Customer Reviews

Simon Silber: Works for Solo Piano

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book contains a plethora of very funny ideas, but is not directed towards a general reading public. Rather, this book will appeal most to two groups of people: those who find modern music of the Cage-kind pretentious and preposterous; and those who are fed up with biographies that seem to be more about the biographer than the subject. And, just maybe, I should add a third category: people [messed] up for life because of the ... theories and thinking of their parents.

While I fit into the above categories, I found myself laughing more at the situations described in this book after I read it. In others words, the situations are very funny, but the writing is flat. I know this "biography" is supposed to be the work of a poor writer, but I think this approach was unintentionally too apropos. Thus, I laugh at what I read, but not particularly while I was reading it. Telling people about this book is almost more fun than reading it.

Silber's father is a sadist who develops a "method" for turning out a great pianist. He tortures not just Silber with this method, but the entire family. Silber's brother is somewhat of a doppelganger of Silber. Silber's hated sister is petty and cruel, but the way she turns out is the most lifelike portrayal of how a real human being would probably react to the torments of growing up with a bunch of self-absorbed loons.

Afflicted with a phobia against all noise, eventually this leads the composer Simon Silber to remove the strings from one of his best pianos and replace them with rubber. He writes a piece for piano pedals. He spends an hour performing Chopin's Minute Waltz. In short, Silber appears to be the bastard son of John Cage.

The story of Silber is told by a hired biographer, Norman Fayrewether Jr. If anything, I'm more annoyed with the literary pretensions of Fayrewether than I am with the musical pretensions of Silber. Silber is a victim of a childhood he couldn't control; Fayrewether is just a bitter failed writer of bad aphorisms.

There are two clear antecedents to this novel: John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces" and Nabakov's "Pale Fire." The loony farce is descendant from Toole, the structure of the novel from Nabakov. "Pale Fire" is a novel told in footnotes to an epic poem. "Simon Silber" is a novel told as liner notes to a CD collection. It's taken a lot of decades for someone to come up with something as inventive as the structure of "Pale Fire", and, this is another plus in the column for "Simon Silber."

I think the Publishers Weekly reviewer may have missed the point: This isn't just highbrow slapstick - you don't have to know a thing about classical music to enjoy it and, while it's very funny, there are some very serious things being said here about life among what, if the Nature Channel were to do a show about humans, would be called "non-breeding males." What we have here is something simultaneously rolling-on-the-floor hilarious and astringently satirical that every few pages reveals a frightening truth: something in the nature of A Confederacy of Dunces (or, in a lesser degree, the Neon Bible) or, more recently, David Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day - although personally I found Simon Silber much more enjoyable than the latter two.

It has been said that all first novels are autobiographical, and certainly every aspiring novelist must have shared the long years of obscurity and self-doubt that defines the lives of the two main characters in this novel. The endlessly rewritten, never-to-be-published novel has become something of a cliché. We all know someone who's written one, and the longer they go without publishing, the more deeply entrenched they become: endlessly pacing back and forth, manuscript in hands, wearing a rut in the earth that gradually rises above them, until eventually the writer vanishes and only his or her hands, still clutching the text, remain above ground; like Simon Silber, they hope that fame will at least descend upon them posthumously, as it did on John Kennedy Toole. Miller, fortunately, is still alive, which means that we can look forward to much more from him.

Many, many readers who will recognize friends, family members and - scariest of all -- themselves in the various portraits of obsession and compulsion Miller has drawn here. And for every classical music in-joke there are dozens of quotable lines, delivered in Fayreweather's delightfully unreliable voice, that will go over no one's head: "Like most men, [Simon Silber] defaulted to thoughts of naked women any time he wasn't straining to think about something else." Or "I had been thinking of writing my own memoirs... but [was] wondering if it wouldn't be wiser to practice on someone else's life first."

This is really a beautiful book. Take the reviews written about Richard Powers (particular Galatea) and apply them to Mr. Miller. The prose is meticulously crafted, but not just that--the subtle (though not too subtle that his non-literary readers didn't pick up on them)changes in voice, as the narrarator's mood oscillates from adulation to envy to spite to disgust to amusement and all back again.

Just really fine, fine writing.

Talk about a knock-you-off-your-feet first novel! SIMON SILBER is an ingeniously well-written comedy noir that kept me laughing from the first paragraph to the last.

