The Soloist

This book came highly recommended to me, and at first I admit I was skeptical being that I have no musical background and I thought there would be a lot of musical terms where I would have no idea what the author was talking about. As it turns out, the author did discuss music in great detail but did it in such a way that even somebody who knows nothing about music can understand. Additionally, I really enjoyed the two main stories (the jury duty sequence and his dealings with a young pupil) and watching the two come together. I found the characters to be very realistic, as well as the situations, and that made it very easy to relate to.

Renne was a childhood prodigy. Prodded by his stage-manager mother, by age 18 he toured the world, playing cello with top orchestras and studying with a German master who is able to relate everything in the world around him to the making of music. At age 18, however, Renne's gift suddenly deserts him, as a new obsession with intonation makes him unable to play for audiences. He accepts a job teaching in a California University, and continues to practice for hours daily, but doesn't progress.Two events, however, conspire to change Renne's outlook and life. A young Korean prodigy seeks him out as a cello teacher, and Renne must look back on his instruction to realize what in his past has meant the most to him. At the same time, he is summoned to jury duty, where he sits on the trial of a young Zen student accused of killing his master while seeking enlightenment who is pursing an insanity defense. The trial forces Renne to confront an outside world, which is vastly different than that environment he has spent most of his life; and to put into place his ethical understandings.Salzman's book does a profound job at revealing what touches each of us spiritually. For Renne, it is his music. For his teacher, it was politics and his garden. For the Zen student, it is enlightenment.The Soloist is tightly woven, and constantly enjoyable. The book is well recommended for any reader.

THE SOLOIST is a fine novel, interweaving three stories that all center on the narrator: the rise and fall of a child prodigy cellist, the sole member of a jury at a murder trial who finds meaning in a defendent's case, and a teacher of a budding, gifted young Korean cellist. Each story has its own cast of characters beautifully realized, but most important - each aspect of this tripartite novel is told with such informed authority that imagining the author in anything but an autobiographical mode is next to impossible. Just as in his previous novel LYING AWAKE which dealt with the inner thoughts of a cloistered nun, Salzman here shows us he has a thorough understanding of music, music making, and the sociology and philosophy of our court system and our education system. Not that he stops at reportage. Hardly! It is simply his depth of knowledge about everything he writes make his novels deeply committed and inspiring. The reason for writing THE SOLOIST is probably one of encouraging his readers to live in the moment. But it is the loving manner of relating his tale that gets us there, almost without knowing we've arrived. A fine book to encourage a whole town (Pasadena) to read and share as is the goal here. Well worth anyone's time.

If Mark Salzman published a shopping list I would read it. His writing is magical. The Soloist is deceptive in its simplicity. It would be easy to underestimate this book because Salzman's straightforward, unpretentious writing belies the complexity of the ideas he is communicating. There are three or four different themes expressed in alternating chapters: A cellist crippled by his need for perfection, a trial, zen theory and practice, the relationship between teacher and student. There are several more subthemes going on as well. Salzman weaves them together so skillfully that you barely realize that each theme slowly permeates the others with exquisite subtlety. The Soloist is a book worth reading slowly and with full attention It is a deeply satisfying read, in the same way that a subtly seasoned meal, savored at leisure, leaves one feeling fully nourished. Thanks once again, Mr. Salzman! Well done!

This novel is on a trajectory from Salzman's light and humorous Laughing Sutra to his more profound and masterly Lying Awake. He weaves together here some autobiographical elements with a philosophy of the superiority of ordinary real life over the unrealizable extraordinary. When a cello player's need for perfection chokes his art, and the best becomes the enemy of the good, two events intervene. He begins to mentor a young Korean boy with talent like his own and learns, as one does, from his pupil. And he becomes a juror in a case where a Zen student has solved the koan, "If you meet the Buddha kill him," in an arguably correct but unfortunately homicidal fashion. Both cellist and murderer sought perfection, and in solving his own problem, the cellist effectively kills his Buddha. Salzman is a very gifted author with great insight into human nature.