Customer Reviews

Longing

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

"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.

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

"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.

I heard about JD Landis's book, "Longing" while listening to my local NPR radio station, where they featured his book on their weekly book commentary. It sounded interesting at the time - as a lover of classical music, and an admirer of Clara Wieck Schumann, I thought that I could not lose out by reading this book. I was very interested in reading it!

My excitement in reading the book helped me through the first 100 pages or so - but then I found the reading tedious. I thought that the author did a great job in allowing the complexity in the relationship between Clara and Robert show through his writing, and it was very fun to have him fantasize about the funloving friendships between Mendellsohn and Chopin, Clara and Robert. When he threw Brahms into the mix, I got confused. I admire Brahms greatly, and prehaps his insinuation that a relationship between Clara and Johannes Brahms disturbed me. I don't know if that is entirely fact or fiction. Perhaps my own thoughts of disbelief tainted my motivation to read the rest of the book.

I found finishing the book challenging. I felt that Landis did a great job describing the earlier years of Clara's and Robert's life together as classical music prodigies, but once they broke out on their own, my interest wained. I realize that this is a work of fiction, but it does not read as such. I applaud Landis's research, however, I was overall disappointed by the outcome into a novel such as this. I sincerely gave it a chance. Perhaps I want to remember these performers and composers in a different light than what Landis had painted them, and I could not get over my stubborn mindset.

... The writing is beautiful-almost every page has a phrase or metaphor you want to memorize. The references to great thinkers, musicians and historical events are crucial to understanding the atmosphere and context in which the Schumann's lived. The footnotes are actually infrequent, but always interesting, often poignant. The sentences are not particularly long, but you do have to reread occasionally to get the meaning, especially the way Robert Schumann speaks in riddles throughout the book. This just makes the narrative richer. One of the few recent books I've read that I want to read again right away.

Considerable scholarship is reflected in this novel, sometimes to the detriment of the story. In addition to a wealth of detail about leading musicians of the Romantic Age, the author provides a number of footnotes. The latter, according to the author, help to establish a "narrative stance at some remove from the nineteenth century subject matter. Yet that stance is muddled by digressions within the novel proper. At times, the central account of Clara and Robert Schumann's lives halts as the narrator elaborates on his idiosyncratic view of the historical scene. As Clara travels to Paris during the Revolution of l830, the reader is required to consider the notion that "revolution began at the birth of man, whether at Eden or what Germans liked to think was Heidelberg..." (p. 80) While the concept of revolution is certainly central to the Romantics' creative efforts, a two page digression on the particular political events of 1830 does little to advance our appreciation of them.
With the voluminous correspondence between the Schumanns as a primary resource, Landis draws a portrait of the relationship which began when Clara was but eight and Robert ten years older. Initially founded on their mutual talents and love of classical music, it evolves with her maturation. Robert is presented as the quintessential Romantic, who "embraced melancholy as a kind of philosophical imperative," regarded the world as populated by philistines indifferent to his creativity, and whose genius verging on madness finally resulted in his commitment to an asylum.
Employing a dense, somewhat convoluted style, (one sentence consumed fifteen lines of printed text) the narrator occasionally lapses in curiously puerile descriptions. When Robert finds himself unable to compose, he experiences gastric upset: "Fart he did, from one corner of the room to another. It was a wonder there was not a depression in his piano bench to match that in his mind." (p. l52) How such a comparison might illuminate Robert's frustration is dubious and completely inconsistent with the overall tenor of the narration.
If the goal of historical fiction is to capture the spirit of an age through representative characters, actual or fictional, this novel can be considered a qualified success. Greater narrative restrait would have enhanced it.

