Customer Reviews

The Courage Consort

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this collection of three wildly divergent novellas Faber creates varied and vividly imagined worlds where the central/core theme is one of survival and renewal. Each masterfully written segment is amazing in its own way - multi-layered, absorbing, rich with an air of menace (unsettling), and a recurring habit of smashing all notions of predictability. The surprises blindsided me every time. My favorite novella was 'The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps' about a strange isolated woman on an archaeological dig. However, all three stories left a strong impression. It must have been nice for Mr. Faber to work on some shorter pieces after his mammoth novel 'The Crimson Petal and the White'.

Not one of these three earnest novellas really appealed to me--yet I cherished and treasured all of them. The various characters were flawed (as are all characters), and their subsequent interactions and conflict mundane, yet I still remained transfixed as I turned each page. Let's see: a singing ensemble, an insecure anthropologist, and two tiny twins above the Artic Circle. . .none of the above really interests me. Yet Michel Faber's amazing gift with the written word made his three-novella collection, named THE COURAGE CONSORT, an absolutely spellbinding, mystical, existential, and satisfying reading experience.

The "Guardian" of London says of Faber: "This is a man who could give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence." Darn right. Faber's writing is clean, concise, compelling--a fluid nirvana of perfectly-matched nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions. The prose is nothing short of brilliant: the author manipulates the English language like a sorcerer waving an hpynotic wand. The result: reading that rolls off the tip of the tongue, like sampling a wine of inestimable value.

Faber is good, very good; this novella collection is positively as riveting as his post-Victorian masterpiece, "The Crimson Petal And The White." As a matter of fact, Faber has demonstrated, via his surreal prose, that he has grown even more as a writer--which makes reading him the epitome of literary pleasure.

--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON

There is no doubt that Faber is a great modern novelist. The Crimson Petal and the White is an amazing book, and Under the Skin is a great original tale. Faber writes original plots that take you to a place and time you've never been before. But with the Courage Consort, Faber offers us three short tales that, while usually entertaining, are not as fascinating as his novels.

The title story, The Courage Consort, is also the collection's weakest. A group of opera singers go to a mansion in the middle of the woods to practice their latest show in solitude. The story's heroine, Catherine, is a troubled and depressed woman who doesn't know what she wants out of life anymore. Or, for that matter, if she even has the will to live another day. Although the tale offers many touching moments, in the end, it ends up nowhere. This allegory of life and death isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps is a very good mystery about an archeologist's obssession with an old document that has just been recovered. She also uses this document as a pretense to let herself fall in love with a mysterious young doctor. Although the story is very entertaining, it is rather long-winded and, at times, repetitive. I wanted to know more about that mysterious document than about the characters.

The real reason to read this collection is for the last, and shortest story of the lot : The Farenheit Twins. When Tainto and Marko lose their mother, they leave on a trek into the wild winter woods to bury her body. But their father has really sent them on a suicide mission from which they are not supposed to return. This modern Hansel and Gretel tale is touching, moving and very effective. This is what a Faber story is all about.

I have to admit that I was disappointed by The Courage Consort. Yes, thewriting is beautiful, as always, and yes his characters are usually very interesting. But these qualities were not enough to save the collection. Although none of the stories are bad or not enjoyable, I've come to expect more and better from Faber. Please oh please give us another Crimson Petal or Under the Skin!

Michel Faber's 2002 novel THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE was a sprawling, splendid novel, large in scale and hefty in size. His new offering, THE COURAGE CONSORT, contains three novellas no less dazzling, despite their shorter length and smaller scope.

In the title novella, the Courage Consort is "the seventh-most-renowned serious vocal ensemble in the world." Secluded in a Belgian chateau to rehearse a fiendishly difficult piece by a contemporary composer, the five singers soon reveal that their relationships are as dissonant as the music they perform. When tragedy strikes, the members of the Courage Consort, particularly Catherine Courage, must reevaluate their commitments to their music and to each other.

The second novella, entitled "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," is set in the medieval English city of Whitby. Siān is a young archaeologist who --- literally and figuratively --- carries remnants of war-torn Bosnia with her, and who is haunted each night by dreams "of being first seduced, then murdered." She soon meets an alluring stranger named Magnus who, despite his ancient name, ridicules the history that Siān reveres. The two of them uncover a two-hundred-year-old "murder" mystery with a surprising twist.

In the final novella "The Fahrenheit Twins" is a boy named Marko'cain and a girl named Tainto'lilith. Raised in a frigid climate by their anthropologist parents studying a polar tribe, the two are growing up in an atmosphere of "benign neglect." Left primarily to their own devices, and without any external cultural or social influences, the two develop their own set of primitive rituals and superstitions. When their mother dies, the two children set off to "wait for a signal from the universe as to the best thing to do with the body." In this modern-day Hansel and Gretel tale, the siblings' quest leads them to reevaluate their assumptions about their parents' relationships, the nature of their work, and the structure of their family.

