Inspired by the famous composer's notebooks, this biographical novel offers "a perfect portrait of an irascible genius" and "revelatory fossils of the last year of Beethoven's anguished life" (Edmund White) Deaf as he was, Beethoven had to be addressed in writing, and he was always accompanied by a notebook in which people could scribble questions and comments. In a tour de force fiction invention, Conversations with Beethoven tells the story of the last year of Beethoven's life almost entirely through such notebook ...
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Inspired by the famous composer's notebooks, this biographical novel offers "a perfect portrait of an irascible genius" and "revelatory fossils of the last year of Beethoven's anguished life" (Edmund White) Deaf as he was, Beethoven had to be addressed in writing, and he was always accompanied by a notebook in which people could scribble questions and comments. In a tour de force fiction invention, Conversations with Beethoven tells the story of the last year of Beethoven's life almost entirely through such notebook entries. Friends, family, students, doctors, and others attend to the volatile Maestro, whose sometimes unpredictable and often very loud replies we infer. A fully fleshed and often very funny portrait of Beethoven emerges. He struggles with his music and with his health; he argues with and insults just about everyone. Most of all, he worries about his wayward--and beloved--nephew Karl. A large cast of Dickensian characters surrounds the great composer at the center of this wonderfully engaging novel, which deepens in the end to make a memorable music of its own.
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Americans have shown a great fascination with the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 -- 1827) as reflected, among other ways, in many biographies, cultural studies, poems, and novels. Among recent works on Beethoven is "Conversations with Beethoven" by the American novelist and playwright Sanford Friedman (1928 -- 2010). This work remained unpublished at the time of Friedman's death and was published at last in 2014 as part of the New York Review of Books ongoing "Classics" series which preserves undeservedly neglected titles of literary merit.
Friedman's book is set in the last year of Beethoven's life. By that time, the great composer had long been totally deaf and had to depend on writing to communicate with others. Beethoven kept a series of notebooks in which his interlocutors could write their end of a conversation. Beethoven generally would respond orally but would occasionally write a response in the conversation in a separate notebook. Most of Beethoven's notebooks were preserved and form a source for biographers.
Friedman's book is unusual in that it is presented in the form in which people communicated with Beethoven: the words of his various interlocutors are given (The interlocutors are identified by their form of address to Beethoven as shown in a table at the front of the book.) but Beethoven's response usually is omitted, to be supplied by the context and by the reader's imagination. On occasion, Sanford gives Beethoven's response; and to provide further context Sanford gives several letters written by the composer to individuals who are not present. The materials in Sanford's conversations are not on the whole drawn from Beethoven's notebooks but are fictitious and drawn from the novelist's imagination. Still the book is well-informed, and it draws the reader into its portrait of Beethoven.
Much of the story centers upon Beethoven's relationship with his ward and nephew, Karl, who is 20 when the novel begins. Beethoven had attained custody of Karl years earlier, wresting the child from his mother, Johanna, after Joanna's husband, Beethoven's brother hid died. While well-meaning, Beethoven smothered the boy, and the relationship with Joanna was fraught with hatred, tension, and sexual ambiguity. Sanford's novel begins as the young man makes a failed attempt at suicide by shooting himself in the head. As the story goes forward, well-placed friends wrangle a place in the army and a potential commission for Karl. Beethoven does not want to see his nephew in military service.
With the grandeur and spirituality of his music, Beethoven was a difficult, troubled man. Sanford shows Beethoven working on some of his late masterworks, including the Ninth Symphony and the final string quartets, but the focus of the book is on non-musical events and on Beethoven's character. He is portrayed in largely unflattering terms as irascible, curmudgeonly, vulgar, alcoholic, paranoid, miserly, and misogynistic. Much of the book takes place at his younger brother's farm a couple of days removed from Vienna. The book shows Beethoven's difficult interactions with his brother and with his brother's wife, whom he loathes.
Beethoven overstays his welcome with his brother and becomes seriously ill upon returning to Vienna. The final section of the book shows the dying Beethoven in the ineffectual care of five doctors while he continues to struggle with Karl. Among many scenes, the book shows a short meeting between Beethoven and Franz Schubert who adored the older composer. Beethoven praises the shy young man's songs not knowing that Schubert himself would survive Beethoven only by months. This meeting is well-imagined and presented even though there is no historical basis for concluding it took place.
The book gradually develops from showing Beethoven's character to a meditation of mortality as the composer becomes aware of and resigned to his impending death. It works to a sense of forgiveness of others and of self-understanding that sometimes is overlooked in the legends that have grown around the stormy composer's final days. The book becomes convincing and moving in its portrayal of Beethoven and flawed humanity as seen largely through the words of others.
During his lifetime, many of Sanford's works were on the theme of being Jewish and gay. In this, his final book, Sanford displayed a deep interest and sympathy for Beethoven while demonstrating a close, sustained study of the composer's life. I have had a lifelong interest in Beethoven and was moved by reading Sanford's book. With all the literature surrounding Beethoven, Sanford's insights and novel helped bring him to life. This novel is a worthy addition to the many sources giving Beethoven a high, honored place in American culture.
