Sublime

Disarmingly simple sentences and paragraphs knit together to form a beautiful piece of writing. Julian Barnes at the height of his game.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A warning against populism.

If you could sum up The Noise of Time in three words, what would they be?

An important account of art's relationship to power.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Focussed more on the period of the seige of Leningrad.

Would you be willing to try another one of Daniel Philpott’s performances?

Not if he reads foreign voices in such a stereotyped manner, though the narration is fine when it is close to Shostakovich.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Stalin's musical tastes.

Any additional comments?

The Noise of Time doesn’t quite work as a novel but is still fascinating as an account of Dmitri Shostakovich’s very difficult, and potentially fatal, relationship with Stalin’s and then Krushchev’s USSR. Although Julian Barnes deals with chronology in an absorbing way, covering the years between the 1920s and the 1960s, this novel is too driven by the desire to spell out those difficulties, notably, as Shostakovich puts it, “that it was impossible to tell the truth here and live.” Finishing a symphony in a minor rather than major key could lead to imprisonment and even execution if the State, and particularly its leader, took against you. However, Shostakovich’s voice is too uniform and analytical to attract much emotional attachment on the part of the reader -- it doesn’t help in the audio-version to have official voices read in a mock-Russian accent -- though the intermittent story it tells is dramatic, beginning, as it does, with Shostakovich waiting by the lift in his apartment block in Leningrad in 1937 for his expected arrest. Although this was the fate of an almost incalculable number of Soviet citizens, particularly in the years before and after the Moscow Trials, Barnes is drawn to the dilemmas and compromises of a world-famous musician, who is even obliged publically to criticize his hero, Stravinsky, and to compose populist works and avoid anything that hinted at the great political sin of formalism. Near the end of the novel, with Shostakovich reinstated but, in his own eyes and those of most critics outside the USSR, diminished, he comments on an ironic gap that he sought to retain between how he had to behave and compose and how he really felt. Even, here, though, he admits that irony can be corrosive for the ironist, who may resort to critical allusions in his music that, probably, no one else noticed.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

The noise in his head

The rambling style creates a sense of the listener partaking of Shostakovich's mind. An excellent novel, convincingly performed by Daniel Philpott

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

No prior knowledge required!

Shostakovich. A name I recognised as a composer but that's about it. Yet this doesn't matter with Barnes. Just as in his wonderful Flaubert's Parrot, the man behind the artist is sketched and draws you in. I've since read Flaubert and will now listen to some Shostakovich. That's how good Julian Barnes and his stories are.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

Great blend

It’s not often you get to read an abridged autobiography and a contemporary assessment of Shostakovich’s actual mind. It’s an interpretation that takes you slowly by the collar and pulls you in.
Narration was perfection. The last two sentences truly masterful indeed.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

Interesting

Not my favorite Julian Barnes, but interesting story for someone who's not familiar with Russian history and classical music.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Good story, bad narrator

I feel a bit bad for the narrator as he did his best, but his voice was nasal and his delivery off-putting and lacking the gravitas to deliver the story. I considered ditching the whole book in chapter 1 for this reason but stuck it out for what was a good story, heavy on foreboding and irony.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Complex but Worthwhile

Not an easy read but worthwhile to understand Shostakovitch's life in Soviet Russia. Excellent narrator

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

Gripping and brilliantly researched

A genuinely superb fictionalised account of the inner monologue of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, written with deft turns of phrase (often derived from Russian sayings or folk wisdom), grim humour, a real insight into the psychology of terror in the USSR and a superb grasp of the bibliographic and historical record. I'm sure I will return to this book many times. Excellently performed in this audio book rendering too. Highly recommended.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

very entertaining and informative

the narrator was excellent the story was good and I enjoyed the read as it gave an in-depth view Into the composers life in tribulations.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!