e l’errore di tutte le madri. Il tentativo di perimetrare e perpetuare nella casa e nella famiglia delle armonie dissonanti, degli incroci delle razze e delle musiche, l’illusione monadica di autosufficienza, perfezione ed immortalità di cui loro sono state portatrici nella pancia e di cui noi ci ammaliamo tutti, in quei nove mesi. Il loro grande difficilissimo compito sta nel liberare piano piano i figli da quella illusione per prepararli al mondo, senza trasformarli in narcisi selvaggi, oppure in cariatidi prede della paura. Le madri stanno al centro del romanzo e del gigantesco dilemma tra la tentazione di ricreare fuori, nella famiglia e nel mondo, l’armonia perfetta che hanno portato dentro e il dovere di svelare l’inganno. Non sempre ci riescono.
Una certa dose di pedanteria, prolissità, autocompiacimento è forse inevitabile in questo suo modo di lavorare. E c’è anche in questo romanzo. La tonalità epica della prosa a volte è ridondante e a volte stona. È esagerato il modo in cui allunga e ramifica e moltiplica descrizioni e situazioni, spinto dal bisogno di non tralasciare niente. Per chi mastica la fisica e la musica in modo non professionale diventa esasperante. Ma è gran bravura tecnica il modo in cui riesce a tener una quantità così grossa di temi così grossi e di suggestioni così sconfinate dentro un’architettura vertiginosa; che fa funzionare come un orologio, facendola ruotare attorno al tema cardine razziale.
Complessa in modo armonico è anche la struttura del romanzo, con una articolazione temporale discontinua scandita col metronomo. Gli stacchi ossigenano il lettore. Sono perfetti. Il nucleo di identificazione dei personaggi viene trasmesso ciascuno per un suo canale emozionale preciso. E quando ritrovi quel personaggio senti scattare dentro l’emozione precisa che deve darti. Si percepisce poi insieme all’accuratezza degli studi preliminari, l’esattezza immaginifica o l’altezza della scommessa narrativa che innesta sopra gli specialismi che sfoggia senza pietà (sul tempo, sulla struttura dell’atomo e dell’universo, sulla storia e sulla tecnica della musica e del canto, sulla storia degli USA). Nonostante le difficoltà di seguirlo per chi non ne sa abbastanza, ci sono passaggi narrativi che anche l’ignaro può riconoscere come assolutamente straordinari.
Come tutti i grandi romanzi non ha risposte e nasconde chiavi di lettura più profonde di quella macroscopica del razzismo americano. Chi ha letto “Il dilemma del prigioniero” ci ritrova per esempio lo stesso impianto del vicolo senza uscita, stavolta applicato al tema dell’educazione nel tempo delle libertà. Al problema cioè che si è creato quando i genitori hanno sentito di non avere più nessuna certezza da trasmettere dentro un mondo diventato così fluido, complicato e spesso orrendo. Hanno (abbiamo) cominciato allora a coltivare l’idea di poter sostituire le certezze con la possibilità e il dovere di cambiare il mondo. La libertà di scelta come passepartout esistenziale, per aprire tutte le prigioni dei vincoli di sangue, di razza e di ceto sociale, delle fedi e delle ideologie, delle identità e delle appartenenze. Insegnare ai propri figli a costruirsi da soli la propria musica, la propria armonia usando tutto quel che di buono c’è e si può inventare. Un meticciamento globale. È stata la grande conquista del nostro tempo, ma anche forse la madre di tutti i problemi del novecento questo tentativo, a pensarci bene. Con tutti gli errori che si possono commettere e le reazioni rabbiose che si possono provocare. Nel romanzo questa cosa viene fuori splendidamente.
Sta probabilmente nel colloquio finale, l’ultimo, tra le madri di cui una, la figlia, prossima a partorire, la chiave nascosta del romanzo. Lí viene svelata e mostrata plasticamente, la madre di tutti gli errori e l’errore di tutte le madri. Il tentativo di perimetrare e perpetuare nella casa e nella famiglia delle armonie dissonanti, degli incroci delle razze e delle musiche, l’illusione monadica di autosufficienza, perfezione ed immortalità di cui loro sono state portatrici nella pancia e di cui noi ci ammaliamo tutti, in quei nove mesi. Il loro grande difficilissimo compito sta nel liberare piano piano i figli da quella illusione per prepararli al mondo, senza trasformarli in narcisi selvaggi, oppure in cariatidi prede della paura. Le madri stanno al centro del romanzo e del gigantesco dilemma tra la tentazione di ricreare fuori, nella famiglia e nel mondo, l’armonia perfetta che hanno portato dentro e il dovere di svelare l’inganno. Non sempre ci riescono.
November 30, 2022
There were literally pages of this densely packed (small font, no breaks for chapters) 631-page opus when I understood very little. The musical lingo, German, and references were over my head and education. And just as often it was simply the poetics and syntax that stymied my understanding. And yet …
I understood deeply what this book is about. I related to all the characters—David Strom, a German Jew married to Delia Daley, a Black woman, after they meet at Marian Anderson’s epochal concert on the Washington Mall in 1939; and their offspring, Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth through their diverging lives in music and politics.
I found myself reading in small sections because the writing had repeated grandiose, sweeping builds, and I simply reached capacity. To use Powers’s own description of a critic’s reaction to one of the musical performances described: “’If anything, the sonority suffers from relentless divinity. Too many peaks; not enough valleys.’ (538)”
But I was never bored.