In each of these brief novellas, Faber constructs a wholly developed world, whether it be a bleak polar outpost or a claustrophobic Belgian forest. These settings help envelop the reader in the story and create an environment as rich and lush as any full-length novel. With THE COURAGE CONSORT, Faber proves himself a master of creating imaginative, engrossing fiction, whether slight or sprawling.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

Faber's latest work, the three novellas of The Courage Consort, is a far cry from his well-known The Crimson Petal and the White. From the minutiae of Victoriana to the sophisticated subtleties of personal relationships, Faber illustrates yet another aspect of his considerable talent. Each novella is a unique experience with a varied emotional landscape. Surprises await.

The title story, The Courage Consort, is arguably a metaphor for the process of birth, as an a cappella consort isolates in the wilderness to rehearse the difficult composition of a postmodernist. Although the effort is met with intransigence and unexpected complications, the intense mix of characters creates a rich backdrop for the inevitable creative conflicts. Yet all are bound in service to the whole and find strength in their shared talents.

"The Hundred Ninety-Nine Steps" exhibits a lonelier aspect, as well as a brooding air of suspense. Sian, an archeologist, is confronted by the vast territory of loss, albeit with the potential for hope; she literally stumbles through a present that has yet to address a tragic past, haunted by nightmares that hint of a terrible reality. Here again, Faber avoids the obvious, leading skillfully through the scars of war, an archeological dig, possible violence, an old mystery and a surprising denouement.

The shortest of the three pieces, "The Fahrenheit Twins", also touches upon archeology, but with a twist, as two children, Tainto'lilith and Marko'cain, confront a different reality after the death of their mother. A New Age Hansel and Gretel, the children's burial voyage is transformative, the shedding of childhood illusions and the consequent discovery of an illuminated future.

All in all, this carefully crafted trilogy proves Faber's skill as a writer, a distinctive talent with a singular voice. Luan Gaines/2004.

While none of these three small gems is as dazzling as Faber's wonderful novel, "The Crimson Petal and the White," each is memorable for its completeness of vision and exquisite writing. Whether it's a rented villa in Belgium, an archaeological dig in England or a fairy tale expanse of arctic isolation, Faber draws the reader deep into his imagined world.

The most arresting novella is the last, and the briefest, "The Fahrenheit Twins." A dark, humorous, and ultimately creepy Hansel and Gretel tale, it centers on twins identical in all but gender. "There was even the same amount of light inside their eyes, a difficult thing to reproduce exactly."

Born on an arctic island, their births unrecorded, they are a secret from the wider world. Their parents, anthropologists studying an indigenous tribe, are often absent and when home are usually otherwise occupied. The children have never met any other human beings, but they have developed a satisfying private culture centered on rituals and magic.

Determined to remain identical and inseparable forever, their most important ceremony is one created to ward off the inevitability of adolescence, which their mother has warned them of. And their most important object is a "Book of Knowledge," in which they "pieced together an impression of who their mother might be," by recording the 100 sentences or so she addresses to them in the course of a year.

When their mother dies, the children address this cataclysm by pondering a suitably grave and momentous ritual. It will involve a quest in which much is discovered, absorbed and acted upon. Faber uses the difference between the protagonists' and the reader's knowledge to enchant, startle, and dismay.

The most involving novella is "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," which are the number of steps archaeologist Sian climbs each morning to the Whitby Abbey where she participates in the exhumation and cataloguing of an old abbey cemetery. Sian, her sleep nightly haunted by a murderer who slits her throat in her dreams, wakes each morning to unspoken fears over a painful lump in her hip.

Lonely and still recovering from a horrific Bosnian War experience, Sian's work is all consuming until the day she meets a handsome cynic and his delightful dog. The dog's open and unself-conscious affection captivates Sian immediately. Her attraction to the man is naturally more problematic, but his tantalizing possession of an old bundle of papers unites them in an effort to sate their curiosity. As Sian painstakingly deciphers the ancient, crumbly papers, a murder mystery begins to unfold, and exacerbates their differences. Magnus never comes as alive as Sian - he seems more of a sparring partner and a physical presence, at least until the end, but the story is full of surprises and insights.

In the title novella, "The Courage Consort," Faber induces to the reader to identify with his characters without necessarily warming to any of them. The story concerns an a cappella singing group gathered in a Belgian villa to rehearse a complex, ultra-modern new composition for a festival.

The narrative centers on Catherine Courage, the group's soprano and clinically depressed wife of the group's leader, Roger. Roger, always insists the consort's name comes from their willingness to take on new works rather than from his name. The other members of the rather dyspeptic group are the acutely obese bass, Ben, prickly Julian and young, forthright Dagmar, who arrives with her new baby.

