Antoine Volodine
Teoksen Radiant Terminus tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Image credit: Antoine Volodine (2014) By Librairie Mollat, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68763253
Tekijän teokset
Biographie comparée de Jorian Murgrave - Un navire de nulle part - Rituel du mépris - Des enfers fabuleux (2003) 4 kappaletta
Défense et illustration du post-exotisme en vingt lecons : Avec Antoine Volodine (2008) — Tekijä — 1 kappale
Repères pour le naufrage 1 kappale
Associated Works
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Kanoninen nimi
- Volodine, Antoine
- Muut nimet
- Draeger, Manuela
Kronauer, Elli
Bassmann, Lutz - Syntymäaika
- 1950
- Sukupuoli
- male
- Kansalaisuus
- France
- Syntymäpaikka
- Chalon-sur-Saône, France
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Listat
Palkinnot
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 44
- Also by
- 4
- Jäseniä
- 828
- Suosituimmuussija
- #30,825
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 3.7
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 23
- ISBN:t
- 104
- Kielet
- 9
- Kuinka monen suosikki
- 5
Solo Viola consists of two main parts with a short postscript. The first section had me in mind of Italo Calvino. It has that fable-like, somewhat whimsical quality to it. It introduces the reader to several groups of separate characters in a capital city. There are three just released political prisoners - a horse thief, a circus wrestler, and a bird. There are four members of a string quartet. There is the horse thief's more successful brother. There are millions of Frondists, followers of a populist nationalism that controls political and public life, expert in manipulating the dark currents of the human soul. There is a clown. And there is a writer:
I imagine we can take this description of the character of Iakoub Khadjbakiro (all characters in this novel have exotic sounding names to this reader, often seeming to bear some resemblance to Armenian ones) as a fair description of the author's decades-long project. And if he was horrified by ominous developments concerning populist nationalism in 1991, when this novel was published in France, he would hardly be less so when considering political developments in the Western world leading up to 2021. Thus his project unfortunately has just as much relevance today as at any time in the last forty years of its compilation.
All these characters, and Frondism, come together in the second part of the novel in a gradually building set piece of horror that reflects an attack on the arts and its supporters, an attack on a perceived cultural elite by the populist mass expertly manipulated by totalitarian leadership. Those of us who enjoy a good string quartet performance will be rather uncomfortable here. Volodine portrays the helplessness of those who become the target of the totalitarian mob's rage, a mob for whom, as would be said of Donald Trump's rallies twenty five years after this book's publication, the cruelty is the point.
The brief postscript suggests, in my initial read at least, that escape from this fate is only partially achievable by turning away from the reality of human nature and society and turning inward to the world of imagination, where we can at least imagine a society of the brotherhood of man - but which would ironically only exist in the mind of a sole person, and which here is suggested by a solo viola playing. I'll have to read more of the author to see if that fatalistic reading holds!… (lisätietoja)