The Music Room [Hardcover]

Product Details

• Hardcover: 215 pages
• Publisher: London: Picador
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330444409
• ISBN-13: 978-0330444408
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,322,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A chasm like a moat, September 6, 2009

By 

N. B. Kennedy (Hopewell, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Music Room: A Memoir (Hardcover)

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I couldn't wait to read this book. Its description was compelling: a memoir from a boy who grew up in an English castle surrounded by a moat whose family life was ravaged by a brother whose personality is deranged by epilepsy.

Yet I found the book oddly sterile. When I got to this passage in the book, I realized why:

"I didn't question the world as I found it: our wide moat and gatehouse tower, the medieval chapel above the kitchen, the huge uninhabited rooms to the west and the parade of strangers that passed through them each year; the way our house was divided into two parts, one private, the other open to public view. I didn't question my brother's seizures or the frightening and unpredictable swings of his mood from gentleness and warmth to opposition and violence -- these were just facts I grew up among, how things were."

Yes, Mr. Fiennes is very good at describing how things were in his childhood. But I never felt drawn into how he experienced, how he felt about, the way things were. I wanted a little perspective on this unusual upbringing. And, although the book is billed as a memoir, the author has really written a biography of his brother, not his own story. It was a chasm that I just couldn't leap.

On top of that, Mr. Fiennes intersperses long, dry passages recounting historical experiments with electricity and the brain, electrical impulses being the link he makes with his brother's malfunctioning brain. This literary device further removed me from the author. He also switches between past and present tense, a choice that continually left me scrambling to find my place in time. And he tends to begin a good story, then abruptly leave it -- like when he hears mysterious noises behind a hidden door in a remote part of the castle. Did he run away or did he open the door?

If you're an Anglophile (as I am), you'll enjoy the descriptions of the author's surroundings. If you like to read about science experimentation (as I do), you'll also enjoy the scholarly parts of the book. Just be aware there's quite a moat between you and the author. It's best to concede that's just how things are.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a book of rare beauty and humanism, September 22, 2009

By 

Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Music Room: A Memoir (Hardcover)

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Hardly ever does one have such a pleasure as while reading "The Music Room" a memoir by William Fiennes.

The book is built around two characteristics from the author's childhood; two most memorable things that made the mark on his life. One is his elder brother Richard's illness, affecting family life to the utmost degree. The other is their family dwelling, a castle built in the Middle Ages, which reached its final form at the times of Tudor dynasty.

The author's unusual family circumstances would perhaps already make a great story. The way he tells the story adds a lot to the whole - the form of his narrative, gentle, subdued, very English, but deeply emotional. The childhood memories of the house-castle, used as a setting for costume movies and guided tours, with the moat harboring fish and herons, and with hidden passages and uninhabited room are intertwined with the record of the progress of Richard's epilepsy and scientific notes on the history of brain research (very interesting per se). The descriptions of Richard's struggle with the debilitating illness and the attitude of the family are incredibly moving, tender and realistic. I can relate very well to the worry, love, care, exhaustion and tension created in the family when one of its members is ill. I could find all these feelings here, the picture magnified by the fact of being the memories of a child (Richard was William's senior by eleven years), intertwined with happy reminiscences of fishing, roaming the grounds surrounding the house and explorations of the house itself. William's loneliness emanates from the pages of this memoir, but he also holds no grudge, the love for his parents, Richard, and the other two siblings (who are less of a presence here) is almost palpable.

Interestingly, I remembered W. G. Sebald when I was reading "The Music Room" although Sebald is cooler and more distanced, less focused on relationships, there is equal care for form and detail.

I think that "The Music Room" is one of the rare books written honestly and delicately, balanced and moderate but poignant and memorable. Although the book is not voluminous, it remains with the reader for a long time.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A soft, subtle and quiet read, August 27, 2009

By 

Evelyn Getchell "Evie" (Gulf Coast of Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Music Room: A Memoir (Hardcover)

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This is a soft, subtle and quiet read.

Although I found the subject matter of this touching memoir to be very unique and interesting, I'm sorry to say that on the whole it did not keep me completely engaged. The author's detailed reflections on growing up in an ancient moated ancestral castle were often tedious and boring. Perhaps an anglophile would appreciate the wealth of details more than myself but in that regard this memoir just wasn't my cup of tea. That is not to say that THE MUSIC ROOM is not well written because it is. For the lyrical quality of its language alone I give it four stars.

What I did find very moving and which kept me reading until the end is the author's most sensitive and tender treatment of his elder brother's severe epilepsy and the impact this devastating illness had on his family, as seen through the eyes of the author as a young boy growing up in an enchanting environment. Like one of the rich tapestries hanging on his castle's walls, this memoir is woven with personal stories and recollections of a family living with severe epilepsy as well as bits of the history and science behind a deeper understanding of the illness.

Even though parts were too slow for me I'm still glad I read it.