Tensions percolate in the heat and isolation of the villa as the piece soon shows itself to be as uninspired as it is difficult. The villa itself is surrounded by woods, from which strange cries emanate at night, heard only by Catherine. The woods are by turns a refuge, a menace and a mystery, depending on the human mood. The novella is atmospheric and moody - its physical aspects contrasting and complementing the more elusive human characters.

Beautifully written and constructed, this story was the most quietly haunting, while the least compelling. Its petty, self-absorbed and not particularly likable characters manage nevertheless to stick in the mind long after the last page is turned.

Each of these pieces offers a colorful, intense and vivid experience, infused with humor, the unexpected and a moral center.

Michel Faber's The Courage Consort is one of those books where you wish it were longer or part of a collection. A novella of 150 pages it follows the story of a group of singers sent to Belgium for two weeks in order to rehearse a new avant-garde piece for an upcoming event. As they spend more time in each other's company the group falls apart due to personality conflicts and personal problems.

Roger Courage is the founder of the singing group, named The Courage Consort, although the courage in their name comes from their willingness to tackle contemporary pieces in addition to the traditional standards. His wife, Catherine, is a manic depressive who, in preparation for the trip to Belgium, has forgotten her pills. Ben is an overweight bass singer who lives in his own personal world of silence. Julian is a seemingly bisexual vocalist with a love for Bohemian Rhapsody. And Dagmar, a young German, is the opposite of Catherine in her love for life; she has also, for the trip, brought along her newborn child, Axel.

The book begins with Catherine Courage sitting on the window ledge contemplating whether the four storey drop would be enough to kill her as her husband sit in the next room. As it continues the quintet spend the days practising Partitum Mutante, the avant-garde piece of Italian composer Pino Fugazzi, while the nights provide them with an over exposure to each other that leads to constant arguments about the direction the group should take. Their inability to work with each other leads to an incident that eventually breaks up the group, who are "possibly the seventh most renowned in the world", although there is some hope for the group as evidenced by the optimistic ending.

The prose is light, the vocabulary restrained, and the plot simple. There is humour in this book but it's not laugh out loud funny; the Brits' interpretations of European accents, and the way characters communicate with each other. The characters are nicely done although the woman were better drawn than the males, a common occurrence in Faber's work. Catherine, as the main character, is well conceived - her thoughts were realistic, her dialogue seemed right, and her mania added that extra bit of depth.

Faber's novella is a good read, although, like in The Crimson Petal and the White, he leaves a few things unanswered - the source of a recurring noise from the nearby forest being a prime example - but this does provide scope for interpretation. Maybe we can presume that some parts of the story are delusions of Catherine's. The Courage Consort almost succeeds as a standalone book, but I couldn't help but feel that the characters needed a little more to fully appreciate them. That said, the story is still worth appreciating.

What I admire about Faber: a refusal to live up to our expectations. In his novels "Under the Skin," which perhaps took on a bit more than it could handle but featured masterfully drawn scenes in the Highlands between the victims and their mysterious killer, and "The Crimson Petal & The White," the subsequent contemporary homage to the Victorian "triple decker" which proved worthy of its twenty years of preparation (I hear a sequel's a-borning), Faber combined a love for the fabulations he created and a seriousness about what he expected from his readers as to committment towards the half-familiar, half-alien sensibilities he explores.

By the way, this collection, which I read after the shorter stories compiled recently and issued in the US as "Vanilla Bright Like Eminem" (reviewed by me), in its British version had featured as its title piece the shortest novella in "The Courage Consort," "The Fahrenheit Twins." Rather confusing, so I figured I'd clear it up for any transatlantic followers or readers of the fine print on the copyright acknowledgements of Faber's works.

Previous readers on this site have summarized the stories themselves, and fairly discussed their strengths or weaknesses. I agree, but when reading them, the ambiguities that later perplex me earlier have entertained me. That is, Faber-- so a blurb from The Scotsman notes on the inside flap-- "is fiercely inventive, his plotting wholly unpredictable, but he pulls no tricks." True, but whether readers will be pleased by Faber's skillfully disguised (at least before the conclusion) tendency to leave ends loosened rather than neatly tied up at a story's end may show whether one wants in fiction the messy versimilitude of "real life" along with the metaphors, digressions, symbolism, and characterization of any literary text. The stories do not end when you expect, nor do the characters meet the ends you expected.

"The Courage Consort" stayed with me akin to watching a multi-layered arthouse film. It did not satisfy all my questions, but in leaving them vague, the resonance somehow echoed the musical and sonic textures of the story itself. There were, unlike most popular narratives on screen or in print, many suggestions left unanswered. The cumulative flow of Faber's prose stands out; while individual sentences may not show off their precision, their total effect works to set mood and delve into motive well. The characters all turn recognizably familiar while remaining "types" as in an allegory. The omniscient voice tends to drift in and out of a main figure, and again this may frustrate readers wanting easier explanations. This story may be more to the taste of readers who have read other stories by Faber.