There is never a sense that Richard Powers is showing off; this is just how he thinks and expresses himself, and he sounds like a musical and mathematical genius.
The sustained music sections were one thing, but over and over I found myself relating to the complex personal dilemmas of being “other”—not fitting in a box; being raised to be something without a name, something that did not have a place in a world of race, racism, and tight categories. I loved the sections where physicist David Strom explained time—a main theme of the book—and that everything exists simultaneously and forever, and I loved Powers’s ability to express this, and I loved the mystical ending.
Although it was exhausting, I am so glad I read this book. Thanks to my book club for choosing it.
I understood deeply what this book is about. I related to all the characters—David Strom, a German Jew married to Delia Daley, a Black woman, after they meet at Marian Anderson’s epochal concert on the Washington Mall in 1939; and their offspring, Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth through their diverging lives in music and politics.
I found myself reading in small sections because the writing had repeated grandiose, sweeping builds, and I simply reached capacity. To use Powers’s own description of a critic’s reaction to one of the musical performances described: “’If anything, the sonority suffers from relentless divinity. Too many peaks; not enough valleys.’ (538)”
But I was never bored.
There is never a sense that Richard Powers is showing off; this is just how he thinks and expresses himself, and he sounds like a musical and mathematical genius.
The sustained music sections were one thing, but over and over I found myself relating to the complex personal dilemmas of being “other”—not fitting in a box; being raised to be something without a name, something that did not have a place in a world of race, racism, and tight categories. I loved the sections where physicist David Strom explained time—a main theme of the book—and that everything exists simultaneously and forever, and I loved Powers’s ability to express this, and I loved the mystical ending.
Although it was exhausting, I am so glad I read this book. Thanks to my book club for choosing it.
December 18, 2018
This is a marvelous novel. It is a family saga that blends history, identity issues, music, and physics (specifically the physics of time). It is a novel for the ages. Written in 2003, it remains timely and relevant, incredibly relevant.
The story is mostly told by Joseph Strom, second son of David Strom, a Jewish-German émigré who teaches physics at Columbia, and Delia Daily, a classically-trained, black singer, who met at the Marian Anderson concert on the Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1939. David would never know if any of his family survived the holocaust. Delia's parents could not believe that their daughter was marrying a white man, a marriage that was illegal in so many states. But marry they did and had three children -- Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth.
The book moves back and forth through time. We learn the back stories of David, Delia, and Delia's parents. We grow up with Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth and watch as they become aware of their difference. Jonah and Joseph are homeschooled until they are sent to a music school in Boston after Einstein tells their parents that they must get vocal training for Jonah. Ruth attends public school.
Jonah and Joseph struggle to figure out who they are - black or white? Their parents tell them they can be whomever they want to be, although Delia is never comfortable with that answer. Ruth just doesn't believe her parents. She knows who she is. She is black. While Jonah and Joseph pursue music, Ruth becomes a community activist and breaks completely with her family for many years.
Then there are Ruth's children Kwame and Robert. Ruth's husband suffers the fate of many black men -- shot by the cops during a traffic stop because his license plate was unhinged on one side. Kwame is a young boy and Robert is a baby when Joseph first meets them.
This book is full of music, all kinds of music. This book is full of individuals searching for their identity. This book tells the story of America's continuing struggle with race. This book ventures into time travel. This book is marvelous.
The story is mostly told by Joseph Strom, second son of David Strom, a Jewish-German émigré who teaches physics at Columbia, and Delia Daily, a classically-trained, black singer, who met at the Marian Anderson concert on the Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1939. David would never know if any of his family survived the holocaust. Delia's parents could not believe that their daughter was marrying a white man, a marriage that was illegal in so many states. But marry they did and had three children -- Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth.
The book moves back and forth through time. We learn the back stories of David, Delia, and Delia's parents. We grow up with Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth and watch as they become aware of their difference. Jonah and Joseph are homeschooled until they are sent to a music school in Boston after Einstein tells their parents that they must get vocal training for Jonah. Ruth attends public school.
Jonah and Joseph struggle to figure out who they are - black or white? Their parents tell them they can be whomever they want to be, although Delia is never comfortable with that answer. Ruth just doesn't believe her parents. She knows who she is. She is black. While Jonah and Joseph pursue music, Ruth becomes a community activist and breaks completely with her family for many years.
Then there are Ruth's children Kwame and Robert. Ruth's husband suffers the fate of many black men -- shot by the cops during a traffic stop because his license plate was unhinged on one side. Kwame is a young boy and Robert is a baby when Joseph first meets them.
This book is full of music, all kinds of music. This book is full of individuals searching for their identity. This book tells the story of America's continuing struggle with race. This book ventures into time travel. This book is marvelous.
May 18, 2019
This completely wonderful novel was the fifth I have read in my 2019 challenge to read all the Richard Powers novels in reverse order of publication. It is as great in its own way as The Overstory and Orfeo.
I have complained in years gone by when white authors try to tell us about African Americans. Some authors also have trouble writing characters who are of the opposite sex, but a great writer can seem to inhabit the humanity of anyone and Richard Powers is one of those.
Delia, a young Black woman with aspirations to become a classical singer, goes all on her own to Washington, DC, on Easter, 1939 to watch her idol, Marian Anderson sing on the Washington Mall. An epochal concert at an epochal location. Right after the concert, in the enormous crowd, Delia meets David, a German Jewish scientist who by luck escaped Germany but lost his entire family to the Nazi horror show.
