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The Courage Consort by Michael Faber
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The Courage Consort

by Michael Faber

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Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
I bought this as I absolutely adored The Crimson Petal and the White. This is really different. For a start, it's really short, and the writing is far less stylised. It's unusual story, about a small avant garde choir, and enjoyable enough, but very slight. There's not really enough time for any of the characters (which are a really just stereotypes) to get much of a personality. If this had been built up to a full novel, I would have probably really, really loved it, but as it was, it just didn't give enough. Still worth reading I guess, if only for the unusual subject matter.

Note: Looking at the other reviews, it looks like other additions had three stories - mine, an ebook addition, only had one, called the Courage Consort, so check what you are buying! ( )
  michaeldwebb | Oct 31, 2009 |
Michael Faber is one of the most inventive writers I have ever read. He can take what should be a boring story about a group of singers rehearsing in an isolated place and with barely any action make it a page turner. His spooky ghost story is atmospheric and suspenseful, and the last story (based on Hansel and Gretel, I think) was magical in its eeriness. ( )
  apartmentcarpet | May 26, 2009 |
I rarely read short stories, but I enjoyed this, esp. the title story.
  ptzop | Nov 28, 2008 |
I rarely read short stories, but I enjoyed this, esp. the title story.
  ptzop | Nov 27, 2008 |
I agree that Faber's writing here is exquisite; too bad the quality of the stories did not match it. I found them to be rather bland and predictable, and I never got involved with any of the characters. ( )
  Cariola | Jan 8, 2008 |
Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
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Epigraph
So word by word, and line by line, the dead man touch'd me from the past...

Tennyson, In Memoriam (The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps)
Dedication
To all those who sing lustily and with good courage, and to all who only wish they could. (The Courage Consort)
In memory of Panda (The Fahrenheit Twins)
First words
On the day the good news arrived, Catherine spent her first few waking hours toying with the idea of jumping out the window of her apartment.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0151010617, Hardcover)

Admirers of Belgian writer Michel Faber's magnificent breakthrough novel, The Crimson Petal and the White, may be surprised by how well his taut but unhurried prose translates to shorter fiction in the three novellas of The Courage Consort. It helps, of course, that the stories--minor marvels of suspenseful pacing and atmosphere--are unified by a large, old-fashioned theme: the loss of innocence (and, in one case, the struggle to preserve it). In the title story, an English vocal ensemble travels to Belgium for a two-week residency at a rural chateau, an opportunity to rehearse a notoriously difficult and possibly pointless new composition. Catherine, the soprano--and the dependent, emotionally fragile wife of the ensemble's director--hears plangent cries from the surrounding woods each night. Like Mrs. Dalloway, Catherine feels herself approaching middle age without having achieved adulthood. If she goes into the woods--facing the ghostly legend of a simple-minded mother and her baby, lost there near the end of World War II--will she find her grown-up self? The second novella, "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," traces a paper conservator's nightly unraveling of an 18th century oil merchant's tight-scrolled deathbed confession. And the third, "The Fahreinheit Twins," is one part Angela Carter, one part Jack London: a scary fairy tale translated to a glittering ice-bound wilderness.

Events that would be sensational in the hands of most writers--gruesome nightmares, hauntings, possible murders--are serenely dispatched by Faber, who has bigger emotional game in sight. And while every writer has characteristic tics and favorite phrases, the joy here is in observing Faber's growing mastery, and how few the limits on his talent. --Regina Marler

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:08 -0400)

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