Longing : A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating subjects but no fun to read
Review: "Longing" is a fictionalized biography of composer Robert Schumann and his wife, pianist/composer Clara Wieck Schumann. Schumann and Wieck lived fascinating lives in the midst of the Romantic movement, an era full of change & upheaval, and hobnobbed with the likes of Chopin, Mendelsohn, Brahms and more. Schumann first met Wieck when she was a child and their relationship began (platonically at first) when he came to study piano under her father. "Longing" traces the often tortured relationship between the two, as well as the relationships between Schumann and Wieck and their music. All of this sounds like a great read -- but for me, the writing style made plowing through this book just too painful. The author is fond of long, twisted sentences and lengthy paragraphs full of digressions. Constant references to great thinkers, musicians, historical events distract from the narrative rather than adding to it. The author obviously did copious research, but instead of integrating it seamlessly into the novel (and this is indeed a novel, not a work of nonfiction), he hits you over the head with it. An example are the frequent footnotes, which really don't relate to the narrative at all but are sidelights that the author found interesting but I found distracting and usually irrelevant. When I get to the point where I find myself thinking "I ought to finish this book" rather than eagerly anticipating a chance to read more, it's time to move on. It's a shame, though, because I really wanted to like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Listen while you read
Review: "Longing" inspired me to play every CD of Robert and Clara Schumann's music that I could find. What a way to add another layer of beauty to a compelling and satisfying reading experience! I listened while I read, and played the music written in the year of the sections, then I listened some more when I wasn't reading.

Rating:
Summary: Language, music, and creativity
Review: After I began this book, I loved reading it. Clara Wieck Schumann and Robert Schumann are creative in their lives and their art, and Landis is creative in his language. This is a book about creativity as much as it is about desire.

The writing is eloquent, lyrical, and intelligent. As a reading specialist, writer, and composition teacher, I understand the varied reactions to Landis' writing style. Most people would find his sentence structure and vocabulary difficult and challenging. For those who love the complexities of language, this is a feast. I found myself wondering how Landis had attained his use of language and vocabulary.

"Longing" is for those who love language, music, the creative process and lives of creative people.

Rating:
Summary: When Less Is More
Review: Considerable scholarship is reflected in this novel, sometimes to the detriment of the story. In addition to a wealth of detail about leading musicians of the Romantic Age, the author provides a number of footnotes. The latter, according to the author, help to establish a "narrative stance at some remove from the nineteenth century subject matter. Yet that stance is muddled by digressions within the novel proper. At times, the central account of Clara and Robert Schumann's lives halts as the narrator elaborates on his idiosyncratic view of the historical scene. As Clara travels to Paris during the Revolution of l830, the reader is required to consider the notion that "revolution began at the birth of man, whether at Eden or what Germans liked to think was Heidelberg..." (p. 80) While the concept of revolution is certainly central to the Romantics' creative efforts, a two page digression on the particular political events of 1830 does little to advance our appreciation of them.
With the voluminous correspondence between the Schumanns as a primary resource, Landis draws a portrait of the relationship which began when Clara was but eight and Robert ten years older. Initially founded on their mutual talents and love of classical music, it evolves with her maturation. Robert is presented as the quintessential Romantic, who "embraced melancholy as a kind of philosophical imperative," regarded the world as populated by philistines indifferent to his creativity, and whose genius verging on madness finally resulted in his commitment to an asylum.
Employing a dense, somewhat convoluted style, (one sentence consumed fifteen lines of printed text) the narrator occasionally lapses in curiously puerile descriptions. When Robert finds himself unable to compose, he experiences gastric upset: "Fart he did, from one corner of the room to another. It was a wonder there was not a depression in his piano bench to match that in his mind." (p. l52) How such a comparison might illuminate Robert's frustration is dubious and completely inconsistent with the overall tenor of the narration.
If the goal of historical fiction is to capture the spirit of an age through representative characters, actual or fictional, this novel can be considered a qualified success. Greater narrative restrait would have enhanced it.

Rating:
Summary: Landis needs a good editor
Review: Do not waste your time on this tedious book. I thought it would be a sweeping love story between Clara and Robert, but the only love revealed is the one between Landis and his typewriter. His writing was not only tedious to slog through, but I came away from this book disliking the author. Pages, chapters could be slashed. It was ridiculously overlong (to the point of tears) and gave no insight into love between these two remarkable individuals. I recommend reading the primary sources instead of this drivel. Landis gets one star for his immense research (I think ALL of it is discussed in the book.)