Their connection is instant and undeniable. Against Delia's parents' wishes they marry, have three children and attempt to raise them outside of racism as an example of how the future could be. A dream of love and hope infused with music and song and Einstein's theories about time.
Of course the future has not yet come! Will it ever? These mixed race children, all extremely bright and musically talented, must each find his or her way through time, through racism, through everything late 20th century America has to offer.
To be young, gifted, and half Black.
Human beings, with our opposable thumbs, our clever minds, our opposable abilities to create constructively and destructively, our frail bodies at the mercy of the elements, our volatile emotions. Oh my, the stories we live, tell, sing about, write and read. Some people like to read comforting stories about love conquering all and the family ties that bind. Others like to read horror stories about crime, war and psychological strife. I like to read about everything and only require the artistry of the writers to be equal to telling the tales.
When Richard Powers, who has sufficient artistry, also includes music he really soars, as he does in The Time of Our Singing. I am a singer, lately at home or in my car, but I have always loved to sing. He reached right into me with this one.
I have complained in years gone by when white authors try to tell us about African Americans. Some authors also have trouble writing characters who are of the opposite sex, but a great writer can seem to inhabit the humanity of anyone and Richard Powers is one of those.
Delia, a young Black woman with aspirations to become a classical singer, goes all on her own to Washington, DC, on Easter, 1939 to watch her idol, Marian Anderson sing on the Washington Mall. An epochal concert at an epochal location. Right after the concert, in the enormous crowd, Delia meets David, a German Jewish scientist who by luck escaped Germany but lost his entire family to the Nazi horror show.
Their connection is instant and undeniable. Against Delia's parents' wishes they marry, have three children and attempt to raise them outside of racism as an example of how the future could be. A dream of love and hope infused with music and song and Einstein's theories about time.
Of course the future has not yet come! Will it ever? These mixed race children, all extremely bright and musically talented, must each find his or her way through time, through racism, through everything late 20th century America has to offer.
To be young, gifted, and half Black.
Human beings, with our opposable thumbs, our clever minds, our opposable abilities to create constructively and destructively, our frail bodies at the mercy of the elements, our volatile emotions. Oh my, the stories we live, tell, sing about, write and read. Some people like to read comforting stories about love conquering all and the family ties that bind. Others like to read horror stories about crime, war and psychological strife. I like to read about everything and only require the artistry of the writers to be equal to telling the tales.
When Richard Powers, who has sufficient artistry, also includes music he really soars, as he does in The Time of Our Singing. I am a singer, lately at home or in my car, but I have always loved to sing. He reached right into me with this one.
May 6, 2022
Very difficult to give this book a rating. The back cover blurb reads in part ''This is a story of the tragedy of race in America, told through the lives and choices of one family caught on the cusp of identities.'' A huge theme, to which this critically acclaimed author does justice. The paperback edition is 631 pages long and the prose is quite dense. With extended passages dealing with mathematics and physics and others about music, it is a demanding read. I have a background in music, and I found the musical sections very engaging and expertly written. I became invested in Jonah's journey as a professional singer, as well as Joseph's role as not-quite-so-talented accompanist. I confess to skipping over some of the maths and physics passages.
The story is presented in a non-linear way, skipping between time periods and taking in the stories and backstories of more than one generation of the family - it's clear that this relates to the unusual theory of time which is an obsession of the father of the family, a Jewish professor.
Richard Powers' The Overstory is one of my favourite novels ever, a book I will re-read many times. I was surprised by The Time of Our Singing, a novel well worth reading and often brilliant, but (for me) longer than it needed to be and possibly hampered a bit by its form.
The story is presented in a non-linear way, skipping between time periods and taking in the stories and backstories of more than one generation of the family - it's clear that this relates to the unusual theory of time which is an obsession of the father of the family, a Jewish professor.
Richard Powers' The Overstory is one of my favourite novels ever, a book I will re-read many times. I was surprised by The Time of Our Singing, a novel well worth reading and often brilliant, but (for me) longer than it needed to be and possibly hampered a bit by its form.
August 30, 2021
Questo libro è stato per me una lettura inaspettata e molto piacevole.
È il primo romanzo che leggo di Powers e credo che continuerò ad approfondirne la conoscenza.
Una famiglia particolare, padre ebreo e madre di colore, dove la convivialità si esprime con il canto corale, sullo sfondo di un' America razzista negli anni trenta e a seguire, la storia della musica è appassionante.
Mi segno "Il sussurro del mondo".
È il primo romanzo che leggo di Powers e credo che continuerò ad approfondirne la conoscenza.
Una famiglia particolare, padre ebreo e madre di colore, dove la convivialità si esprime con il canto corale, sullo sfondo di un' America razzista negli anni trenta e a seguire, la storia della musica è appassionante.
Mi segno "Il sussurro del mondo".
November 30, 2015
Il primo impatto non è stato affatto semplice: lo stile di Powers è ricco, ripetitivo, tende all'autocompiacimento. Powers sa scrivere bene ed è lui il primo a saperlo; quello che non sa è quando fermarsi con le sue frasi ad effetto e quando dare invece più spazio ai suoi personaggi. Però è solo l'impatto iniziale: 2-300 pagine dopo la prima, quando lo stile iniziale è andato diluendosi - o, più probabilmente, la storia oramai è entrata nel vivo e diventa difficile riuscire a mettere giù questo tomo da 800 pagine -, allora sì che questo libro si rivela veramente splendido. E splendido su più punti: nella trama, nei personaggi, nell'aspetto storico della vicenda, nei temi trattati con tanta delicatezza che vanno a toccare sfere tanto differenti, dalla musica alla situazione razziale in America.