Many a biography has been criticized for having embellished the facts, or, indeed providing facts when there were none lying around. Landis,however, is guilty of neither act, having billed "Longing" as a fictional biography."Longing" gives us the lifestory of composer and pianist Robert Schumann. Schumann's brief life, driven by a passion for music and its creation, ends in a suicidal jump into the Rhein, for he is also driven by madness. He was 45. But these facts about Schumann are well known,as well as, his study of law and his career switch to music. He is a pianist until a finger injury, prevents him from playing. He then turns to composition. His wife Clara, also a talented pianist and composer, perhaps even more talented, makes a self sacrafice, for the sake of aiding her husbands career. Also fact is the passionate( but consummated?) relationship of Clara to Johannes Brahms. Music,desire, passion and madness: the stuff of great books are all there. Perhaps the best fact, is that Landis has provided the reader with plausible links between all the knowns, and instead of wild leaps of imagination, has made "Longing" a riveting good read.

Let me preface my review by saying that although a lover of history, I have very little knowledge or familiarity with classical music/musicians. I could tell you about the romanticism of the 19th century, the political atmosphere in Europe and dash in some flourishes of art/artists, but my education is sadly lacking in music. Thus said, I found Longing both informative, and difficult to read.

In a purely historical, clinical way, I got more information on musicians and music than I will ever need. The main problem I found was with the way the story was written. I expected a fictional story (based on fact), but this is not what I found. At some times I could have been reading a textbook (ok, a verbose textbook), while at others, I could have been reading the longwinded romance style in which this story was written about (i.e. Charles Dickens). There were many times where I got lost in the landscape of meandering sentences.

Many things were not written about, but alluded to. For example, it took me a while to figure out the part where Robert loses the use of one finger. We see him going to various doctors, and having to endure all kinds of treatments, but I never knew what was going on until later. (He was always going to doctors, this was nothing new). Or right before Robert goes completely mad, there were scenes where Robert avoids conscription into various armies while revolutions break out in "Germany" (not a country until 1871: Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, etc.). If I had not previously known about the volatile state of "Germany" in the mid 19th century, (or the rest of Europe for that matter) I would have probably been confused while reading this portion of the book.

While it was interesting to learn about other contemporaries or influential people to the Schumann's (Schubert, Heine, Liszt, von Weber, Beethoven, Wagner, Haydn, Chopin, Paganini, Goethe, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Kierkegaard, Brahms, and Hans Christian Andersen) the passages between these people seemed detached. Many of the technical terms they were talking about, went above my neophyte head, though I suppose that is my problem, not the author's. All in all, I felt like I had to plod through this story as opposed to being swept along the narrative. It is written for the well informed reader, who already knows the political landscape and musical landscape of Europe in the mid 19th century.

I wish this book possessed the Romantic genius of Robert Schumann's best music rather than collecting the literal facts of his life. A biography in the guise of fiction, complete with scholarly footnotes, all this books needs is an index - that, and a perfervid imagination. I wanted to enjoy Longing, but it was so slow and meandering, I only longed for it to be over. The minutiae of scholarship defeated me. There is invented dialogue amidst all the factual detail, but it does not transport, much less convince. If you want true fantasy, choose Schumann's Fantasy in C - Longing is far too literal.

As a music historian, I am always curious about "historical fiction," particularly when it involves great musicians like the Schumanns. I hoped the author might provide some insight into the psychology of these fabled lovers and their friends. It's clear that Landis has done the research: verifiable quotes from Liszt, Mendelssohn, et al. pop up on nearly every page. Oddly enough, they don't make the story more vivid. Just the opposite--we are continually reminded of how much baggage the author of any novel based on real people may have to drag around.

I wanted to enjoy this more. But the fiction part of it just wasn't very convincing or engaging. I didn't believe for a minute, for example, all the Lolita-like sexual curiosity and longing with which Landis burdens the (very!) young Clara Wieck. And Robert, a man whose music breathes poetry, comes across in these pages as a pig with unmanageable appetites. There were numerous modernist touches in the narrative, a kind of clinical coldness more easily associated with 20th-century literature than with the ardent Romanticism of the Schumanns' time. Too bad.