Summer Reading

For the past two weeks, I have been indulging my summer reading list, collecting books from the library in bunches and reading them simultaneously as certain literary moods strike me.  This multi-tasking style of reading is new to me--I tend to like reading one novel at a time before moving on to a new one.  But this summer, sometimes I can't read something like Jubilee right before bed so I need to move on to something more fictional such as The Angel's Game or I really crave good classic writing found in Emma Brown while at other times I want to re-acquaint myself with a challenge like Ulysses.  But most recently, I've finished up reading Winter Journey by Jaume Cabré.

The first short story immediately caught my attention.  Entitled "Opus Postum," this story follows pianist Pere Bros and his self-struggle with performance, worth, and music.  I was captivated by Cabrés ability to embed musicality into his very writing style--something that I've always admired in an author.  As a modest musician myself, I've not only experimented with the symbiotic influences shared between music and literature in my own writing, but have also dedicated much my BA degree to studying their mutual impacts.  When I shared a few initial insights with David Rade (Editor-in-Chief of Swan Isle Press, the publisher of Winter Journey), he recommended a link to an interview with Jaume Cabré where he elaborates on his motivations and inspirations for Winter Journey:



I took particular interest in Cabré's discussion of creating concrete sensations in the reader.  The term "sensation" is a pivotal descriptor.  It is very different from emotion, tone, feeling, etc.  Sensation derives from a much more instinctual level of reading--that first impression to a character or situation.  It's very easy to rely on archetypes to develop a certain emotion or tone--my go-to example is always how a "dark and stormy night" sets up an eerie plot.  In contrast, focusing on sensations presents rather than represents a scene.  Emotions become tangible, characters more authentic, the writer's voice more clear to the reader.

Cabré also emphasizes the use of detail to relate his series of short stories to one another, creating a complex whole.  This technique--taking snippets of narrative in different time periods, different places, with different people and forming them into a novel--reminds me of my work in studying Ulysses for my senior thesis.  (You can find a copy on my LinkedIn profile in the documents section here: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/allison-zink/46/638/5b8).  While Winter Journey is not written in the more densely modernist style of Joyce, it does share a few structural and thematic qualities.  Like Ulysses, each chapter of Winter Journey can be read as an independent story but also fits as a piece of a whole.  Schubert's "Winter Journey" and the poetry of Wilhem Muller by the same title, (on which Schubert based his piece) serve as one of the unifying themes throughout the Cabré's novel, similar to Joyce's use of music as writing structure in the Sirens episode.

Different expressions of art often overlap, spill over, and influence other other mediums.  In this novel, music and poetry inspire the contemplative tone on the state of humanity.  That sounds like a very big topic to tackle for a comparatively short novel!  But I found that it isn't really the novel's job to solve such quandaries.  Rather, Winter Journey provides a bit of perspective.  As Cabré discusses in his interview, "It's a cry of alert, 'careful, careful,' for it takes a great effort for humanity to be humane."  Art has something that makes us feel better yet we just can't explain.  That sensation inspires hope: a measure of understanding and reminder for improvement for humanity.

Have I caught your interest?  You can find a copy of Jaume Cabré's Winter Journey for yourself here:  http://www.swanislepress.com/intro.html#winterjourney