Powers ambienta la sua narrazione nell'America del secolo appena trascorso, quando dall'incontro casuale di una donna nera appassionata di canto e di un fisico ebreo fuggito dalla Germania nasce una storia d'amore che è destinata a trovare solamente ostacoli. Dall'unione dei due nascono tre figli, tanto differenti fra loro ma con in comune l'essere frutto di un'unione non prevista: quella fra un immigrato bianco e una donna di colore. Con un'identità che farà di loro tre persone "troppo nere per essere accettate dai bianchi, troppo bianche per riconoscersi nei neri", i tre affronteranno in maniera del tutto differente la strada davanti a sé: il maggiore si rivelerà un cantante fra i più dotati del periodo, il secondo lo seguirà come pianista pur cercando per oltre trent'anni una vita autonoma e non da comprimario, la terza sceglierà la carta della ricerca delle proprie origini, fino alla rivendicazione del suo essere parte della comunità nera. In un'America devastata dal razzismo, le figure storiche del periodo saranno tutte presenti nella narrazione di Powers: dal concerto del '39 di Marion Anderson al Lincoln Memorial all'assassinio di Martin Luther King, passando per le rivolte di Harlem e Philadelphia fino a quelle recentissime a Los Angeles (2000), dal continuo terrore di un popolo che vede sottrarsi la libertà fino al tentativo delle Black Panthers di riappropriarsi dei propri spazi. In questo ambiente la storia della famiglia Strom, questi tre ragazzi nati da un'unione fortemente voluta, si dipana per oltre quarant'anni, con frequenti incursioni nel passato dei genitori e dei nonni: ne escon fuori personaggi unici, fra comprimari e principali, ognuno altamente caratterizzato, e si rimane affascinati dal modo con cui Powers ha intrecciato le storie, di quanti sentimenti sia riuscito a inserire in questo libro.
È in effetti un libro pieno di sentimenti: dall'amore (quello di coppia, ma anche e soprattutto quello verso la propria famiglia), all'odio (spesso esterno al nucleo degli Strom, ma che in più di un'occasione sarà tanto intenso da distruggere legami ritenuti solidi a prima vista), dall'amicizia (rappresentata dal rapporto fra i due fratelli maggiori) al rimorso, dalla dignità al perdono (impossibile per una generazione, duramente cercato da quella successiva): "Il tempo di una canzone" nelle sue tantissime pagine vi farà commuovere e arrabbiare, vi terrà con il fiato sospeso e vi costringerà a leggere le ultime 100-150 pagine in un'apnea di qualche ora. E non è tutto qui: Powers mette in piedi un romanzo che al suo interno non parla solo di vicende razziali, ma è una dichiarazione d'amore verso la musica e verso il canto, vera colonna sonora della vita degli Strom e di tutta la famiglia dei Daley, ma anche una ricerca sui misteri del tempo e del ripetersi delle vicende, qui rappresentate dal lavoro dell'eccentrico padre di famiglia, fisico ebreo che vive in un mondo tutto suo e che "non sembra preoccuparsi di niente che sia di poco più piccolo delle sue amate galassie". Ed è proprio da quest'ultimo punto che tutta la trama sembra chiudersi in un circolo infinito, un ripetersi che se da una parte ci ricorda l'immutabilità di certi comportamenti sconsiderati nella storia umana, dall'altro fa sperare nell'eterno ricongiungersi di chi oramai è già passato.
Quattro stelle e mezzo. Powers ha scritto un libro che consiglierei a chi è alla ricerca di un grande romanzo e al tempo stesso di capire maggiormente il problema razziale nell'America dell'ultimo secolo. È un libro facilmente catalogabile nella narrazione moderna grazie al suo stile tipicamente americano di raccontare vicende tanto attuali (De Lillo, Roth, Dos Passos, ...) e grandi saghe famigliari (Steinbeck, Franzen, Fante, Eugenides, ...). Non è un libro perfetto, a partire dallo stile di Powers a tratti troppo enfatico fino ad una lunghezza che poteva essere contenuta con 2-300 pagine in meno, ma è un libro che sicuramente rimarrà impresso.
Powers ambienta la sua narrazione nell'America del secolo appena trascorso, quando dall'incontro casuale di una donna nera appassionata di canto e di un fisico ebreo fuggito dalla Germania nasce una storia d'amore che è destinata a trovare solamente ostacoli. Dall'unione dei due nascono tre figli, tanto differenti fra loro ma con in comune l'essere frutto di un'unione non prevista: quella fra un immigrato bianco e una donna di colore. Con un'identità che farà di loro tre persone "troppo nere per essere accettate dai bianchi, troppo bianche per riconoscersi nei neri", i tre affronteranno in maniera del tutto differente la strada davanti a sé: il maggiore si rivelerà un cantante fra i più dotati del periodo, il secondo lo seguirà come pianista pur cercando per oltre trent'anni una vita autonoma e non da comprimario, la terza sceglierà la carta della ricerca delle proprie origini, fino alla rivendicazione del suo essere parte della comunità nera. In un'America devastata dal razzismo, le figure storiche del periodo saranno tutte presenti nella narrazione di Powers: dal concerto del '39 di Marion Anderson al Lincoln Memorial all'assassinio di Martin Luther King, passando per le rivolte di Harlem e Philadelphia fino a quelle recentissime a Los Angeles (2000), dal continuo terrore di un popolo che vede sottrarsi la libertà fino al tentativo delle Black Panthers di riappropriarsi dei propri spazi. In questo ambiente la storia della famiglia Strom, questi tre ragazzi nati da un'unione fortemente voluta, si dipana per oltre quarant'anni, con frequenti incursioni nel passato dei genitori e dei nonni: ne escon fuori personaggi unici, fra comprimari e principali, ognuno altamente caratterizzato, e si rimane affascinati dal modo con cui Powers ha intrecciato le storie, di quanti sentimenti sia riuscito a inserire in questo libro.
