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Title: The Music Lesson by Katharine Weber ISBN: 0312252854 Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: January, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.97
Rating: 4
Summary: art and politics
Comment: What do art historians and radical Irish political groups have in common? In this book, a (fictional) Vermeer painting owned by the Queen of England. Patricia Dolan, bereft Irish-American reference librarian at the Frick, falls hard for her Irish cousin and within weeks finds herself ensconced in a remote cottage in Ireland with one of the objects of her desire--the tiny "kidnapped" Vermeer painting that is being held for ransom. Patricia tells us her story in retrospect in the form of a plain-spoken journal and simultaneously reveals her interconnected, immediate musings on loss, love, art history, philosophy (Walter Benjamin in particular), national identity, politics and geneaology. To her credit, Weber clearly and cleverly conveys her complex tale in this slim and compelling novel that manages to be, like a Vermeer painting, both understated and profound.
Rating: 5
Summary: A beautiful story
Comment: Historical art expert Patricia Dolan has never fully recovered from the death of her daughter that subsequently led to her divorce. She throws herself fully into her work at New York's Frick Art Reference Library to forget her inner pain.
Her distant cousin, Michael O'Driscoll comes to New York to obtain her help. Soon, the duo becomes lovers. She leaves America to live in a cottage in a remote part of Ireland. As the long winter sets in, Patricia has only a stolen painting by Vermeer, THE MUSIC LESSON, as company. As she keeps a diary, Patricia soon begins to transform herself, guided by the painting that is her sole companion. She now knows that she must choose between the beauty of art and the mundane pragmatic world of politics where love is not part of the equation.
THE MUSIC LESSON is a clever, but strange psychological thriller that will elate sub-genre fans. The novel is mostly told through Patricia's diary, but that device does not slow down the tale for even a nanosecond. The story line is crisp though readers will question the naive motivations of Patricia even in her numb state. However, what makes this novel a winner is the characters, especially Patricia and the person in the painting. As with OBJECTS IN MIRRORS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR, Katherine Weber scribes a taut thrilling tale of self awareness.
Harriet Klausner 3/17/99
Rating: 4
Summary: THE HAUNTING
Comment: In The Music Lesson Katherine Weber does a good job of pulling off a mystery novel bedecked with a love story, or should I say a lust story, with the snob-nosed word "literature" and carries it off brillantly.
As the story opens we meet Patricia Dolan, a 41 year old art historian from America who is currently keeping a low profile in a small cottage on the outskirts of an Irish town of Ballyhoe. Just why she is hiding out becomes readily apparent when we find out that she is in the possession of a stolen Vermeer painting. She is waiting to be contacted by her young cousin, Mickey, who just happens to be her lover. In the meantime, the waiting allows her to think about her past: the death of her daughter and the resulting divorce from her husband, the fierce nationalism of her Irish father, and always the curiosity to see her homeland. She also has to deal with the unknown future she will have to face when Mickey arrives. She is a woman who wonders if she has made the right decisions in her life but knows it's too late to change them even if she made the wrong ones.
I liked this book a lot. It's short and compact but has a lot of muscle pumping through its graceful lines. Weber had to pack a lot into each page to get the combined effects of lost love, nostalgia, regret, nationalism, and history to blend effortlessly into a seamless whole. In the end, this novel is a solitary monologue that haunts you after you read it. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and also a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year.
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Title: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland ISBN: 014029628X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach ISBN: 0385334923 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland ISBN: 0670894494 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 14 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0452283205 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 24 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0452282152 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 08 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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