Clara

This is quite a gorgeous book -- but difficult! It takes a particular kind of reader to enjoy the stream of consciousness and perception that constructs this book. The narrative takes the form of images and perceptions of the main characters, rather than straightforward facts and dialogue. Taken on their own, particular sentences can be quite confusing, but interwoven as they are with each other, the finished manuscript is quite an effective symphony! There has been wonderful fiction from the UK of late, I also recommend Never Let Me Go and Cloud Atlas: A Novel

This is, quite simply, a wonderful book. Janice Galloway has written a masterwork. Galloway has struck a very difficult balance between historical fact -- which much of the book details -- and its interpretation through the mind of one of the most remarkable women of the nineteenth century. For those interested in the subject, I recommend also another fine novel about the Schumanns, "Longing" by J.D. Landis; but Galloway's book towers above it in its depth of feeling and understanding of -- to quote the title of Schumann's song cycle which Galloway has used as a template for her book -- a woman's life and love. Highly recommended.

Clara Schumann's (1819-1896)life continues to fascinate and inspire. I recently saw the world-premiere of an opera, also titled "Clara" at the University of Maryland by the American composer Robert Convery. Clara Schumann is the subject of an excellent website and of recent biographies, including "Clara Schumann: the Artist and the Woman" by Nancy Reich. Clara Schumann's compositional output consists of only about 60 works, but it continues to be recorded and performed.Janice Galloway's novel, "Clara" (2002), introduces the reader to a remarkable woman and to her times. Clara was the daughter of Frederick Wieck, a notable piano teacher, and of a woman who left Wieck to marry another man when Clara was young. Clara Wieck was a child prodigy with virtuosic ability at the piano. At the time, the role of piano virtuoso was just coming into its own. Clara fell in love with the great romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856), ten years her senior, when Schumann was a student of Wieck. Her father bitterly opposed the marriage, but the couple persevered and were married with permission from the German courts. The marriage was difficult, as Robert needed absolute quiet in order to compose and was moody and tempramental to say the least. The couple had eight children, and Clara proved determined to pursue her calling as a concert artist. Schumann's instability gradually lead to insanity and he was institutionalized for the last years of his life following a failed suicide attempt. The novel covers Clara's life up through the death of Robert Schumann with only brief allusions to her life as a concert pianist following his death. Clara outlived Robert by 40 years.This book presents a complelling picture of lives filed with the love of music. Robert was a highly gifted composer while Clara devoted her great talents to the art of interpretation. Ms. Galloway shows well the vicissitudes of the creative life, both for the composer and the interpreter. The book is love story, rarer than might be supposed in today's world, presenting a picture of a gifted couple's devotion to each other. In particular, it presents a compelling portrait of Clara Schumann with her devotion to a difficult individual through his descent into psychosis. Ms. Galloway stays close to the facts of her story, gets inside her characters, and avoids the temptation to judge or to editorialize based upon the values of another age. She presents balanced portraits of the characters in her story and allows the reader to see the nuances and ambiguities inherent in all human conduct. For example, Ms. Galloway lets the reader see that Wieck had a point, after all, in his doubts about the marriage and about Robert's mental instability which was surely visible over the years. Ms. Galloway also points out Clara's growing devotion to what she was born to do -- play the piano -- and how her independence sometimes rested uneasily with her love and commitment to Robert. Her love for Robe

Janice Galloway's Clara is such a complex and modern character, particularly for the period she lived in. Galloway portrays her as such a strong, independent woman with a fiercely stubborn streak, yet also having such compassion and tenderness towards her husband Robert. Clara arranges her concert tours, organizes the household, writes her own music, teaches students, tends to her ailing husband, and manages to produce eight children! No easy feat. Whether her independent streak was forced on her by the shortcomings of Robert, or by her fiercely dictatorial father is unclear. Galloway hints that it was probably a mixture of both. During all this time Clara's life was bound up with her husband's and they were separated only by the exigencies of her profession. She devoted herself not only to his society, but also the to bringing out of his music much of which owed its reputation to her. The story gives us a powerful overview of her life from her time as a child and a musical protégée under the tutelage of her strict and authoritarian father. Then we move onto her meeting, strained courtship and eventual marriage to Schumann. The novel is also notable for introducing us to many of the other composers of the period - Chopin, Brahms and Mendelssohn - all friends and respected colleagues of Clara and Robert Schumann. Clara is a beautifully and passionately written love story, and Galloway writes in a style that blasts us with images of their profound and very deep love. Her work is extremely ambitious in its scope - using threads from their music, letters, diaries, and itineraries, and also incorporating a type of "stream of consciousness" where we are see into the minds of the main protagonists. Galloway creates piece of work that is absolutely breathtaking in scope and complexity, and a real challenge to read. But the novel is so much more than a love story. The reader constantly is bombarded with images from the Victorian era: the musical community of the 1800.s; the sites of Leipzig, Vienna and the other cities if the area; the sounds of the performances; the smells of the cities; the sexual attitudes, childbirth, and the domestic and household life of the period. Galloway's research is indeed meticulous and I'm sure the reader will find a lot to appreciate in this fine piece of work. Clara isn't an easy novel to read, but I'm sure that if the average reader sticks with it, they will be richly rewarded and they will finish having an interesting insight into the life of the wife of one of the world's greatest composers.Michael

Galloway's two previous novels were superb, but the ambitious "Clara" establishes her as a major writer of our time. Prodigious research allowed her to write Clara Schumann's story as if from within--as though she were a member of the Schumann household telling the story in a 19th-century coffeehouse. The style is colloquial and dramatic, like a barroom raconteur's. Galloway is aware of the repressive social customs that held Clara's abilities back--a few times she sneaks in the phrase "a room of one's own"--but doesn't allow ideology to mar the story.Fans of the Schumanns' music and of innovative contemporary fiction will find much here to sing about.