È in effetti un libro pieno di sentimenti: dall'amore (quello di coppia, ma anche e soprattutto quello verso la propria famiglia), all'odio (spesso esterno al nucleo degli Strom, ma che in più di un'occasione sarà tanto intenso da distruggere legami ritenuti solidi a prima vista), dall'amicizia (rappresentata dal rapporto fra i due fratelli maggiori) al rimorso, dalla dignità al perdono (impossibile per una generazione, duramente cercato da quella successiva): "Il tempo di una canzone" nelle sue tantissime pagine vi farà commuovere e arrabbiare, vi terrà con il fiato sospeso e vi costringerà a leggere le ultime 100-150 pagine in un'apnea di qualche ora. E non è tutto qui: Powers mette in piedi un romanzo che al suo interno non parla solo di vicende razziali, ma è una dichiarazione d'amore verso la musica e verso il canto, vera colonna sonora della vita degli Strom e di tutta la famiglia dei Daley, ma anche una ricerca sui misteri del tempo e del ripetersi delle vicende, qui rappresentate dal lavoro dell'eccentrico padre di famiglia, fisico ebreo che vive in un mondo tutto suo e che "non sembra preoccuparsi di niente che sia di poco più piccolo delle sue amate galassie". Ed è proprio da quest'ultimo punto che tutta la trama sembra chiudersi in un circolo infinito, un ripetersi che se da una parte ci ricorda l'immutabilità di certi comportamenti sconsiderati nella storia umana, dall'altro fa sperare nell'eterno ricongiungersi di chi oramai è già passato.
Quattro stelle e mezzo. Powers ha scritto un libro che consiglierei a chi è alla ricerca di un grande romanzo e al tempo stesso di capire maggiormente il problema razziale nell'America dell'ultimo secolo. È un libro facilmente catalogabile nella narrazione moderna grazie al suo stile tipicamente americano di raccontare vicende tanto attuali (De Lillo, Roth, Dos Passos, ...) e grandi saghe famigliari (Steinbeck, Franzen, Fante, Eugenides, ...). Non è un libro perfetto, a partire dallo stile di Powers a tratti troppo enfatico fino ad una lunghezza che poteva essere contenuta con 2-300 pagine in meno, ma è un libro che sicuramente rimarrà impresso.
June 10, 2019
Μετά από πέντε μήνες που με συντρόφευε με μερικές σελίδες του σχεδόν κάθε μέρα, έφτασα στο τέλος των 800+ πυκνογραμμένων σελίδων αυτού του σπουδαίου βιβλίου, που βρέθηκε σχεδόν συμπτωματικά στα χέρια μου. Είναι από τις λίγες φορές που ένιωσα να ισχύει η κλισεδιά «ένα βιβλίο που δεν ήθελα να τελειώσει».
Ο Πάουερς φτιάχνει, με υλικά που αντλεί από τον συνδυασμό μερικών μαγικών «τι θα γινόταν αν;», μια πολυεπίπεδη ιστορία, που σε κάθε της σελίδα διαπνέεται από μια αδιαπραγμάτευτη αγάπη για τη μουσική -για κάθε είδους μουσική- και ταυτόχρονα αναπλάθει πολύ πειστικά ένα κομμάτι της ιστορίας των μαύρων στις ΗΠΑ τον 20ό αιώνα.
Ένας Γερμανοεβραίος εμιγκρές φυσικός, που ασχολείται με το ζήτημα της γραμμικότητας του χρόνου, και μια μαύρη πολλά υποσχόμενη Αμερικάνα σοπράνο, κόρη γιατρού, γνωρίζονται τυχαία στη μνημειώδη εμφάνιση της κοντράλτο Μάριαν Άντερσον έξω από το Καπιτώλιο, ερωτεύονται μεταξύ τους, παντρεύονται και γεννούν τρία παιδιά μιγάδες, σε διαφορετικές δερματικές αποχρώσεις. Μεγαλώνουν τα παιδιά τους μέσα στη μουσική και έξω από τις φυλετικές κατατάξεις, με μεγαλύτερη επιτυχία στο πρώτο από το δεύτερο- και οι δύο γιοι τους ακολουθούν καριέρα μουσικών κλασικής μουσικής (τραγούδι ο ένας, πιάνο ο άλλος, δίδυμο για χρόνια), με τον πρωτότοκο να είναι πραγματικό φαινόμενο, ενώ η κόρη εξελίσσεται σε ριζοσπάστρια και εμπλέκεται ενεργά στο κίνημα των μαύρων. Το πλαίσιο απόλυτα ρεαλιστικό, η οικογένεια και η ιστορία της προϊόν μυθοπλασίας.
