- Hardcover: 266 pages
- Publisher: Harvill Secker; First Edition edition (5 Jun 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846551552
- ISBN-13: 978-1846551550
- Product Dimensions: 13.8 x 2.6 x 22.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 968,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Illuminations
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Daily Mail, Michael Arditti
'Hoffman achieves that most difficult feat of conveying the emotional effect of music in prose...highly accomplished, edgy and timely'
TLS, rev'd by Lucy Dallas
`Hoffman captures the exhilaration and emptiness of performance'.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I love (love, love) Eva Hoffman's 'The Secret' and while I didn't enjoy this novel quite as much I still think Hoffman writes beautifully, and interestingly, and that she creates atmosphere and emotion so well. The heroine of this novel is a pianist who has left her husband but is finding it hard to let go; she is on tour in Europe, flying from to city to city but finding little that distinguishes one from the other; as she travels she reads the memoirs of her old mentor who reflects on his past, the nature of time, the modern condition and its relation to music/art; she also reminisces about her own past and her family, particularly her brother's death; and finally the plot is driven by her chance meeting with a charismatic Chechen radical with whom she begins an affair. The set up of the romance plot is rather mills and boon-ian (she is the 'artistic' career woman but rather passive, he is the handsome, foreign 'bad boy' who seduces her...) but such a set up is purposely misleading. This is not a 'romance' novel in any conventional sense of the term - but nor is it terribly political. It is in between, committing wholly to neither theme. Indeed, the overriding theme is the music - the way music 'works', the way musicians play, the way music may or may not have the capability to make sense of the world and the self - life and love. Perhaps this is why the novel didn't resonate with me to the degree that The Secret did. I don't play an instrument or appreciate music perhaps as much as I should... I think readers with a better understanding of music would find something in this text which I perhaps was not quite able to grasp. That said, I found this a compelling, well told, well written, and interestingly structured novel and recommend it as a thought provoking and atmospheric read.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
