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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One Violinist Remains...,
By
This review is from: The Farewell Symphony (Paperback)
White chose the title to this novel from Haydn's The Farewell Symphony, in which, as the musical piece nears conclusion, the musicians leave the stage, one by one, until there is a sole violinist remaining, who finishes the work that so many others began.In White's novel, we are taken on a tour of the protagonist's (White himself) 30's, 40's, and 50's as he climbs from unknown author to celebrated chronicler of gay life. Along the way, White bares his soul through his no-holds-barred sexual confessions, as we see him interract with friends, lovers, and back-alley liaisons. Beginning post-Stonewall, and culminating in the AIDS crisis we witness White in many scenarios: best friend, object of desire, live-in lover, and even surrogate parent. White envelops each role with his particularly magical brand of prose, sentiment, and bravado, that is sometimes shocking, sometimes sad, but always entertaining. As the novel carries on, and reaches the now 20 year old beginning of the AIDS epidemic, we see the significance and poignancy of the title, as the disease ravages the ranks of White's friends, and leaves him the one violinist remaining to chronicle their lives, as they intertwined with his own. From backrooms to bedrooms, from parking lots to Paris, with stops in New York, Venice, and Morrocco along the way, White delivers another triumph in chronicling his life, and what began as A Boy's Own Story becomes the life of a man.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliantly written book about a man's place in time.,
By
This review is from: The Farewell Symphony (Paperback)
I'm always intrugued by White's work and his singular ability to capture not only his stories but mine and those of many other gay men. As a raconteur of the dawning and tarnishing of gaylife, he is peerless. He leaves me breathless, having to re-read the last paragraph over & over.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The best Edmund White so far. Accomplished. Moving,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Farewell Symphony (Hardcover)
This is the most moving and most accessible of White's novels. The subject matter - the author's relationships, the intellectual and sexual and emotional aspects of which are dealt with - transcend his own circumstances, so that there is a universality with which a reader of any age, gender or sexuality can identify. The language is smoother and more simplified than in his previous works, so that the reader is swept along and not mentally hampered by imagery which clogs rather than enhances meaning. (A shortcoming of some of the previous works). The fluidity of the construction is masterly. Autobiographical novels should be distinguished from autobiography and it is the author's privelege to play with time-scales, to use flashbacks and juxtaposition of events to enhance the effect. There is a seamlessness which enables the reader to enjoy the flow of the narrative. There is no sense of this being a `plotted' novel with a rigid plan, an unobtrusiveness which is a tribute to Edmund White's skill. Finally, the anguish caused by the succession of deaths due to AIDS of his friends and lovers is unbearably sad. The book ends appropriately with an aching inconclusiveness, conveying the sense of waste for which there is no answer.
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