Μέσα από παράλληλες χρονικότητες και αναδρομές, με τον μεσαίο γιο να αφηγείται την ιστορία τη δική του και της οικογένειάς του, προσπαθώντας να ανακαλύψει από τη μια αυτό που ψάχνουμε όλοι, το ποιοι είμαστε, αλλά με κάποια έξτρα δυσκολία ο ίδιος, και από την άλλη τα τι, τα πώς και τα γιατί της μουσικής, ταξιδεύουμε σε διαφορετικούς δρόμους χειραφέτησης και απώλειας. Και όλα αυτά δίνονται με μια απαράμιλλη πρόζα που καταφέρνει να ισορροπεί διαρκώς ανάμεσα στον λυρισμό και την κυνικότητα, το κωμικό και το τραγικό, τον φιλοσοφικό στοχασμό και την μουσικολογική ακρίβεια.
Ο «Καιρός των τραγουδιών μας» είναι ένα σπουδαίο μυθιστόρημα του «ανάμεσα», ένα μυθιστόρημα που μοιάζει περισσότερο να «ακούγεται», παρά να διαβάζεται, ένα μυθιστόρημα-κιβωτός.
Σπουδαία η μετάφραση του Μιχάλη Μακρόπουλου που, μπροστά στην κολοσσιαία πρόκληση ενός πλήθους μουσικών όρων, λιμπρέτων, τίτλων μουσικών έργων και τραγουδιών, αλλά και γεγονότων και στοιχείων της αμερικανικής ιστορίας και κοινωνίας, έκανε εκείνες τις επιλογές που μας απέδωσαν ένα κείμενο που διαβάζεται αβίαστα, μεταδίδοντας όλη τη θέρμη του στον αναγνώστη.
https://gazakas.wordpress.com/2019/06...
Ο Πάουερς φτιάχνει, με υλικά που αντλεί από τον συνδυασμό μερικών μαγικών «τι θα γινόταν αν;», μια πολυεπίπεδη ιστορία, που σε κάθε της σελίδα διαπνέεται από μια αδιαπραγμάτευτη αγάπη για τη μουσική -για κάθε είδους μουσική- και ταυτόχρονα αναπλάθει πολύ πειστικά ένα κομμάτι της ιστορίας των μαύρων στις ΗΠΑ τον 20ό αιώνα.
Ένας Γερμανοεβραίος εμιγκρές φυσικός, που ασχολείται με το ζήτημα της γραμμικότητας του χρόνου, και μια μαύρη πολλά υποσχόμενη Αμερικάνα σοπράνο, κόρη γιατρού, γνωρίζονται τυχαία στη μνημειώδη εμφάνιση της κοντράλτο Μάριαν Άντερσον έξω από το Καπιτώλιο, ερωτεύονται μεταξύ τους, παντρεύονται και γεννούν τρία παιδιά μιγάδες, σε διαφορετικές δερματικές αποχρώσεις. Μεγαλώνουν τα παιδιά τους μέσα στη μουσική και έξω από τις φυλετικές κατατάξεις, με μεγαλύτερη επιτυχία στο πρώτο από το δεύτερο- και οι δύο γιοι τους ακολουθούν καριέρα μουσικών κλασικής μουσικής (τραγούδι ο ένας, πιάνο ο άλλος, δίδυμο για χρόνια), με τον πρωτότοκο να είναι πραγματικό φαινόμενο, ενώ η κόρη εξελίσσεται σε ριζοσπάστρια και εμπλέκεται ενεργά στο κίνημα των μαύρων. Το πλαίσιο απόλυτα ρεαλιστικό, η οικογένεια και η ιστορία της προϊόν μυθοπλασίας.
Μέσα από παράλληλες χρονικότητες και αναδρομές, με τον μεσαίο γιο να αφηγείται την ιστορία τη δική του και της οικογένειάς του, προσπαθώντας να ανακαλύψει από τη μια αυτό που ψάχνουμε όλοι, το ποιοι είμαστε, αλλά με κάποια έξτρα δυσκολία ο ίδιος, και από την άλλη τα τι, τα πώς και τα γιατί της μουσικής, ταξιδεύουμε σε διαφορετικούς δρόμους χειραφέτησης και απώλειας. Και όλα αυτά δίνονται με μια απαράμιλλη πρόζα που καταφέρνει να ισορροπεί διαρκώς ανάμεσα στον λυρισμό και την κυνικότητα, το κωμικό και το τραγικό, τον φιλοσοφικό στοχασμό και την μουσικολογική ακρίβεια.
Ο «Καιρός των τραγουδιών μας» είναι ένα σπουδαίο μυθιστόρημα του «ανάμεσα», ένα μυθιστόρημα που μοιάζει περισσότερο να «ακούγεται», παρά να διαβάζεται, ένα μυθιστόρημα-κιβωτός.
Σπουδαία η μετάφραση του Μιχάλη Μακρόπουλου που, μπροστά στην κολοσσιαία πρόκληση ενός πλήθους μουσικών όρων, λιμπρέτων, τίτλων μουσικών έργων και τραγουδιών, αλλά και γεγονότων και στοιχείων της αμερικανικής ιστορίας και κοινωνίας, έκανε εκείνες τις επιλογές που μας απέδωσαν ένα κείμενο που διαβάζεται αβίαστα, μεταδίδοντας όλη τη θέρμη του στον αναγνώστη.
https://gazakas.wordpress.com/2019/06...
