Solo [Paperback]

This is a novel of two halves.

The first half, or First Movement "Life", is a history of the twentieth century filtered through the memories of a very old, blind, Bulgarian man called Ulrich. We hear of his parents, his childhood love of music and later chemistry, his best friend, the two women he loves, his working life and his obscurity after his early dreams of success. The story also covers the scientific and technological breakthroughs taking place at the time and the political upheavals affecting Bulgaria.
The choice of country is an interesting one, because Bulgaria seems never to have been in charge of its own destiny. At the start of the book Bulgaria has been part of the Ottoman Empire for five hundred years and is has an agricultural peasant economy. The country gains independence and looks optimistically towards European culture for progress, but the leadership becomes Fascist and repressive and Bulgaria is dragged into the second world war. After the war the country becomes a Soviet satellite, and a different set of dissidents are repressed. There is technological progress, but at the cost of widespread pollution and grim architecture. After the fall of Communism the country is in economic chaos.
The whole history is a series of blighted hopes, for both Ulrich himself and for his country.
If the novel had ended at this point it would be complete and accomplished. The writing is descriptive and informative, with moments of poignancy and humour. The intermeshing of the personal and wider histories works extremely well. It would be a good, but not a remakable novel.

Then we get part two, Second Movement "Daydreams". This is very different.
Several new character are introduced, with their own family tragedies: Boris is a musician, Khatuna is a tarty business-woman and Irakli (her brother) is a poet. These stories entwine in New York, where Ulrich's imagined self also appears. There is a shift of perception as it transpires that these are creatures of Ulrich's daydreams. Are they in some way replacements for the son he lost and the children he never had? Is it that he has nothing left at the end of his life but memories and imagination, so these form the two parts of the story?
This half of the book has some elements of magic realism and of traditional story-telling, but asks a lot of questions also. It is the second half which makes this novel extra-ordinary and ensures it will be remembered by the reader.

"Solo,"by Rana Dasgupta, was awarded the U.K. Commonwealth Prize. As almost every other reviewer has already told you, it falls into two parts - two movements, the author calls them, and considering the importance of music in the book, that's quite appropriate.

First Movement is "Life." It opens in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, in the Balkans of Eastern Europe. And it introduces us to the exceptionally long-lived Ulrich, he's almost 100 years old and now blind, and he's the son of a successful railway engineer who admired the Germans. It opens early in the twentieth century, before World War I, which was begun in the Balkans. His father comes back from that war a cripple, and then we are in the expansive 1920s. Ulrich loves music, but his father won't tolerate that as a career choice: the boy's also interested in chemistry, and his father sends him to Berlin to study with the world's greatest chemists, such as Fritz Haber, while Albert Einstein, world's most famous mathematician, wanders the halls. But then comes the stock market crash of 1929; Ulrich's father's holdings evaporate, and the son is called back to Sofia to support his family. The Depression 30s are rather glum, as you might expect. Then comes World War II and occupation of the country by the Germans, also a rather glum period, as you might expect. The end of World War II brings the Russian invasion and occupation - this for many years. And the situation is even glummer, as you might expect. First thing to be said is, if Dasgupta didn't actually live in Bulgaria for a while, it must have required a considerable amount of research, and powers of imagination, to give us such a vivid take on the capital and the country, and I congratulate the author. However, the first movement might well be described as glum, over all.

Mind you, I know virtually nothing about Bulgaria, and can summarize what I do know. In the Balkans, invaded and occupied by Germans in World War II, invaded and occupied, long time, by Russians after the war. Didn't know the population, principal exports, raw materials and etc., and still don't. And then I can quote CASABLANCA, a movie I nearly know by heart. The pretty young woman, seeking help, tells Rick, the saloon owner (Humphrey Bogart) that she and her young husband Jan are from Bulgaria. Things are very bad there, she says, the devil has the people by the throat.

The second movement, "Daydreams," is far more problematic to me. It is evidently meant to be interpreted as Ulrich's daydreams, but it takes us to Georgia, of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and New York, of the good old USA, two places where the old man has never been. It introduces us to, possibly, Ulrich's fantasy children, born in communism, but now making their way in the post-communist world. These are characters we must assume don't exist who lead complicated existences. This movement has the blind old man driving around New York, where the roads are tough on seeing, experienced drivers. It is, I guess, post-modern, and that's the best I can do. Some of the other reviewers nearby are much better equipped to handle this material than am I, who reads largely mysteries, and nonfiction. I admire the author's audacity and imagination, but I found the book disjointed, confusing, and often overwritten.

Dasgupta was born in Canterbury, England. "Solo" follows on the heels of his first novel, the highly-praised Tokyo Cancelled that was short listed for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Perhaps he's an acquired taste.

Usually when I read a novel widely described as "controversial," I find myself seeing both sides of the controversy and writing about both sides when I write a review. With this prize-winning novel, however, I was so exhilarated at the author's bold originality, his ability to juggle his characters' vibrant and creative inner lives while also examining the depressing circumstances under which they live, the sweeping historical scope which includes the entire twentieth century, and his total control of language with all its potential to amaze with its images and ideas, that I must celebrate it as one of the most innovative and enjoyable books I have read in a long time.

Daringly experimental, the book has two parts, which represent the two parts of our lives, the world of reality and the world of the imagination and memory. The imaginative second part evolves from the events of the first part, with clear parallels. Set in Bulgaria, the novel features Ulrich, a main character who is almost a hundred years old and who has lived through the major political changes of the twentieth century. Blind, impoverished, and alone, he now lives in his memories and fantasies as his past unfolds, and the reader comes to know the pivotal events in his life and that of his country. A lover of music who had hoped to study violin, Ulrich is forced to switch to chemistry after his father angrily destroys his instrument, going to Berlin to study science until he runs out of money. He returns home to political unrest, and watches as student friends are arrested, the fascists take over, and the communists overthrow them ten years later. Ulrich's life revolves around his job in a steel works which pollutes the air, rivers, and land around it, and his days of music are over.

More philosophical and historical than it is psychological, emotional, or exciting in the first part, the novel changes at the halfway point when Ulrich's memories and wild fantasies become the story line. Here a young man named Boris, the same name as Ulrich's best friend in the first part, becomes the main character, a pig farmer who teaches himself to play the violin, learns from the gypsies, and enjoys his music. Succeeding chapters introduce other characters, such as Khatuna, a beautiful and very ambitious woman, and her sensitive poet brother, Irakli, who bring the country's history and the collapse of communism up to date. The two artists, Boris and Irakli, are the vehicles through which the author eventually comments on the art world, its commercialization, and its human parasites. Even the seemingly idyllic world of music and poetry has its down side.

When Boris, "the son of [Ulrich's] daydreams," faces the death of a friend, Ulrich enters the story himself to offer advice. In a passage of extraordinary beauty and sensitivity, one of the high points of the novel for me, Ulrich says, "[Your friend] will find his way inside you, and you'll carry him onward. Behind your heartbeat, you'll hear another one, faint and out of step...You won't wait until people die to grieve for them; you'll give them their grief while they are still alive, for then judgment falls away, and there remains only the miracle of being." A fine definition of love from a thoughtful and gifted author, not yet forty, in a book that I found astonishing in its depth. Mary Whipple