Rating:
Summary: *BIG* Love
Review: Here's a novel concerning BIG LOVE. Huge, ecstatic, voracious, wistful, confirming, mad, giddy, crushing, sensuous, transcendent, imprisoning, painful, adoring, delightful, desirous, agonising, dreamy, virtuosic (adjectives gleaned within thirty seconds of casual leafing) love. But say love for you resembles more caramel brownie chunk fudge swirl ice cream ... perhaps after squaring away the bills, and at the start of a long holiday weekend ~ then might you find this the bowlful of bombastic balderdash?

All depends.

The characters are engaging, well-fleshed out and colorful. They're so engaged and fleshly and blushingly ruddy it astonishes they don't fly apart at the seams. For example, a conversation between Clara and Robert, as Robert prepares to take his leave on some journey or other : 'I will come with you,' said Clara. 'Then I would not be able to go.' (Robert) 'Do you not need me?' (Clara) 'So much that I could not bear for you and death to occupy the same city, or my mind.'

And here's a poem Robert wrote supposedly sixteen years into 'his longing for Clara Weick' and '... what he sings now to himself, wholly in his head.' : 'Waking in the morning, I ask Where can she be? In the evening I lament She hasn't come to me. And finally in the dark of night With agony I scream To realize she won't visit me Except within a dream.'

To be fair, I understand the author was entirely convinced he'd penned an absolute tome to love in all various invigourating varieties. Upon this realisation I allowed myself slack (quite liberating) and settled in, comfortably after a time, giving into it, actually enjoying the unfolding quasihistoric events, the copious clever footnotes (the best part), and the famous figures that flitted past such as Chopin and George Sand and Moescheles and Napoleon and Pleyel and Paganini and Mendelssohn and Beethoven and Brahms ~ we shan't touch upon what Brahms was supposed to have meant to both Clara and Robert; read for yourself if interested ~ even relishing the awful poetry and overblown amourous admissions.

Once arrived to the novel's completion and into the Reader's Guide thoughtfully provided by Ballantine, it made better sense to me. In this Guide Landis admits : 'I wanted to write a book in which I didn't have to make anything up and yet got to invent everything. I wanted to be grounded in history and exalted in fiction. I wanted to adhere to the facts and to write a work of the imagination.'

When questioned what other titles he'd considered for his invention he said, 'You'll be sorry you asked. Like : AGITATION; INTERLUDE; NIGHT WRAPS EVERYTHING IN DARKNESS; FANTASIE; EXCEPT WITHIN A DREAM; THE SECRET LISTENER ~ most of these may ring a bell with people who have read the novel. But it was SONGS FOR THE DISTANT BELOVED that survived longest before I realized that the book must be called LONGING.'

And finally when asked whether he was happy with this title, he responded : 'Of course not.'

A satisfactory summation.

Rating:
Summary: Preconceived notions got in the way
Review: I heard about JD Landis's book, "Longing" while listening to my local NPR radio station, where they featured his book on their weekly book commentary. It sounded interesting at the time - as a lover of classical music, and an admirer of Clara Wieck Schumann, I thought that I could not lose out by reading this book. I was very interested in reading it!

My excitement in reading the book helped me through the first 100 pages or so - but then I found the reading tedious. I thought that the author did a great job in allowing the complexity in the relationship between Clara and Robert show through his writing, and it was very fun to have him fantasize about the funloving friendships between Mendellsohn and Chopin, Clara and Robert. When he threw Brahms into the mix, I got confused. I admire Brahms greatly, and prehaps his insinuation that a relationship between Clara and Johannes Brahms disturbed me. I don't know if that is entirely fact or fiction. Perhaps my own thoughts of disbelief tainted my motivation to read the rest of the book.

I found finishing the book challenging. I felt that Landis did a great job describing the earlier years of Clara's and Robert's life together as classical music prodigies, but once they broke out on their own, my interest wained. I realize that this is a work of fiction, but it does not read as such. I applaud Landis's research, however, I was overall disappointed by the outcome into a novel such as this. I sincerely gave it a chance. Perhaps I want to remember these performers and composers in a different light than what Landis had painted them, and I could not get over my stubborn mindset.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully romantic and fascinating
Review: I stepped into this book with caution, worried about its historical base and length. However, I quickly forgot my fear and was absorbed in the book the entire time. The prose are beautiful, the situations are hysterical and the love story is very romantic. I love reading about the interactions between Schumann and other infamous composers of his time. How lucky they were to realize each others talents! Though it is recognized as an historical novel, the history is very interesting and you can see the performers and hear their music as you read. I absolutely love this book!!

Rating:
Summary: Enchants Pianists Everywhere
Review: Not only does Longing convey the utmost and personal experiences of Robert and Clara Weick Schumann, but it goes into incredible detail of other composers such as Mendelssohn, Chopin, and countless others. This book is a true classic and J.D. Landis should be thanked for bringing such a wonderful book into the lives of so many pianists.