Two Works About Art: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto (Alborn) and The Improbability of Love (Rothschild)

...and two more books added to my shelves....oddly, given that they came from two different publishers, both focused on the power of art to impact artists and audiences...

• The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Alborn

This is a difficult book to describe.  It is set at the funeral of Frankie Presto, a gifted musician whose life begins in a tucked-away room of a burning church and continues to be marked by the extraordinary despite Frankie's desire to be left to be more ordinary and simply revel in his musical gift.  Music is the primary narrator, although the book also has "interviews" with numerous people, both real (but fictionalized) and not-so-real. Through Music and the others, we learn Frankie's life story, a journey marked by a powerful love for both Music and a woman he meets when she's just a young girl in a tree.  Frankie also possesses six magical guitar strings that allow him to make a profound impact on six lives.

Portions of this book are almost heart-breakingly beautiful.  In particular, I loved the image of various talents surrounding babies as colorful lights; the baby grabs at a particular light and is gifted with that talent for life.  I liked that Frankie's life included missteps and also miracles, creating a rounded and real character amid a tale of magic strings.  I'd never read Alborn (he wrote Tuesdays With Morrie and many other bestsellers, often weaving in a philosophy of life) and was a bit uncertain about whether he'd be a good fit.  I didn't find this drippingly sentimental but it was very much an emotional journey.

Still, I wasn't really drawn to Alborn's decision to weave numerous real figures into fictional Frankie's journey.  It was a distraction for me, particularly since I'm not really a music person so I'd often spend time wondering if a given name was real or fictional.  There were also a few plotlines that didn't work for me like the Woodstock scene that unravels in several chapters or some of the moments involving the physical guitar played by Frankie.

Four stars.  I think this book would be best-enjoyed by someone who has a deep connection to Music and could truly appreciated how Frankie relates to his gift.  A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

• The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild

Annie is nursing a broken heart and stalled career when she stumbles upon a small painting in a thrift shop.  While the reader knows from the start, it takes much longer for Annie to realize the painting is a lost, important work by a famous artist.  The opening scene, which in the novel's timeline occurs after much of the rest of the book, shows the preparations for an auction featuring the painting and introduces several heavy hitters expected to lead the bidding.  In addition to chapters narrated in the first-person by the painting, other chapters focus on Annie, a love interest who happens to be in the art world, Annie's boss (who is one of those heavy hitters), and several other characters.  

There are too many story-lines to identify them all here, but they include: Annie's relationship with her alcoholic mother; Annie's endeavors as a high-dollar chef with an interest in elaborate theme events; Efforts by more than one person to track down the painting; and A WWII story involving family, lies, and Hitler's art squad.  Characters range from a flamboyant and extravagant man who makes helping people rise socially a business and an art; the smitten love interest, Jesse; a wealthy woman brought up in the art world; and, of course, the painting.  Oh, and there's a lot about art, food, and, as the title promises, love.

There's so much here that it's hard to start...and perhaps that's where I can start.  There's a LOT in this book and not entirely in a bad way.  It keeps the reader alert and engaged and gives backstories to many of the players, although it does go a smidgen too far into "throw it all in the pot" realm (common for first-time novelists like Rothschild).  It took me quite a while to get a handle on all the names (tip: flag the descriptions in the intro chapter for help!).  However, I enjoyed the range of players even despite this struggle which says a lot about the author's talent for crafting characters.  I wouldn't say they are perfectly fleshed out, some are pretty one-dimensional, but there's talent in the crafting.  I got a bit tired of the gushing over the painting and its depiction of love, but I still wanted to pick the book up every night.

All in, this is a solid novel but not a favorite book.  I think it falls at the upper ends of my 3.5 star range (of 5).  I'll round up to 4 when ranking systems require it without hesitation, but it just isn't quite a "true" four for me.  I'm not a follower of art (although the novel certainly suggests there is value in even lay opinions on art) and imagine it might read differently to an aficionado.  There are clear viewpoints presented, a clear underlying belief in the power of art and love.  I found characters and plotlines that I really liked and others that felt too thrown in.  I loved the food scenes, but they seemed superfluous (another see-saw-like opinion...).  There are too many coincidences for my taste but (yet another teeter-totter) it bothered me much less than it would in other hands.  This can't be called an easy novel given the attention it demands if the reader wants to keep track of all the plots and characters, but the writing is smooth and inviting.  I wanted to read it, but I didn't feel the need to slow down to avoid leaving it behind (a hallmark of a great novel, in my opinion).  