Miller's razor-honed prose makes the antics of biographer Norm and insane musical "genius," Silber, come alive, sometimes to the point that you can even begin to visualize who they might cast in Hollywood to play the characters if we are lucky enough to ever see a true adaptation of this work on the Big Screen.

And, if you are sharp enough to catch all the clues early on, you will have a great time deciding who is more nuts - Silber or the ever-suffering narrator!

I HIGHLY suggest you read this book asap!

Let's face it. Every one of us has something -- writing, painting, music, dance, etc -- that we secretly believe ourselves to be much more talented at than we are. This book is a hilarious yet also poignant look at what happens when these delusions take over. Classy, devious, with a subtle, delightful twist at the end, SIMON SILBER is the most enjoyable novel I've read in a long time. I highly recommend it.

First of all, I will not compare this book with Pale Fire, as Nabokov was far above most mortals when it came to the most basic skill in writing, that is arranging words so that they compel.

But here we have a great book that can stand on its own. I was depressed as I read this book. At first I couldn't tell why, but after a while I realized that it was because the narrator was shown to be an empty, pretentious, sad person (one of the hardest characters to portray so well first hand). This impression is given in a way I've never seen - through BAD writing. Miller's words are educated, pretentious, and empty enough to show us the entire foolish character of the narrator - an unnecessary adjective here, a bloated adverb therel; he places immature words perfectly. But there's method in it. Miller operates on the same principle as a great musician making a sham poor tone - the product is so terrible that only someone who knew what he was doing could have made it. For this complete portrayal of a character I name this a masterwork. From the opening to the narrator's silly failure at the end to recognize murder, this book is humane and moving in a beautifully virtuostic and suble way. Though I warn you now - the completeness of the narrator's mediocrity may depress you as it did me.

This book had me rolling with laughter. I think its true hilarity comes from the author's incredible power of observation. He not only captures what it means to be an artist, but what it means to be human. There are scenes in this book that are priceless; and Simon Silber will appeal to any reader, whether or not they have a knowledge of classical music. (I actually know nothing about classical music.) I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book that's managed to be both hilarious and moving. It's incredible!

Funny and entertaining. Clever and well crafted. Poignant and profound. As the dust jacket says, it's reminiscent of "Pale Fire" and "Edwin Mullhouse : The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright" But not only was the book shorter than both "Pale Fire" and "Edwin Mullhouse : The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright", it was shorter than the both of them combined. Plus I think there were more references to Beethoven. Well worth the time and effort.

I'm a classical-music freak, so the idea of a dotty composer and his equally-dotty biographer appealed to me right away. However, to me the book is a rehash of Nabokov, at a level you'd find in a creative-writing seminar from a well-read, though not particularly gifted student. There's nothing obviously wrong with it, but nothing obviously right, either. In fact, I found it pretentious, rather than stimulating. The idea of a hero who tries to construct his life as he would create a piece of art Nabokov did a lot better, possibly because Nabokov understands the tragedy of the situation and finds something worthy in his ridiculous heroes. As I read Miller, I found myself asking, "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" Miller's humor -- and, by the way, he tends to explain his better jokes, as if he doesn't trust the reader to get them -- struck me as small-minded, mean-spirited, and, worst of all, precious.

So I'm the strident note in the chorus of general praise. My reaction is probably idiosyncratic, but for other oddballs, this might be a warning.

This is the funniest book I've read in at least five years, and has leapt immediately to my all-time top ten list of comic novels. I got my doctorate in American Literature, with an emphasis on the comic novel, and after you've read a few of the big ones (Catch-22, Confederacy of Dunces, etc.), you start to appreciate how rare it is to find a book that does everything right. Somehow, Christopher Miller got the balance perfect the first time: he divides the narrative between the insane composer, the narcissistic loser of a biographer, and the actual insane musical works being catalogued, and nothing feels wasted or overindulged. Most impressive: in a book about the bizarre works of a radical composer, the musical jokes never repeat themselves. Miller seems to have come up with every possible musical comic riff there is, without overstraining any of his premises. And above all, the tone is consistent throughout, and every character's actions remain reasonably plausible. You would be hard pressed to find a more elegant and consistently hilarious literary confection. Enjoy!