Customer Reviews

Napoleon Symphony

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

 

 

It's a mystery how this masterpiece came to be so misunderstood. Burgess' favorite among his novels (and mine), this work is a tour de force: a novel about Napoleon in four movements that follow the structure of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony (originally dedicated to Bonaparte; then, when Boney crowned himself Emperor, re-dedicated "to the memory of a fallen hero"). Burgess has reconciled the repetitive, cyclic nature of music with the novel's need for narrative forward motion brilliantly, yet his text mirrors the musical structure with uncanny detail -- both short- and long-term. Tempo, texture, key changes, rhythm -- all are there in the book. (For rhythm, check out the beginning of the third chapter while listening to the Eroica's scherzo.) The true miracle of this book, however, is that independently of its stylistic conceit, it is profoundly insightful and profoundly moving. Try reading the second chapter -- counterpart to Beethoven's Funeral March movement, and describing the retreat from Moscow -- without emotion. Or the final chapter, about Napoleon's exile on St. Helena, his surprising friendship with his English gaoler's young daughter, and his death. (Here, Burgess replicates Beethoven's theme-and-variations structure with passages in different literary styles: Austen, Henry James, et al., yet without any feeling of pastiche.) Musicians resented the book because they thought it trivialized Beethoven by "making" his symphony "be about" Napoleon. Literary types resented it -- well, probably because they could never bring off such a feat, themselves. Or because they thought a book about Napoleon should be at least four times as long. Try this book, enjoy it, and be grateful for such a gift of words.