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From Publishers Weekly
Prix Goncourt–winner Echenoz's fifth novel to be translated into English covers the last 10 years in the life of French composer Maurice Ravel, who in 1927 was 52 years old and at the height of his fame when he toured America. Echenoz is most keen on recording the human detail: Ravel's impeccable ablutions and wardrobe, his dainty size, his reading of Joseph Conrad's The Arrow of Gold and his triumphant tour across the United States. Upon his return and at the request of a friend, Ravel offhandedly composed his masterpiece, Boléro. However, lapses begin to intrude in his memory and eventually debilitate him. After harrowing brain surgery, Ravel died in 1937. Like his well-mannered subject, Echenoz's prose is stylish and delightfully soft-pedaled, expertly conveyed by Coverdale—leaving the sensation of a life lived exclusively for the creation of art. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
One cold 1927 morning, perfectly natty Maurice Ravel embarks on his only North American tour. Dozens of changes of day, evening, and bed clothes accompany him, representing a fifth of his constantly evolving wardrobe. During the six-day cruise to New York, the insomniac composer manages one full night's sleep. In America, he is feted and coaxed to perform, though his own music exceeds his pianism (he detests practicing). Sometime after returning home, he composes Bolero as a self-challenge to make invariant repetition appealing by means of only tone color and dynamics; Toscanini wildly varies the piece's pace, and Ravel has last words with the conductor. He composes two piano concertos, one a left-hand-only work for World War I amputee Paul Wittgenstein, who embellishes it shamelessly in performance; Ravel is again furious. Slowly, his personality changes to indifference. He loses physical and verbal capabilities. Ten days after a 1937 craniotomy, he dies. Echenoz employs almost no dialogue and nothing that departs from known facts in this tiny miracle of a biographical novel, which begins dryly and builds to a shattering, but still contained and elegant, emotional climax, like a Ravel masterpiece. Olson, Ray
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