Longing [Hardcover]

J. D. Landis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2000

The Romantic era was the cradle for artists who lived life to the fullest and loved without restraint, and Robert Schumann and his wife, Clara, were the epitome of this unbounded period. Robert shocked and confused listeners with music that heralded the beginning of the modern era while he drove both his mind and his body to their limit. Clara was the most acclaimed female pianist of her time-a time that included Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and later, Brahms, whom Clara and Robert loved more than any other man. With characters of surpassing vitality, Longing delineates the most intimate details of the relationships between men and women with a surpassing precision, sympathy, and wisdom. Combining the dramatic historical narrative of The Alienist with the passionate sensitivity of Possession and the sensual intellectuality of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, it is a consummate achievement of the novelist's art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The tempestuous marriage of Robert and Clara Schumann has inspired many a biographer, but Landis (Lying in Bed) translates the familiar tale into glorious fiction, re-choreographing history in this finely crafted shadowbox of a novel. In the 1830s and '40s, German Romanticism is at its peak. Brilliant and obsessive, composer Robert Schumann and pianist Clara Wieck Schumann perfectly embody the age's glories and excesses. Robert, a student of Clara's father, watches Clara grow up, and marries her when she has barely turned 20; he is 29. Fourteen years and eight children later, Clara takes up with Brahms, then just 20, and Robert dies neglected in a madhouse at age 46. Landis tells this riveting tale of romantic longing and self-destructiveness in strict chronological order, heading each chapter with a place and date, moving back and forth between his two protagonists and charting their history from birth, as a biographer would. Clearly, he knows the period well, and has researched letters, memoirs and Robert Schumann's extensive music criticism; much of the dialogue is based on the actual words of the characters, and Chopin, Mendelssohn and Liszt make convincing appearances. But it is impossible to say where research ends and invention begins. Footnotes, some of them quite long, interrupt the action to comment on the further history of the characters or setting, or on 19th-century Austrian anti-Semitism or the repressive censorship of the Metternich regime (which made it unlawful not only to sing or perform "The Marseillaise," but even to listen to it in one's head). Such digressions might disrupt the narrative and spoil the illusion but, paradoxically, they enhance immediacy. Rather than strive for literary or stylistic effect, Landis relies on the truths of Schumann and Wieck's passion, writing with the earnestness, playfulness and fervor characteristic of the era he chronicles. Expansive and engrossing, this is historical fiction at its best, true to its subjects and steeped in the past. 3-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This historical novel chronicles the life and times of composer Robert Schumann and his wife, Clara Wieck, the most celebrated female musician of her day. At the center of the story is Robert's relationship with his teacher, Friedrich Wieck, who disapproved of Robert's romantic involvement with his daughter. After all, he was nine years older, drank too much, and was poor. Nevertheless, the two married and went on to have successful careers and several children. Then Robert's battle with depression worsened, and, after attempting suicide, he was hospitalized and eventually died in 1856. Mixing fiction with fact, Landis (Lying in Bed) relies on a generous use of footnotes, delivering a lengthy and uninvolving novel. Music buffs may enjoy the many references to other renowned musicians of the Romantic era. For large collections only.DRobin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (September 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151004536
• ISBN-13: 978-0151004539
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,572,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ex Votus, October 25, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Longing (Hardcover)

"The epigraphs are archival. The characters are historical. The dates of events and correspondence are, when verifiable, authentic. The rest is fiction masquerading as fact, and the reverse." (Author's Note)

Historical fiction demands of the Author both accuracy, and the ability to occupy the interstices that the historical record has left. When done well, as is the case with "Longing" by J.D. Landis, the result is excellent. His writing is credible to the level of personal dialogue and gestures. When done poorly, this genre does not even pause when sinking past Revisionist History. When this happens the work falls into a void where mediocrity reigns over writing hopefully forgotten.

