Book Review: Canone Inverso by Paolo Maurensic, Translated by Jenny McPhee

This is a book on paper. It has no embedded MP3 player, no YouTube video feed, just words.

Listen as the story takes slowly into flight for the sound of a violin played by a strange master in a little tavern in Prague. Musicians in old world taverns are not strange. A maestro is. Our narrator who may not later remain the narrator is a collector who has bought a rare and beautiful violin for a large amount of money. He is an aficionado of music and a lover of beautiful instruments.

The blurb describes Paolo Maurensig as having been “... a journalist, photographer and most recently a restorer of antique musical instruments...” who lives in Udine, Italy. With writing novels I would consider these to be a fine constellation of talents – restoring wonderful things like violins. Especially the ones that don't need a power cord.

Will this novel be about music and musical instruments? It appears so but, like much in the novel, appearances can deceive. There is always the sound of music wound into the words. Chords are served in the spaces between descriptions. The beauty of the violin is described and we need no further convincing. Just order up some Bach violin concertos from Amazon.

Many years ago in the Hudson Valley a friend older than ourselves was the sweetest of women, a violinist in the Symphony and Suzuki music teacher to streams of children. Her eyes were clear, sky-blue even the last time I saw her when her age was increased by the years I had known her. Her Stradivari was timeless and sang with a tongue of ancient clarity, the sound of perfectly aged wine turned from color, smell and taste to the vibrations of the final chord that slowly drifts into the night.

Once, at a party on a Hudson Valley estate where the owner affected the un-gentlemanly farmer as his persona, she lent it to a suddenly fiddle-less country music-maker and the tongue of that priceless piece of art strung square dances in the twilight. But precious they are, these masterpieces of musical tongues are blown or plucked or bow-lashed and their universal languages pulled, pushed, forced or allowed to reach for the stars and reach they do.

Article Author: Howard Dratch

Howard writes on science, books, movies and news for Blogcritics and on his own blogs from the border of North and Central America.

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