Canone Inverso: A Novel

In present day London, a rare, 17th-century violin is offered at auction. Two bidders in particular covet it, one of whom claims to know its "terrible story." So begins Canone Inverso , Paolo Maurensig's elliptical tale of two young men whose passion for music, and this fiddle in particular, converges in a crescendo of obsession, envy, and betrayal. Friends who meet at music school in prewar Austria, Jeno and Kuno come from very different worlds: one the illegitimate son of a sausage maker, and the other the heir to a baronetcy. But together they share an obsessive devotion to music. Alas, what begins as a dance of soul mates--"We were like brothers, not in flesh or blood, but in that part of the spirit where order, rhythm, and harmony are found"--ends badly, the brutal disintegration of their relationship eerily paralleling Germany's decent into Nazi madness. Maurensig offers up a mesmerizing allegory (good against evil, brother against brother), peeling away layer after layer, only to reveal yet another bizarre reality: "Behind the refined music we hear, performed with levity and perfection by and orchestra or a string quartet, there is the straining of nerves, the gushing of blood, the breaking of hearts." --Marianne Painter From Publishers Weekly As he did so effectively in The Luneburg Variations, Maurensig uses the device of a narrator who opens the novel and immediately gives way to another narrator, who spins a convoluted story within a story, leading to a surprising denouement. Again the time frame is the 1930s and '40s in Hungary and Germany; and though the words Nazi and Holocaust are never mentioned, the cataclysm to come is the subtext in a mesmerizing narrative. A mysterious stranger in contemporary London tells a man who has bought a rare 17th-century violin about the instrument's former owner, Jeno Varga, a brilliant Hungarian musician. In 1932, with his unknown father's violin his only legacy, Varga surmounts his illegitimate birth to win acceptance to the Collegium Musicum, a highly competitive music school outside Vienna. The Collegium is a Kafka-esque institution: the students are treated as prisoners subject to military discipline; they are systematically humiliated and subjected to mental torment. At the top of his class, Jeno finally feels fulfilled when the equally talented and charismatic Kuno Blau becomes his best friend and, in many ways, his doppelganger. When Kuno invites Jeno to stay at the family castle near Innsbruck, however, Jeno is subjected to a nightmare of intimidation and derision. His friendship with Kuno diminishes into a frightening reversal of itself, a canone inverso. It is obvious to the reader, though not to Jeno, that the outside world is descending into its own spiritual death. The complex fugal themes of Maurensig's plot touch on such questions as the essence of musical genius ("The true musician is a descendant of Cain"), the search for immortality in artistic creation and the growth of evil beneath the carapace of respectability. Some of the narrative is heavy going, as Maurensig's ponderous symbolism and metaphysical exploration threaten to overwhelm the plot. The shocking ending brings everything into focus, however, and renders this novel a tour de force. Editor, Signe Rossback; agent, Arnoldo Mondadori. (Nov.) FYI: Owl Books will simultaneously reissue The Luneburg Variations in paperback .Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal In the opening pages of this complex yet beautifully rendered new work, a man who has just bought a violin at Christie's is accosted by a stranger with a fantastic tale: he once met a remarkable street musician in Vienna who owned this very violin. Named Jen? Varga, the man had inherited the violin from the soldier who left his mother pregnant, and he was talented enough to be accepted at a conservatory that turned out to be horrifically strict. There he befriended Kuno Blau, scion of an aristocratic family, and was invited to spend the summer at the family's castle. At the castle, the friendship entered a "canone inverso"Aa downward pathAand a terrible secret regarding Jen?'s violin is revealed. But is the story true? The man tries to verify it and finds that Jen? has been dead for years. So who was the street musician? And whatever happened to the castle's old lord, who, it is hinted, is not really dead? Maurensig (The L?neberg Variation, LJ 8/97) sets up a delicious mystery and encloses it within a meditation on music, its true nature (who is the real musicianAKuno, who possesses his music, or Jen?, who is possessed by it?), and its role in society (the Nazi menace rumbles throughout). Highly recommended wherever good literature is read.ABarbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Starting with the auction of an unusual violin, Maurensig skillfully crafts the story of two musicians, one poor but talented, the other born into an Austrian noble family and unwilling to admit his smaller talent. The two meet in Europe's finest musical academy. They become, first, friends; later, competitors; and, finally, enemies. Maurensig has created a masterpiece of mysterious tragedy and lingering shadows, a compelling story with a shocking and enlightening ending. He uses the two young musicians' rivalry to showcase the ugliness that can arise from the pursuit of beauty. Tragically, the two men's mutual love of music is not strong enough to overcome their hatred for each other. The stunning novel also examines relations between father and son, the impact of political chaos on the arts, and the human quest for both literal and metaphorical immortality. Maurensig's brilliant storytelling, in which the characterizations are compelling and the timing perfect, makes this novel of desperate intrigue and artistic passion one of the best reads of the year. Bonnie Johnston "Maurensig explores the inexplicable variations of human behavior. The man is assuredly a master." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review ...[a] sparely proportioned, somberly recounted story... -- The New York Times Book Review , Jonathan Keates His second novel, Canone Inverso , displays many of the same qualities [of The Luneburg Variation ]: an intricately wrought plot, with stories-within-stories and unexpected inversions and reversals, narrated with a crystalline clarity that makes the novel, for all its complexity, not only easy to follow but hard to put down. -- The Wall Street Journal , Merle Rubin The writer says he wants to "get to the end" of the story he is investigating; there is no way to get to the end of history, but you can encompass it, illuminate it, wrestle it into a kind of order, even if the order is as complex as a canone inverso, and that's what Paolo Maurensig has accomplished. -- The Boston Globe , Richard Dyer Paolo Maurensig published his first novel after the age of fifty. The Luneburg Variation, an internationally acclaimed best-seller, will be published by Owl Books in November (see Owl catalog, page 33). He lives in Udine, Italy. Jenny McPhee is a translator, writer, and editor living in New York City. Read more