Variations On The Beast: A Novel
by Henry Grinberg
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Book Summary Information
Author: Henry GrinbergEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-12-28
ISBN: 0976818116
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Dragon Press, The
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780976818113
- Condition: Used - Very Good
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Book Reviews of Variations On The Beast: A Novel
Book Review: A Novel of the Coexistence of Great Art and Horrendous Inhumanity
Summary: 5 Stars
Ferenc Kapp, who renames himself Hermann Kapp-Dortmunder after he discovers that Kapp means 'condom' in street-German, is the narrator and protagonist of this novel set in Austria and Germany in the Weimar Republic period and later the Nazi era. Kapp, from a humble Austro-Hungarian Magyar background, has a world-class gift for classical music, first as a pianist and later as a magnificent orchestral conductor. He also is amoral, vain, sexually driven and blindly ambitious. One follows his rise in the music world against a background of the relentless burgeoning of Nazi antisemitism. Not particularly political himself, he is nonetheless never at a loss for claiming the main chance and his ability to manipulate people or take advantage of favorable events is detailed in his own at first naïve and later calculating narration. Author Henry Grinberg, a New York psychoanalyst whose first novel this is, provides a page-turning story. This book will be particularly interesting for those interested in classical music and in events of the first half of the twentieth century in Germany. As primarily a classical music reviewer, I was transfixed by the musical matters of the story, noting no obvious solecisms in the detailing of this complicated subject. I was sickened by the almost matter-of-fact telling of the anti-Semitic attitudes and horrendous acts of the era as witnessed and participated in by Kapp-Dortmunder. This was definitely a book with more than its share, for me, of approach-avoidance. And yet I couldn't put it down.
There is some awkward writing and plotting, but on the whole this book provides a believable description, if not explanation, of how the good German Volk could simultaneously pour heart and soul into the creation of great musical art while committing horrendous and inhumane acts.
Scott Morrison
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