Appassionata

Appassionata (a much better title than its original, published-in-the-UK Illuminations) is a wonderful art-meets-life story in which art triumphs, however wounded may be the artist by what the author calls "the larger futility." Isabel learns "to give homage to the world not for its goodness, but for its Being." It's the least, and also the most, anyone can do. When the artist confronts the brutality of everyday political life, she has a choice: play (create) or retreat. Isabel does retreat, which makes her re-emergence into life all the more satisfying. This novel ends where it begins (in an airport) and yet travels not only the world (Europe) but also through the mind and heart of one of the great depictions of a performing artist in fiction. As for the writing (about which other readers have complained), it's like confronting Chopin and Schumann in prose. For some, yes, overblown; for others, ecstasy.

While I'm a fan of Eva Hoffman, whose "Lost in Translation" blew me away, I was disappointed in this novel. Perhaps, as an amateur pianist myself, I expected too much. But from the start I found it greatly over-written, weighed down rather than soaring with impassioned adjectives and adverbs. Sometimes I felt as if I were reading concert program notes. Also, the characters seemed somewhat unreal, with the female protagonist too abstracted to have made it through life at all and the male love interest too narrowly obsessive to have been attractive.