October 21, 2025
Lascio i protagonisti di questa storia nella dimensione temporale in cui mi ha relegato questo bellissimo romanzo, e li lascio con rammarico perché la loro vicenda, nel particolare individuale, si imprime nello spazio della collettività e dell'universalità. Alla base la storia di un amore interrazziale, un fisico ebreo trapiantato in America e la figlia di una coppia di neri, il padre medico, si sposano a dispetto di tutto e di tutti. Dal loro amore nascono tre figli le cui vite vengono narrate da uno di loro, musicista. Sullo sfondo la storia mondiale del secolo scorso, americana ed europea soprattutto, dalle rivendicazioni dei neri d'America alla soluzione finale per gli ebrei. Il vero sfondo è però la musica unita alla fisica in special modo attinente alla dimensione temporale. Il tempo è un procedere misterioso, non lineare ma circolare, le sue maglie ci avviluppano ma noi non le comprendiamo. Il tempo è anche la base matematica della musica che a sua volta è, o dovrebbe essere, pura dimensione personale capace di concedersi e annullarsi in quella collettiva. La vita coincidente con il tempo di una canzone.
June 10, 2019
This was my second reading of this book, and this time there are two key factors to consider as context. Firstly, I read it as part of a re-read of all of Powers' novels in publication order, making this number 8 of 12. Secondly, my re-read was enriched by the fact that several others in The Mookse and the Gripes group here on Goodreads were reading the book at the same time, some for the first time, some as a re-read.
So, my thanks to others in the group for comments made whilst I was reading that made me stop and think more about the book. And I look forward to further discussions as others work their way through the novel.
This is still comfortably 5 stars for me, for the reasons explained in my original review. But I want to discuss a bit with others who are reading at the same time before I finalise my thoughts on my re-read.
Three things I thought a lot about as I read this book:
"Mixedness" (in quotes as I don't think it is a real word!). Clearly, the two main protagonists, Jonah and narrator Joseph, are mixed race, as is sister Ruth. But then there are the musical games the family plays which mix tunes and genres, and there is the club piano playing Joseph does where he mixes old tunes in with the modern ones he has to play. The book itself seems to be a mixture of genres - there is definitely a family saga in there, but there is more than that.
Wavelengths. The two dominant themes of the book are colour and music, both defined by the wavelength of something (light and sound). Staying with "mixedness", most colours are a mixture of pure colours and music is, by definition, a mixture of sounds. It is interesting that the musical sound Jonah pursues is one of purity, the old music that had not had chance to be mixed with anything else. The book seems to be a plea to recognise "mixedness" as the natural state of affairs. ("There's another wavelength everyplace you point your telescope.").
Time. The father, David Strom, is a physicist working on relativity and the novel plays with time. Again, "mixedness" comes to the fore as Powers jumps around the timeline of the story and re-visits some events more than once. Dowland's "Time Stands Still" is a key piece of music.
I also thought quite a bit about something Ali Smith talked about in relation to her seasonal quartet. I can't remember the quote verbatim, but she talked about music being able to have several notes simultaneously, even several melody's running in parallel, whereas novelists are constrained to a single thread at a time, even if they switch back and forward between multiple ideas. She wanted to do something to emulate music somehow, and it seems to me that Powers was trying to do this 25 years ago when he released this book. He makes several references to a chord in music which is multiple notes played at the same time, and the way he re-visits events often suggests he is trying to build a narrative chord in some way. I can't explain this properly at the moment, but hopefully discussions with others will help!
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ORIGINAL REVIEW
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Bird and fish can fall in love. But where will they build their nest?
Where to start when reviewing this book? You can read the book description to get an idea of what it is about: 3 children of mixed race parents in America during the racial tensions of the 1950s and onwards.
But it wouldn’t be Richard Powers if that was all there was to it. Powers tells us the stories of these children growing up, but one parent is a singer and one is physicist. This gives Powers opportunity to play to his strengths, because no one can write about music and science like Powers can. The main science in this book is General Relativity and Powers plays a lot with time. The chapters of the book jump around in time from the children’s births during the Second World War through to Million Man March in 1995 in Washington, D.C. (plus a short jump back to the 1800s for a bit of family history). On the way we cover many of the key events in America related to racial segregation and the battle to end it, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, Vietnam and discussions of relativity.
And somehow, all these things are related. This is what Powers excels at. He sees (invents? discovers?) connections and writes about them.
I loved, for example, that he made several mentions of the relativity conundrum about people travelling away at close to the speed of light and having aged differently when they get back together and then told us the story of two brothers who grew apart and then discovered that their musical tastes had travelled in opposite directions in time when they got back together. Our narrator, Joseph, the middle child of the three, even says “He was travelling out beyond my reach, at a speed that collapsed all measure” and Jonah, the older brother sings “Time Stands Still”. Time is jumbled in this book, but it isn’t confusing to read.
I also loved the story of race in America. This was a real education for me. I have heard of many of the events Powers refers to, but this book put them into an order and a context for me whilst asking some serious questions about race relations that are probably still relevant today. At one point the patriarch of the family says “I’ve always wondered what America might have been had the one-drop rule worked the other way”. I don’t know if that’s an original idea (I doubt it), but, especially in the context of this book, it is a thought-provoking one.