Similarly, "The Hundred and Ninety Nine Steps" sets up with its Whitby setting, Dracula references, Gothic and murder and monastic settings all sorts of intricacies, perhaps intentionally left all about at the end of the story half-connected, perhaps since Faber wished to simply conclude rather than tie up the loose ends tediously. I liked the clash of Sian's medievalism with Mack's yuppie motives, but their exchanges appeared too mannered, and not only on her side as would be expected. The dog turned out to be my favorite of the trio! The mood of the historic seaport works well, but quirks remain-- why the Welsh name of the protagonist? Why is her surname a secret? What's the point of her mid-career curatorial switch? This story would appeal most to readers who liked "Crimson."

I wasn't as taken by the Fahrenheit twins; their arch names and the kitschy nature of her fairytale parents and their Siberian second home appeared to lack the grounding in reality that the previous two stories had established. This does show Faber's range and his imagination, but the story's dialogue and the narrator's coy tone served as barriers between my understanding of as opposed to my enjoyment of this story. It's ambitious in the way many of his stories are in "Vanilla," and this story as a fable proves uneven, if perhaps a good choice for readers of "Vanilla" or "Under the Skin."

Faber remains a favorite writer of mine for his ideas, his refusal to find the easy way out of his fictional labyrinths, and his intelligence. He may not follow the lead of so many genre writers who never give you a detail or a character that they cannot account for later. The prodigality of Faber's invention may make him a figure admired by a few rather than many, but he seems to have found his style and may it serve him and us well for many more decades of quality fiction on whatever he sees fit to make into his next novel or story. (Between 3 and 4 stars.)

One expects unevenness from any collection of stories/novellas, but when there are only three, the burden falls even harder on the author and here Faber doesn't quite carry it off; one or two weaker stories out of a collection of a half-dozen or more isn't so bad, but one or two out of three (as in the case of The Courage Consort) makes the work as a whole a disappointment.

The title story, the first in the collection, is about the eponymous singing group who has come together in a Belgian chateau to practice a difficult modern piece they are to perform at an upcoming festival. The focus is on Catherine Courage, the group's soprano, wife to the group's leader and a woman attempting to recover from the midst of a depression which has her suicidal and medicated, not to mention estranged from her husband and life in general. This is the first time the group has stayed together and the ensuing tensions and revelations give Faber opportunity to explore in all sorts of nice small ways the interactions among the group, some comic, some much more poignant. The story seemed just a bit too long to me, the supernatural element a bit superfluous, but in the end I thought it succeeded, although I wouldn't call it a great story.

The middle novella is the weakest of the three and painfully so in places. Here the main character is a woman named Sian who has joined an archaeological dig at an Abbey in England. Lonely, self-conscious about her leg and an unexplained lump she has found recently, and bothered by repetitive dreams of being strangled, she is sparked to life somewhat by Mack, a "quite fit" doctor she runs into one morning. Mack shows her an old scroll his father had found and with his permission she begins to carefully (thus slowly) unwind and read it, revealing an old murder. Whatever the merits of the story (and I found them few), I couldn't get past Sian's internal monologues or the dialogues between the two main characters, which seemed to me to be surprisingly stilted and unbelievable in both character and language choice. I never bought into the characters' speeches, motivations, or situations and thus the story simply dragged painfully on.

The final story is the shortest and also the best I thought. As with the other two, there is a sense of menace and the supernatural, but the story's tone is more fabulist than the others and so the effect seems to enhance the story rather than call notice to itself. The Fahrenheit Twins deals with the so-named twins and their journey to dispose of the body of their recently deceased mother, a journey made difficult by the fact that they live in an Arctic wasteland (their parents were/are anthropologists) and even more difficult by the fact that their father, unknownst to them, prefers they not return. There is a sparse beauty in the language throughout and a wonderful matter-of-fact tone. The story gets a little too cute perhaps at the very end, but it has little effect on the overall enjoyment.

The last story in fact is so good that it tips the balance toward recommending the book, despite the flaws of the others, though the recommendation has to remain a weak one. More enthusiastically, I recommend picking the book up and reading the last story first, then going back to the beginning with the feeling that you can put it down at any point knowing you've already read the best thing in it.

Faber does a great job of creating new and interesting settings and situations. Though I found the (96 pages) Courage Consort to be somewhat boring and lacking in interesting plot elements, I was greatly rewarded by continuing on to The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (90 pages) and The Fahrenheit Twins (45 pages). The latter reading like a surreal cross between a fairy tale and the second floor of The Shining hotel.