This work does not come easily to the reader, the book contains extensive detail on Pianos, their makers, and how they differ. The vocabulary of gifted, classically trained artists is used liberally, and context does not suffice. How is any but the rarest of readers capable of listening to List, Chopin, and Mendelssohn describe their art? Happily Mr. Landis brings some portions of his book down several technical steps. My personal favorite was his description of an impromptu duel between List and Mendelssohn. In addition he brought the same event forward in time when he compared the duel to Billie Holliday and Coleman Hawkins, when they performed in Harlem at Nightsie Johnsons a century later. The Author's description of the first intimacy shared by Clara and Robert is one of the best I have ever read. He demonstrates beautifully that carnal detail is for the voyeur, that it is not more, that it does not add, it is only the refuge of bad writing.

The story is of course about Clara and Robert Schumann and their relationship, which evolves in spite of all that is done to keep them apart, and because of the love they are consumed by. Robert is a composer who cannot play what he writes, and what he does compose is largely disliked by a public who "does not understand". Robert is passionate, tortured, he is the victim of his music, the literal damage it has done to his hand, and the madness he has always known would consume him. Clara champions his music when she is kept from him, and she crosses Europe once and then dozens of times, as she is one of the finest Pianists at a time when there are numerous others who are known as well or better to the very present.

The world Clara occupies, and that Robert can only just be present in, when not welcome at all, is as fantastic as the composers she is among. She writes to Robert of her conversations with Soren Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen with an ease that can only come from familiarity. Her world is extraordinary. She compares his life to that of Andersen when she states, "His work is hated here! Like you he is a prophet who goes unhonored in his own Country." Robert sees himself thusly, "Everything I write, I write out of love for her."

The Author also allows for moments that seem odd until placed in context. I never had thought of a Chopin or Mendelssohn complaining about the alleged wording of their endorsements of the instruments they play. But why should 19th century all stars be denied what their counterparts today practice?

This is a wonderful read, and the comments I have made barely touch upon all that this writer offers through this work. Like most writing of excellence it requires more effort than most, but the reader is handsomely rewarded.

Mr. Landis has produced a gift for all readers, and perhaps an even more special treasure for those whose knowledge of music is as great as their love for it.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you have any music in your soul, you'll love this!, November 13, 2000

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Longing (Hardcover)

This book is an act of literary magic--so astonishing in its depth and scope that you will probably never hear music the same way again! J. D. Landis recreates the extraordinary love story of composer Robert Schumann and pianist/composer Clara Wieck, complete with their letters and details of their relationship. But the author also gives poignant context to their intense and oft-thwarted love by revealing the totally encompassing musical, literary, philosophical, and political climate of the day. Anyone who has ever had any curiosity at all about the Romantic period--even negative curiosity about the sometimes sentimental and uncontrolled passion of the writing and music--will be totally won over here. The book is amazing.

Robert Schumann, one of the most controversial and least understood of composers, had ruined his promising concert career as a pianist by damaging his hand through overpractice and/or the use of a stretching device, an act never forgiven by Friedrich Wieck, Robert's teacher and the father of Clara. Clara, on the other hand, eight years old when Robert sees her for the first time, is her father's triumph--becoming the most celebrated pianist/composer in Germany and the darling of audiences throughout Europe. As she approaches maturity, Friedrich will stop at almost nothing to keep Clara from Robert.

Landis creates wonderful scenes, not only of Clara and Robert, but also of how the world of young Clara expands to include Paganini, Goethe, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Kierkegaard, and Hans Christian Andersen (whose cruel treatment by singer Jenny Lind will never by forgotten by the reader). Scenes showing Robert's veneration of Schubert, Heine, Liszt, von Weber, Beethoven, the young Wagner, Haydn, and Chopin, among others, are brought fully to life, and are particularly moving when his love for them must survive their often fatal illnesses and early deaths. The final scenes which reveal the depth of love which both Robert, now institutionalized by his madness, and his devoted Clara feel for Johannes Brahms are perhaps the consummate expressions of romanticism. Once Landis gets beyond the convoluted prose and long sentences of his first 25 pages, this book becomes a can't-put-it-downer. Mary Whipple

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating subjects but no fun to read, January 26, 2001

By 

Carol S. (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Longing (Hardcover)

"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.