Who might enjoy this book?  I think it needs to be someone who enjoys some form of art, be it painting or writing, and believes it can be transformative.  I can't say what having a background in painting and visual arts in general would impact the read.  At the risk of abusing two overused categories, the book is a good middle ground between "chick lit" and "serious literature" and it worked well as pre-bed reading that was more serious than easy-to-interrupt airplane fare and books where the reader needs to work to parse each line.

A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Wishing for the Elusive Half-Star: Reviews on Life After Life (Atkinson; 3.5 of 5) and The Canterbury Sisters (Wright; 2.5 of 5)

Really, I was NEVER overdue with a library book or school assignment...and don't really have a due date for these reviews (only time I did was for "blog tours" and those were on time!), but I've let these linger a bit...here are two for books I purchased on my own, soon to be followed (hopefully!) by two supplied by their publishers...

• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

While most reviews for Life were definitely positive, the reviews among my friends (book-review-friends and in-real-life-friends alike) were mixed and largely mediocre.  But I love Atkinson and was still in a quiet-spell for reviews so I took a chance.  My own take -- fine, even good, but not great.

This book presents the unique lives of Ursula Todd.  After a brief preface, we watch in on a birth only to find the child strangled by the umbilical cord.  The next chapter is the first of many do-overs, this time she lives, but not for long.  In the subsequent chapters, small variations make all the difference in Ursula's survival and, eventually (after a series of life-or-death matters), in her path.  Ursula is born in England just prior to WWI and while (when she lives long enough, of course) that conflict shapes some of her earliest years, she really grows up during the period between the wars ans it is the WWII chapters that are the book's most dramatic.  There are many themes swirling about from the nature of time, to the purpose of life, to the similarities and differences between bitter enemies.

As several of my friends commented, this book would have been well-served by sharper editing.  I understand some of her reasons, but Atkinson could have lost quite a number of pages and ended up with a piece that was better for it.  That caused it to simply drag and also made for more than a few times when I back-pedaled through pages trying to recall a missed detail.  Still, there were some great characters, both major and minor.  I was particularly interested in how. and I'm trying to avoid spoilers, a sexual moment shaped the course of Ursula's life (I could see that alone supporting its own work!).  I also really enjoyed the portrait of WWII from a perspective I've only seen a handful of times despite having read a good deal of historical fiction set in the time-frame  And I'd be remiss not to praise Atkinson's prose.  

So, I end at a 3.5 star rating (of 5) that I'll round up to 4 on one site and 3 on another since two force me to pick but I am really feeling quite firm on the half.  You need patience, an interest in detail, and a willingness to re-read the same moment again (though, eventually, you do progress enough that it stops starting from birth each time...honestly, at one point, I feared that might never occur).  Rewards: language, character, moments of humor, and thought-provoking-issues aplenty.  Yes, this has been done in modern cinema, more than once, but this is certainly a more literary turn for the tale of moments tried and re-tried.

• The Canterbury Sisters by Kim Wright

This book appeared on some recent list of books for 30-something women and I was intrigued.  Not only did I study the Canterbury Tales in AP English in high school, I took an entire Chaucer course in college that focused on the Tales plus an additional class dealing with medieval literature and art that also touched on Chaucer's works.  That is what drew me in, but the read proved to be rather dissatisfying.

Sisters opens on Che, a wine critic who recently lost her (rather eccentric, to put it mildly) mother and was left by her longtime boyfriend.  Che's mother leaves her with a final task, to spread her ashes in Canterbury, a request that includes an implicit direction to walk the famous trail.  Che ends up doing so with a group of women who decide to spend the trip sharing tales of love.  And, of course, there are a few (mis)adventures along the way.

I think I expected too much here.  I knew I was wading into a bit of "chick-lit"-land and I was okay with that.  The truth is, however, it takes a rare piece of "chick-lit" to truly capture me and to become more than just mind candy.  I think I was more interested in Che's reaction to a few wines than any of the characters themselves.  That said, it did pass the time and it wasn't bad, it just wasn't good (okay, the ending was pretty bad) and I'd hoped for more.  Perhaps my own fault to a degree, but I can't go over 3 stars and would be tempted to say 2.5 if not for small moments and because a lot of my opinion is tainted by the odd turn towards the end of the journey.