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Pieces A Life in Eight Movements and a Prelude John von Daler 9781937178444 Books

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Pieces A Life in Eight Movements and a Prelude John von Daler 9781937178444 Books

The idea of writing a novel in a musical form intrigued me. Unfortunately, the execution left me confused when I wasn't bored. The author skips around in time which is always detrimental to finding and following a storyline, and never made me care what happened to the character. I gave up before reaching the halfway point in the book.


Tags : Pieces: A Life in Eight Movements and a Prelude [John von Daler] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Written like a suite in eight movements, Pieces</i> is a novel about music, with leitmotifs, repetitions,John von Daler,Pieces: A Life in Eight Movements and a Prelude,WiDo Publishing,1937178447,Literature & Fiction Genre Fiction

Pieces A Life in Eight Movements and a Prelude John von Daler 9781937178444 Books Reviews

Love this book--great insight into living in Denmark and growing up in CT (although the author claims mostly fiction) many of the places are real --now I can't wait to get back to Tivoli!
This book wanders a bit but some of the writing is beautiful!. There is an interesting mix of reality and fantasy. The author's ability to write so clearly allows you to easily visualize various locations where the story takes place. A very interesting style for a series of short stories about one person.
A very personal view of the characters makes this an interesting read. It's a little like you've been taken inside this group of people who are connected. I enoyed it, - it was a different view of life style.
Here we have a fictional bildungsroman crafted in a kind of symphonic fashion--with accompaniment. The narrator schleps his violin through life, moves from one gig to another, accompanied by `Olding,' the musician's inner conductor. As Von Daler says, "If this book were music, it would be eight movements and a prelude." He also indicates that this is fiction, but I might suggest it's closer to `Faction,' as it clearly reflects the narrator's peripatetic life in music, and the characters he meets along the way.
Through a gift of `Perfect Pitch,' our young violinist begins to make a name for himself. Starting at the beginning, tuning to the first chair's `A,' as every symphony does, on the downstroke the author positions us on a porch in Copenhagen looking through a fence `of parallel pine stems,' a wonderful metaphor, the vision of a violinist staring through strings. Remember that image.
In `Counterpoint,' the narrator and his mother eat dinner, in `a kind of silence that really is a conversation.' Referring to the blank spot on our retinas, he goes on to say that with our need to fill in, we `become co-authors of what we see.' To this reviewer at least, this is the theme of the book. An appreciative audience listens not so much for perfect notes, but for the music between them, the life we live in order to appreciate those notes.
`Was she to be seduced, or baby sat?' Thus we encounter a Dal Segno, when the narrator gropes toward first love and sex, knowing that his `Lucy' is likely not `the one' since she's described all in white, and the intimate encounter hits one discordant note after another. But then there's Heddy. The narrator engages her with his other string instrument, a tennis racket. On the court, the two share a pas de deux that the author compares to dance. And of course for dance we need music, which comes here not from a violin, but from the movement of the two players, once again, music between the notes.
In `Transposing,' we meet characters who show us the commercial music world. Also, we meet Mastodon, the future father-in-law, whose priorities are quite simple. "You can make love with my daughter," he says. "But don't you dare `mess' up my cheese."
Perpetuum Mobile finds the musician/narrator encountering the dying Lens, and also trapped in his career, in perpetual motion. Perhaps the summation of this piece is one sentence. Lens speaking, hand on light chain "What a pleasure to turn you off." Here again, the music between the notes is sweet; perhaps even more so for those commanded to produce those notes for the rest of us. No matter how pleasurable a career or ability, `No rep and no da capo' leads to a grinding, monotonous life.
Intonation brings us a storyteller, another kind of prelude, and another kind of music, the tales we decide to share, or not. "It's just a story. Let it lie." In this chapter, however, we do see a reference to the aging narrator as Olding is grown up.
Ad Libitum At the liberty of the conductor, who is free to take the music where he or she decides. Also, we read a delightful encounter with a meek, attentive `god' who actually listens. `God' even shares a desire all humans have, it seems, a Dorian Gray-ish wish to age backwards. "Don't we all," God says.
Tacet gives us a rest, as we learn of the narrator's (the author's?) family history, from the early twentieth-century and even before. Truly music between the notes, here, as General Daler plays his piece, and the author listens along with us.
Beautifully written, and rich with musical references--even the Beatles are mentioned--this book is a tour de force of life with a violin in ones hands, staring through the strings. It seems that the family history section might have played better as a first movement, but that might have upset the tempo as too predictable. Von Daler the writer uses his own ad libitum here, and it's just as well. Pieces is damn near perfect pitch, I'd say. Maybe the best book of its sort I've listened to for a while.
Byron Edgington, author of The Sky Behind Me A Memoir of Flying & Life
While the theme of this book was what got my attention, the lack of flow from one movement to the next left something to be desired. The author does show a talent for random lyrical (no pun intended) phrasing, but seguing from one period in the protagonist' s life to another without some continuity made the point of the story hard to fathom. I did not finish this book, because I didn't see the point.
This was like eating a really good piece of chocolate, the words were smooth and silky and you did not want it to be done! This book has passages so descriptive you could mentally see the painting of the scenes. I would highly recommend it. Do not expect the story line to flow through the life of the protagonist, it is exactly as described. Pieces, and it was excellent.
It"s not that the book is poorly written (although the comparison of a sunrise to Rapunzel's hair is questionable) and it"s not that it's hard to read. It"s just that it didn't have point. It jumped all over the place from Oklahoma to New York to Denmark to stories from WWI to some guy telling stories to God. And none of them are in any way connected. One chapter he's talking about a kid with perfect pitch and getting lessons and the next it's 10 years later and he's playing at some NY dive and the next he's engaged to a nameless person n Denmark with no explaintion or connection. He talks about not playing the violin for years but nothing about why. I'd think he might have some sort of attention disorder except one would think a good editor would have made him fix it. So I can"t explain why there's no real cohesive story.
The idea of writing a novel in a musical form intrigued me. Unfortunately, the execution left me confused when I wasn't bored. The author skips around in time which is always detrimental to finding and following a storyline, and never made me care what happened to the character. I gave up before reaching the halfway point in the book.