Tag: classical music

Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 4/5

This was a wild ride — adventurous (plenty of plot), insightful, and deep dives into broad domains of art, physics, and relationships. Noah, a quantum physicist, is enticed into a top secret, billionaire funded project that explores the nature of time, memory, and consciousness in an intriguing, and quite personal, way. His wife Maya, a Tokyo-born, biracial artist, joins him hoping to explore the vibrant, though isolated, art scene in Marfa, Texas (look it up — the art scene is real!). Noah has never fully recovered from the death of his three-year old child and the ensuing collapse of his previous marriage, and he hopes that this project will somehow allow him to reconnect with a past that he can’t quite escape.

I was particularly drawn to how a single book could so thoroughly explore topics (time, memory, and consciousness) from two so dissimilar perspectives and manage to create a synergy between them. The physics explanations were far more plausible than I expected and the artistic dives were far more interesting (to me — a non artist) than I expected. I liked the characters, found the philosophical scrutiny well-paced and satisfyingly twisted, and the commentary on the motivations, approaches to problems, and subjective experiences of the three main characters (the physicist, his wife, and his ex-wife) fascinating.

The author also wrote The Ensemble — a novel about a young string quartet navigating the complex and somewhat cutthroat world of classical music performance. I loved that book as well. I’m impressed by the way this author is able to bring these very different worlds (classical music performance, modern art, quantum physics) to life in a way that allows the reader to inhabit a world in which they have no real expertise through the eyes of a character who actually does.

Review double-header…

The Ensemble by Aja Gabel

Writing: 4.5 Plot: 4 Characters: 4

A story about the Van Ness String Quartet and the individual members comprising it, both evolving from rocky beginnings to success and stability. Some very nice descriptions of music and the art of making music together. Over the roughly 15 years of the story there are romances, friendships, children, students, and always lots about the music.

At first I didn’t enjoy it as it seemed far more about individual dysfunction than music, but then I realized the author used this personal squirming to show the interplay between the growth of the entity and the growth of its constituent parts.

A compelling story for me, both in terms of the world of classical music performance and the personal motivations and challenges for each performer. I also found it interesting to see which characters I could relate to and which left me cold (I related best to Henry and Brit…). Would love to compare notes with others!

Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok

Writing: 3 Plot: 3 Characters: 4

Kind of disappointing. Pretty obvious “ugly duckling becomes beautiful dancing swan” plot and stereotype characters (simplistic Chinese immigrants, semi-slutty, neurotic, but super nice and supportive ballroom dancers). What started out as an obvious story told in a sweet way became just an obvious story told without a lot of grace. Writing was decent but the characters and story were just too simplistic for me.

There were some very nice Lao Tzu quotes, description of Tai Chi and Qigong, and descriptions of ballroom dancing in the first half. And I did enjoy the characters at the beginning when they had more individuality and less stereotype to them. Somehow it feels as though the second half was written more hurriedly and more focused on plot and less on the character and environment that made the first half so enjoyable.