Powers has written 11 novels and I’ve now read 10 of them. I think this is my favourite. However, I think I’ve thought that about nearly every one as I have finished it, so I should probably give it a few days before making that definite!
For anyone interested, this is an excellent review of this book that also puts all Powers’ other books (except those published after this one) into context. It’s an excellent overview of Powers’ work, concentrating on this wonderful novel: Powers Review
So, my thanks to others in the group for comments made whilst I was reading that made me stop and think more about the book. And I look forward to further discussions as others work their way through the novel.
This is still comfortably 5 stars for me, for the reasons explained in my original review. But I want to discuss a bit with others who are reading at the same time before I finalise my thoughts on my re-read.
Three things I thought a lot about as I read this book:
"Mixedness" (in quotes as I don't think it is a real word!). Clearly, the two main protagonists, Jonah and narrator Joseph, are mixed race, as is sister Ruth. But then there are the musical games the family plays which mix tunes and genres, and there is the club piano playing Joseph does where he mixes old tunes in with the modern ones he has to play. The book itself seems to be a mixture of genres - there is definitely a family saga in there, but there is more than that.
Wavelengths. The two dominant themes of the book are colour and music, both defined by the wavelength of something (light and sound). Staying with "mixedness", most colours are a mixture of pure colours and music is, by definition, a mixture of sounds. It is interesting that the musical sound Jonah pursues is one of purity, the old music that had not had chance to be mixed with anything else. The book seems to be a plea to recognise "mixedness" as the natural state of affairs. ("There's another wavelength everyplace you point your telescope.").
Time. The father, David Strom, is a physicist working on relativity and the novel plays with time. Again, "mixedness" comes to the fore as Powers jumps around the timeline of the story and re-visits some events more than once. Dowland's "Time Stands Still" is a key piece of music.
I also thought quite a bit about something Ali Smith talked about in relation to her seasonal quartet. I can't remember the quote verbatim, but she talked about music being able to have several notes simultaneously, even several melody's running in parallel, whereas novelists are constrained to a single thread at a time, even if they switch back and forward between multiple ideas. She wanted to do something to emulate music somehow, and it seems to me that Powers was trying to do this 25 years ago when he released this book. He makes several references to a chord in music which is multiple notes played at the same time, and the way he re-visits events often suggests he is trying to build a narrative chord in some way. I can't explain this properly at the moment, but hopefully discussions with others will help!
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ORIGINAL REVIEW
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Bird and fish can fall in love. But where will they build their nest?
Where to start when reviewing this book? You can read the book description to get an idea of what it is about: 3 children of mixed race parents in America during the racial tensions of the 1950s and onwards.
But it wouldn’t be Richard Powers if that was all there was to it. Powers tells us the stories of these children growing up, but one parent is a singer and one is physicist. This gives Powers opportunity to play to his strengths, because no one can write about music and science like Powers can. The main science in this book is General Relativity and Powers plays a lot with time. The chapters of the book jump around in time from the children’s births during the Second World War through to Million Man March in 1995 in Washington, D.C. (plus a short jump back to the 1800s for a bit of family history). On the way we cover many of the key events in America related to racial segregation and the battle to end it, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, Vietnam and discussions of relativity.
And somehow, all these things are related. This is what Powers excels at. He sees (invents? discovers?) connections and writes about them.
I loved, for example, that he made several mentions of the relativity conundrum about people travelling away at close to the speed of light and having aged differently when they get back together and then told us the story of two brothers who grew apart and then discovered that their musical tastes had travelled in opposite directions in time when they got back together. Our narrator, Joseph, the middle child of the three, even says “He was travelling out beyond my reach, at a speed that collapsed all measure” and Jonah, the older brother sings “Time Stands Still”. Time is jumbled in this book, but it isn’t confusing to read.
I also loved the story of race in America. This was a real education for me. I have heard of many of the events Powers refers to, but this book put them into an order and a context for me whilst asking some serious questions about race relations that are probably still relevant today. At one point the patriarch of the family says “I’ve always wondered what America might have been had the one-drop rule worked the other way”. I don’t know if that’s an original idea (I doubt it), but, especially in the context of this book, it is a thought-provoking one.
Powers has written 11 novels and I’ve now read 10 of them. I think this is my favourite. However, I think I’ve thought that about nearly every one as I have finished it, so I should probably give it a few days before making that definite!
For anyone interested, this is an excellent review of this book that also puts all Powers’ other books (except those published after this one) into context. It’s an excellent overview of Powers’ work, concentrating on this wonderful novel: Powers Review
September 26, 2017
800 pagine ben suonate, armonia fantastica, ogni nota si fa ascoltare con piacere, il vibrato non cessa mai di stupire, e il colore, beh, il colore non viene mai meno.
Quella goccia di colore che fa la differenza.
Soprattutto per i protagonisti, neri in un mondo di bianchi, bianchi in un mondo di neri.
Ma il canto di cosa è la metafora? E la teoria del tempo? e come si intrecciano tra di loro? la fine è l'inizio? il tempo E' sempre?
Ho capito pochissimo di questo libro, pur avendone capito tutte le sue parti.
Quella goccia di colore che fa la differenza.
Soprattutto per i protagonisti, neri in un mondo di bianchi, bianchi in un mondo di neri.
Ma il canto di cosa è la metafora? E la teoria del tempo? e come si intrecciano tra di loro? la fine è l'inizio? il tempo E' sempre?
Ho capito pochissimo di questo libro, pur avendone capito tutte le sue parti.
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